But then something strange happened.
The ball of fur was normally good about asking to go outside. She'd go sit by the door and stare at me like excuse me I need your attention please. As I'd one day find out, staring is the ball of fur's way of asking for things. Hungry? Stare at the food container. Want pet? Stare at the nearest human. Want up on the sofa? Stare at it intensely. She'd had only one accident, and that I chalked up to stress because it was the first day I'd left her home alone while I was at work and her first day in the apartment. I would probably freak out and pee on the floor too if I was a ball of fur. She regularly went 9 hours with no trouble.
Back to the Saturday of the ball of fur's first vet appointment. She was nosing around in the living room, looking for leftover crumbs from the chew I'd given her earlier.
Then suddenly she was peeing. It just sort of happened. One minute she was snarfing up crumbs and the next she was peeing.
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| The ball of fur looks quite pleased with being outside in the sitter's yard |
It was so strange I thought it bore mentioning to the vet. He said the ball of fur probably needed a refresher course on house training since she was so new to the home. We did blood work and urinalysis anyways, just to check. Since this was the same appointment I found out about the ball of fur's arthritis and fatty tumors I also figured it was good to get full labs done, just in case there were any other lurking surprises.
There weren't.
Everything was normal.
So the ball of fur then must need a refresher course on housebreaking. I set about excessively praising her and giving her special training treats for peeing outside like a good little ball of fur.
But still the accidents persisted.
They weren't every day or even every week. But every now and then when she didn't feel well the little ball of fur would just randomly pee her little ball of fur pants. So I'd redouble my house training efforts, circling like a hawk anytime she left my line of sight.
Something else weird was happening too.
In the past month or so when I picked the ball of fur up to get her off the bed--it's too high for her to jump with her arthritis and various knee ailments--there'd be a very small wet spot. Since the ball of fur is extremely fond of licking this one spot on her tail, I'd assume that she'd been licking away while I was sleeping. I chalked the wet spot I felt on my arm when it touched her lady parts to the same thing and shrugged it off.
You would think I would smell something but nope. I blame this firmly on bad allergies that leave me with a perpetually clogged nose. It's become a running joke in the family that if I can smell it, it must smell really bad.
But yet some days when I walked into my room it would smell like pee. Which was odd because my room was one place the ball of fur had never had an accident.
I brushed it all off and went about my life, trying desperately to get the ball of fur to knock off the peeing in the house nonsense.
Then two plus weeks went by completely accident free. It was around this time that the ball of fur began to really settle into the apartment, to start acting like this was her home. Yay she gets it! I thought.
I was wrong. Sort of.
This morning around 2 am the ball of fur woke up and spent an hour trying to make a sufficient nest out of the comforter. Finally around 3 I decided to just get up and go to the bathroom. I'd kind of had to go for a while but hadn't wanted to get up. It just seemed like a lot of effort. So I picked up the ball of fur and put her on the ground to prevent her from her usual attempts to fling herself off the bed when I leave. She wandered into the kitchen and got herself a drink of water.
I heard her collar jingle like she'd shaken or tried to jump on the sofa.
I got up, left the bathroom, and saw her peeing on the floor.
My immediate reaction was to scold her, tell her she was being bad and no and stop right now.
But she didn't stop until I picked her up. She never stops until I pick her up, which is strange because she'll stop any other behavior when I scold her. She'll back away from the trashcan, drop the wrapper, stop digging, and back away from my food.
But this she will not stop.
So I scooped her little furry butt up, threw a leash on her and ran outside, barefoot and braless and in PJ shorts in 40 degree weather. The ball of fur shook and cowered, even though I hadn't raised my voice really (I would never lay a hand on her). I felt awful for her despite my frustration with having to clean another spot.
The whole morning she sulked and pouted. She wouldn't even touch her food.
When I dropped her off at her sitter's on the way to work, I filled her sitter in on her morning thus far (including the 3 am part of the morning). She mentioned that every now and then the ball of fur will pee on the floor. Not very often, but it will sometimes happen.
So those 2 weeks had not been accident free.
It also struck me as odd that it was happening there. I hadn't thought it would because her sitter has a dog door and Ronni knows how to and regularly does use that dog door. Since I thought this was a an issue with adjusting to the apartment life I had assumed that it wasn't happening while she was at the sitter's.
Frustrated and exhausted I turned to a Facebook group for fellow beagle owners and asked for advice. I told them about how she would just randomly pee despite my doing all the right house training things, about how it almost always happened when her other health problems would flair.
The response was practically unanimous and instantaneous--it sounds like a bladder control issue.
So I turned to the internet a little more and did some digging. At first I wasn't sure. I mean, she could control it most of the time and she didn't exactly wake up in puddles of pee.
But then I remembered. I remembered the wet feeling on my arm near her lady parts. The tiny wet spots in her bed and on my comforter. The times my room would smell like pee.
I think my next apartment is going to have to be carpet free. In the mean time, I broke down and bought her washable doggy diapers to wear.
There was some comfort in hearing a bunch of complete strangers say what I had sort of suspected two plus months ago.
So when she goes back to the vet in a little over a week for her final knee checkup we're going to have a chat about the ball of fur's pants peeing problem.
Say some prayers that it's run of the mill senior dog incontinence due to a hormone imbalance and nothing more serious.
This poor little ball of fur has so many health problems already. She doesn't need another severe one.
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