Can't Forget the Yorkies

Max and Marley aren't exactly the kinds of dogs you could ever forget are around.  They are actually pretty demanding, which I partly blame on Travis and myself because we went overboard meeting their needs before the kids came along.  Well, here recently, Max was more needy than usual.  In October, he started having a lot of accidents around the house.  These dogs aren't perfectly housetrained, but when he was peeing at the back door because he couldn't hold it the 5 seconds it took me to get there, I knew something was wrong.  To the vet we went for a urine sample, which revealed a UTI, so ten or so days of antibiotics and anti-inflamatories and he should have been good as knew.  He was for mere days before the accidents started happening again.  The vet didn't even require a test this time and put him on another round of meds.  The cycle repeated itself again and this time an ultrasound was suggested to look for kidney stones, which were not found.  He suggested a new diet and more anti-inflamatories for 30 days before coming in for yet another urine sample.  At this point, I had been shoving pills down his throat for 3 months.  I went to pick the dogs up from getting groomed and the vet surprised me by saying he had done a complimentary ultrasound that I'm sure I'm paying for somehow while he had Max in the office and it did indeed show a kidney stone.  Fabulous.  Three days later, Max was sedated to have a dime size stone removed and his teeth cleaned.  Back on antibiotics, pain killers and anti-inflamatories and now he's on a lifelong medicine to control the ph of his urine because his type of stone has a 50% chance of recurring.  Even more fabulous.  The next few pictures were taken of our yappy Yorkies within days of Max's surgery.  You can see that Marley is a great support to him.  He hardly left his side the first few days.

The weeks leading up to the surgery and even a couple of weeks after the surgery were rough on Mama.  I was getting up to let Max outside 1-2 times per night.  Amazing that this dog has gone his whole life using pee pads in our bathroom at night, but suddenly becomes a snob with a medical condition.  He settled into sleep on our throw pillows one night because he couldn't get comfortable in bed.  It was hard to get mad at him because he was in obvious pain.

This dog is a hoot.  He falls in love with the boys stuffed animals and we catch him sneaking into their rooms at bedtime and stealing them.  Apparently, this night all he made out with was a tail from a turkey Jack built at Build-a-Bear.  So glad Maxwell Lowe Todd is feeling better!  Now it's time to get our carpets cleaned.