Shaky on his pins, but so am I, sometimes

Ten years or so ago, Doug and I went to New Mexico on vacation. It was just a quick trip, five days, and we left Toby and Boscoe at home. Our neighbors, who were veterinarians, came over a couple times a day to walk them and feed them. We had done this before, for other trips, with no problem.

But when we got home from New Mexico, late on a Friday night, the house reeked of urine; in the last day or two of our absence, Toby had peed all over the living room rug and the front hallway and the upstairs hallway. He was 12 years old and had been getting frail, but nothing drastic; during our time away, though, he started his Great Decline.

So you can well imagine our concern last week when Karli emailed us in Ireland to say that Boscoe was peeing all over the house. It was, as they say, deja vu all over again, though I didn't say so out loud, not wanting to alarm Doug by making a painful connection between Toby's decline and Boscoe. As it turns out, of course, Doug was refraining from mentioning the New Mexico similarities to me for the very same reason.

We got home from Ireland at about 10 p.m. on Thursday--4 a.m. Dublin time, which was our bodies had nicely adjusted to.

The first thing Doug did was roll up the red rug in the front hallway and toss it out onto the back porch. It was soaked with zig-zags of urine. The first thing I did was fill a bucket with soapy water. I washed the kitchen floor, the hallway floor, and the front porch floor, all of which were sticky.

(And today, no longer exhausted and jet-lagged, I will wash them again and do a better job.)

Boscoe did not look good. His face was drawn, and he was shaky. But who looks good at midnight?  Now it is Saturday morning, and he is looking much better.  

As you already know, Karli the dog sitter is also a vet tech; about five days into our trip, when Boscoe suddenly quit eating and started peeing in the house, she knew what this likely meant.

She e-mailed us to ask permission to bring him in and get lab work done, and by the time we got home he had already been tested, diabetes had been diagnosed, and Boscoe had been started on a prescription dogfood and twice-daily injections of insulin.

It's already made a difference. He is no longer drinking prodigious amounts of water and no longer peeing in the house. He seems to love the new dogfood, and he's eating well. He's pretty damn shaky on his pins--those back legs are worse--but the vet thinks that that's temporary and once we have him at the right dosage of insulin he'll get a little stronger.

Administering the insulin, thank goodness, is a piece of cake.  Imagine me trying to do it on Friday morning, jet-lagged and worried and without any training: all I knew was that he needed 5 units right after breakfast, but exactly how he was supposed to get those units was a bit of a mystery.

My sister suggested YouTube, and it was a brilliant suggestion. I found a video of a calm British vet, who demonstrated how to administer insulin to a cat. (I couldn't find a dog video. Riley rolled his eyes.)

My biggest problem was getting the insulin into the hypodermic--the video didn't explain that, and while I finally figured it out (take the cap off, Laurie!), I don't think I did it exactly right. The shot itself was nothing, like a mosquito bite. The needle is so tiny and so sharp all you have to do is press it against the skin and in it goes.  Boscoe didn't even look up.

Yesterday afternoon we spent an hour at the vet clinic, and we came away feeling pretty good about everything. The vet said there's no good explanation for why Boscoe got sick--usually diabetes shows up in overweight dogs, which Boscoe is not; but it could be that at age 14 his pancreas have just sort of worn out. We also got a proper lesson in administering the insulin, and sheets and sheets of advice and tips. Boscoe goes back in on Thursday for an all-day monitoring (and won't Riley hate that!).

But we walked for about half an hour this morning, and though he's poky he did just fine.  He sends his thanks to all of you for your interest and concern, and so do I. "Now get back to Ireland," he says. "Your blog readers want to hear about how you and that tall blond guy got lost--again!--on a hike."

And so I will.

A note on the photo: Taken one minute ago.  He's doing OK. Don't worry.