[Dailydrool] Elsinore the Eliminated

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

I've been devoting quite a bit of my life lately to getting our  
Elsinore ready to take her pet therapy recertification test.

It was this morning.

She failed it before it even began.

She failed it by suddenly, without giving me any warning at all,  
peeing on the floor by the walker during the period we were given to  
let her familiarize herself with the space.

Pet Partners rules are any dog who eliminates gets eliminated.

Elsinore the Eliminated.

This was very out of character for her. Elsinore isn't a dog who has  
to go around marking over other dogs' marks. She never just stops and  
squats without telling me she needs to go out. We'd just spent half  
an hour outside, and I was given every indication that she was done  
and ready to enter the building. Even the evaluator, who's known  
Elsinore for years, said it was quite unlike her.

But after this happened, things started to make sense, things like  
Elsinore acting "off" for the last couple of weeks I'd been  
attributing that to her getting bored with our training, or perhaps  
it was a sign of her aging. As far as we know, she's 11 or 12, and  
I've become very aware of the "old-dog" hollows over her eyes, an  
indication of her finiteness. She also hasn't been terribly  
enthusiastic about eating her meals, though she will eat them.  
Eventually. I thought she just didn't like her new kibble, especially  
since she was eating the training treats.

I guess Elsinore decided she'd better send me a message I couldn't  
possibly miss. That puddle was impossible to miss.

The last time Elsinore sent me a message like that was at Drooler  
Kelly Jane Wilson's house. We'd had Elsinore for about six years by  
then. She'd arrived fully housebroken and was so dependable that I'd  
joke that if she ever had an accident in the house I'd know it was a  
UTI and take her straight to the vet. We were having a lovely play  
date at Kelly Jane's when Elsinore looked me square in the eye,  
squatted, and peed on the wall-to-wall carpet. Kelly Jane was very  
forgiving, and I marched Elsinore straight to the vet. She had a UTI.

So this morning I cleaned up Elsinore's puddle and marched her  
straight to the vet, thankful for the person who canceled so I could  
take that appointment.

Poor Elsinore. I'd promised her one McDonald's hamburger after her  
test and two if she passed. But instead she was taken to the vet. She  
wasn't happy about it at all and pressed herself up against the wall  
of the examining room to be as unavailable to the vet as possible.  
Normally she greets the vet with tail wagging.

The vet said the urine sampled showed "something brewing in  
there" (in medical terminology, a UTI) and prescribed ten days of  
antibiotics.

To make it up to Elsinore, I stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home to  
buy some string cheese. But she wasn't interested in it. That's had  
me worried. I popped an antibiotic down her throat as soon as we got  
home, and I'm hoping she'll respond to it as quickly as she did the  
last time she had a UTI.

In the meantime, no more practicing. Which might not be such a bad  
thing. The people at Home Depot are now greeting Elsinore by name  
when we show up, and the dog park where we practice ignoring  
unsuspecting "neutral dogs" as they enter and exit the park is  
starting to be not as fun a place to visit as it once was. Although,  
I do make sure both hounds have a chance to actually play inside the  
dog park before I begin working with Elsinore outside of it.

All in all, it was very disappointing to fail before even beginning  
the test. I even put on make-up this morning and cleaned Elsinore's  
ears out again. The evaluator seemed to be as disappointed as I, and  
she's very generously found a way to let us retest in the near future  
so we won't have to wait another three or four months for a test.  
Next Tuesday night we'll do our test as a demo for the pet therapy  
class she teaches. This ups the ante with Elsinore--a large space  
with lots of people and other dogs in it. Can she focus on me and  
follow my directions with all that going on around her? We'll find  
out, though I suspect she'll stand a better chance if she's feeling  
better.

The silver lining in this cloud has been catching a UTI before it  
became really entrenched and painful for Elsinore. I just wish she  
could have waited another hour until we got home to our own carpets  
to let me know about her health problem. Keep your fingers crossed  
for us that she'll be feeling back to her old self again in ten days  
and will test well on her second chance.

Elizabeth