[Dailydrool] Update on Nellybelly

[Linda Dianis]

Many droolers wrote to me with suggestions about Nelly's peeing in the  
house, and I thank you all for the time and effort you have made to  
help. I really appreciate it.

After a long phone chat with our excellent vet, we took Nelly back  
today for a bunch more tests. Nelly has no UTI, no infections at all,  
no indications of anything painful, etc. She has no urinary  
incontinence--spay, age-related or otherwise. She knows how to hold  
her pee, does not dribble, so the DES/Prion approach would not help.  
Many other evil things have also been (thankfully) ruled out. Her  
kidney function numbers are very healthy. The results are way too  
detailed for me to repeat here, or even remember right.
The theories at the moment are (1)VERY early stage diabetes insipidus  
with not much showing on tests yet, or (2)---more likely--behavioral  
polydipsia, which means she is over-hydrating. In other words, she  
drinks to excess, then when her bladder fills up, she has to pee out  
some (but not all, accounting for our small piddle puddles) to relieve  
the pressure. This she does do, and always looks horribly guilty; she  
knows it is not good. When this overdrinking happens chronically, it  
affects the kidneys' ability to concentrate the urine (to keep it in  
until it is time to pee). Because Nelly does have several related  
behavioral weirdnesses (fixations, etc.), we think she may be doing  
this. We will do behavioral things for 3 weeks to control water  
intake, to see if we can get her kidneys back to normal concentrating.

Stay tuned and send drool! Obviously, we are not giving up on her.

Linda, with Otis and Nellybelly