[Dailydrool] Dealing with a mildly demented dog (not a joke)

[Dayna]

A number of years ago, when Pierre was a young, spry basset, we had to have
a lot of testing done because he was always licking his paws and had some
severe rashes under his arms (armpits) and on his chest/belly. Testing found
allergies to grass, wheat and dust mites. The vet treated this initially
with prednisone. Pierre went from docile, your typical couch-potato basset,
to the basset from hell! I believe I thought he had fallen and hit his head
or something at one point, but I called the vet because it was too sudden
and felt it had to be related to his new meds. My vet agreed and said about
1 – 2 hounds in a hundred develop personality disorders (temporarily) from
steroids. 

On a different note, when we moved into my MIL’s house, Pierre started
peeing all over the place—no warning, nothing—just squat and full blown
urination. My DH and I were taking him out every 2 hours at 1 point. Not
only could he feel the stress I was under since dogs are notorious for
picking up on our feelings, but he was almost immediately put under the
knife for a large mass of cysts on his chest. This was the third surgery in
the same spot in 4 years. We would have just ignored the mass, except it was
nearly bleeding from him rubbing it on the carpet. Anyway, this went on the
whole 10 months we lived there and we weren’t sure of the cause other than
stress. When we finally moved into our own house, I was petrified he was
going to do it here. The carpet in this house is not the cheap stuff; in
fact, after speaking to the previous owner who provided receipts for
everything he did in the house, we found out the cost of the carpeting and
pad used in on all 3 floors and made me almost fall over. It was worth more
than my car. Either way, he didn’t do it after we moved in here and I still
foster knowing that nearly every foster I’ve had had peeing issues to
include the one I have now. In fact, the foster I have now has never been
potty-trained so I have to draw on ancient knowledge since I haven’t trained
a puppy since Pooper (Pierre) was a 10 week old baby, nearly 13 years ago.
 We take Lily out and stay with her until she defecates. That can take a
while since she’s partial to defecation on cement and the only cement in or
around my house is either in the street or the basement. Patience is a
necessity when it comes to bassets and older bassets can really test us. 

BTW, for a while there when we were fostering consistently, we considered
tile ‎and sealed hardwood throughout the house. Still seems like a really
good idea.‎

Dayna
mailto: Dayna.Whitehead at comcast.net

‎"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way
its ‎animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi