OK first of all I live in Bucharest Romania. We are American expatriots. We promissed our children a dog and found a Teacup Pekenese. We found out afterwards that "Puppymill" would probably be a compliment to the breeder. Never saw it in person it is just an assumption. I think he has been very ill since we brought him home. I took him to the vet suggested by the breeder...big mistake. The vet charged about $60 per visit not alot of money on american standards but ALOT here. The office visit was not the problem it was all the stuff they sold me AND more importantly it took 3 visits to diagnose each problem. The last time I took him there they said a skin infection was becasue he laid in his pee. Well the sore was the size of a grape, and full of puss and looked just like the staph infection my son had on his little finger a few years ago. I had no other options so I started giving him antibiotics left over from my daughter. The sore went away immediatly but would return within 24 hours after antibiotics were stopped. I found a new vet. Poor tux had an anul gland infection.....shouldn't the first vet have warned me that small breed dogs must have anal gland manually expressed? Or whatever it is called.

The new vet is very good so far and only charges me $6 a visit.

OK here is the question....finally...sorry...I have found that I must research and basically diagnose all problems before I take the dog to the vet....but maybe this one is different...the only problem is the is shy about his english and today he had an assistant who translated for him. I find his english very good but today he explained everything in great detail. He is afraid to make a mistake so he says as little as possible without his assistant. I will mention it to him next time.

OK the question.....Tux pees about every hour throughout the day. I mentioned it to the vet since today he was very talkative and willing to explain everyhting in detail. He said it could be that Tux just wants to go outside and is using it as a way of manipulating me. I do believe this because (the dog) has conned me into feeding him exclusively wet food. (husband pointed this out because Tux will eat dry food if I am not home) So he is definatly a litte manipulative. If it is a game...what do I do. We have a small yard that is fenced and safe for him to go out on his own, but that would limit possitive reinforcement. Like I said I think he has been ill his whole life. So I am trying to get to the root of the problems and trying to be patient at the same time. btw he is 7 months old and we have been going crazy cleaning up after him. He has a kennel and goes on his pee pad when in the kennel but when he is out he gets to the door door and pees on the floor if nobody is right there to let him out, I will try to find a bell this weekend so he can alert us "in time". Bringing him home from the vet today....(he needed 5 days of antibiotic shots and today is the last day) he peed twice on the way in and within 1/2 hour he peed again.... on the floor. The vet did say to let things settle down after the infection heeled and bring him back in 4 days if he still peed every hour to check urine for infection but the antibiotics should have taken care of both problems. Could it be that he has had so many antibiotics that the urinary thing is now immune to the antibiotics he used. He was very helpful and willing to do wahtever tests, but I would like a little more information. Also his assistant had a hard time translating.. She should have translated word for word and let me ask questions if I didn't understand...it was right at closing time so his assistant was probably was his girlfriend who he pressed into service on very short notice...she did a great job but she was very appologetic that she didn't have a all the words, or she didn't understand the terminology.

OK this is very long sorry again, but y'all are so helpful...I know it is very hard to house train a toy breed (I didn't know this before I selected Tux) How often "should" a healthy teacup peke pee. Could it be that he is a just processing all the meds he has been on. Also he likes to "dig" in his water so his water dish is usaully empty and he drinks water when he goes outside to pee. Could this be the problem. He goes out to pee takes a drink and has to pee agian????? How do I stop him from digging in his water bowl. It is like he having a hard time seeing the water level so he uses his feet to test the depth of the water and emties his water on the floor. I don't have lots of time to devote to his house training (I have 4 kids) and we have been working on this for months now. I can set a timer and let him out every hour... but would that be ignoring obvious signs of illness and would it just make the problem worse. The vet did take his temp and it was normal so he said with no fever and at the end of a very aggresive course of antibiotics it is very unlikely that it is a UTI.

Please help me I am so lost and this poor dog really needs a break. I would love to get rid of the pee pads but it will soon be -10 here I have NEVER lived is such a cold climate and don't know if such a small dog should be expected to be outside trained. At least not 15 times a day. Also they measure the snow in feet here and once it is there it stays all winter. We do have some covered area but tux only stands 10 inches high...Please help!

Thank you

Debra

 Quote:

........ I would love to get rid of the pee pads but it will soon be -10 here...... We do have some covered area but tux only stands 10 inches high........

I would start now taking him to the covered spot to pee before you have the deep snow. You may have to walk him around that area in a circle to get his exercise and get his plumbing working. I'd want it arranged that this is the potty spot before you have deep snow.

I have kind of ruled out a behavior problem. He pees ALOT..well not that I have studied "average dog pee" but is much more than a dribble. He is now alerting me when he needs to go out but it is a milisecond before he pees on the floor, but it is progress. I think I will bite the bullet and get rid of the pee pads...he really doesn't like them anyway.

Most of the words the vet used were close enough to english that I understood alot of what he was saying. But having a interpreter is a good idea. I will also schedule his food and water. He had diarhea a few days before I found the infection and then he went on a dry food hunger strike so he is skin and bones right now so I didn't want to limit his food. I asked the vet about worms (the old vet treated for them) and he said we need to wait until the infection has healed to introduce any new meds. I want to stay with kibble until I can do more research and I will have to buy any suppliments while I am in the states for Christmas. How do I not give into his hunger strike and still get him to eat dry food. First of all I will get him healthy and then.....I don't want to leave the food down because of the house training scedule but do I offer dry 4 times a day leave it donw for 1/2 hour and no wet for a while or mix it in...he will pick up the dry food and drop it on the floor and eat only the wet food.

The vet did appear to be very worried and was clear that if the pee problem didn't clear up he would do tests...What that includes I am not sure. The old vet did take a skin sample and sent it off to the "human" lab at the University so maybe all of the tests you mentioned are available here. It is sad that Tux may receive better treatment than the human population here...but that is a whole other post on a different board lol.

Thank you

Debra

Is it urgent that he eat dry? Can you just give him canned until he is healthy? If he is "skin and bones" and had a bout of diarrhea and has a probable underlying health challenge causing him to pee so much, I think I'd lean towards giving him canned anyway. For one thing, if he has a kidney problem, then wet food and plenty of water are both desirable. (I'd keep in mind that there is zero advantage to kibble over any other food, including canned, fresh, and rehydrated, except for cost and package weight.)

If you have to stick with part kibble, then I'd do what people whose dogs have a kidney problem but who must feed kibble do: I'd moisten the kibble with water or no-salt broth. It will be more palatable, yes, but it will also be moister (for kidneys) and far less easy to pick out of the canned portion and discard.

You might want to get the words for all the possible health conditions that can cause frequent urination and make a list before the next appointment; even with an interpreter, it might not be easy to come up with medical terminology on the spot.

I'd get the no-tip bowls and always have water for him. All the possibilities mentioned above (for frequent urination) are conditions that are made worse by limiting fluid intake. Even a simpe UTI is worse if you can't dilute the urine (and "flush"). Until I could get further tests done, I'd definitely set the timer and take him out very frequently.

Good luck!

Debra, I don't have time to address your whole post right now, but I had a Peke and they're extraordinarily stubborn and resistant to training; the key is to make them realize that they're the ones who suffer if they're continually out of line. As for the cold, they're very cold tolerant; it's heat that they have issues w/b.c of the pug nose. Mine was a pistol to housebreak, but it's possible. ONCE HE'S HEALTHY---Restrict his water to a schedule and keep him crated when you're not watching him CLOSELY. For every time I allowed mine to screw up, I was set back several days. Do not allow him the opportunity to go in the house. Mine would much prefer to pee on rugs, so I took the rugs away, crated him unless I was playing w/him, took him out frequently, and voila! Housebroken! I would, however, crate him indefinitely while you're away; mine still would prefer to pee in a corner, so I just crated him when I wasn't home. Hope this helps some. Again, please do not try to tackle the housebreaking issue by limiting water until you've ruled out a health issue.

Hope I didn't totally miss something b/c I skimmed so fast... <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />