At last, the trail is plowed!
The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley.
-Robert Burns
I came down with a virus. I don’t know if it was the flu, or Covid, but whatever it was, it kicked my butt. Sinus pain and drainage, muscle aches and pains, low grade fever and serious malaise and lethargy hit me hard. It drained me of what elderly energy I had to the point where it was difficult to take Waldo out for a short jaunt to do his business. It lasted for 3 weeks, during which time it snowed a good 2 feet. Then the temperature dropped into the mustache-icicle and ice-between-the-toes range – too cold for long walks with Waldo.
After the first week, I started to feel a bit better, so Waldo and I ventured to the rail trail for two days. Because of all the snow, the trail was plowed only for the first 1 ½ miles. After Fitchburg Street, about 7/8ths of a mile from the tunnel under the Rte 85 Connector, the Hudson border, it remained unplowed. Except for the inevitable boot, paw, snowshoe and cross-country ski tracks left by younger and more energetic souls, the snow was untouched, deep and not worth the effort required to continue. So we settled for a 3-mile round-trip trek on the plowed portion only.
The next day, the virus came back with a vengeance, so we were reduced, once again, to pee and poop walks around the property. Waldo took it all pretty well. It was clear that he had plenty of energy that wasn’t adequately burned off, but other than tugging at the leash more than usual, he did okay. Except… He developed polyuria.
Usually, Waldo can hold his urine for a good 6 hours without any accidents. Over the past 3 weeks, that has been reduced to 2 to 3 hours (interestingly, he can go up to 9 hours at night without accident, as long as I don’t let him drink before bed and take him out just before we hit the sack). Now, when he has to go, he really has a powerful urge and he sometimes can’t hold it until we get outside. Along with that, he’s developed a powerful thirst, called polydipsia.
The list of things that can cause this kind of thing is large. It includes urinary tract infection, diabetes mellitus, diabetes insipidus, Grave’s disease, kidney failure and other nasty conditions. One of the nice things about border collies is that they don’t have a predisposition for developing the worst of these, but none of them are impossible. So now the search is on to find the cause and come up with a treatment before things develop into a chronic problem.
Not long after Waldo and I started living together, something similar happened. Routine blood work showed that he picked up a tick-born disease, called anaplasmosis, that can cause frequent urination. The polyuria went away after a week or so and I forgot about it. This certainly isn’t the season to pick up tick bites, but it’s not impossible. Urine tests made UTI and diabetes mellitus unlikely, so, next, the vet and I are going to try a course of antibiotics to see if anaplasmosis can be ruled out.
Diagnosing dogs with subtle conditions is much harder than it is for humans. They can’t tell you their symptoms and some tests are harder to perform on them. Monitoring a 24-hour fluid intake is easy, but how in the world would I ever be able to collect a 24-hour urine? I certainly can’t make him pee in a bottle and nowhere else. Add to that how much Waldo hates being poked by a needle and the process of finding out what ails him becomes a real burden. As it is, he has to be given drugs to make him sleep, on his annual vet visit, just so they can draw his blood. Sigh. To quote Roseanna Roseanadanna, that SNL paragon of philosophical perspicacity, “It’s always something — if it’s not one thing, it’s another.” Funny how, the older Waldo and I get, the more applicable that seems to become…
At least I’m feeling better, the trail is plowed, in some places, and the temperature has warmed to being above 10℉. Of course, Waldo peeing a lot is no problem when we’re out walking.
So we can at least enjoy the rail trail again.
Of course, some places are better plowed than others.