Tracy how were you applying the cream with your finger or Q-tip and how often?
With Zoey the discolored hair around the vulva has been that way for as long as I can remember.

I don't remember exactly when her incontinence started but do remember it was horrible to watch I didn't sleep for two nights. I layed on the couch in my cloths at the ready to bolt out the door when she started panicking at the door then we would run to the spot, she would squat multiple times frantically trying to pee and most of the time nothing would come out it was horrible.

It is terrible to watch in a dog who wants so bad to be outside in an appropriate place but who has bladder spasms that overcome her suddenly ....

It's hard to describe the anxiety of the dog. Panic is not too strong a word for it.

I used the Animax cream twice a day for 10 days (same as the course of oral antibiotics we were given). I just put it on with my finger. Fanny's very good about any kind of "procedure." I just rolled her over on her back, spread her legs apart and squirted a little of the goo on and smeared it with my finger. The stuff's about the consistency and color of vaseline. Every other day or so, I'd clean up down there with a baby wipe. This was all about 2 weeks ago. Today, she's right as rain. Fanny doesn't have the incontinence problem yours has. I'm sure that's difficult for you both.

Did your vet do a culture of the vulvar area to see if you're dealing with bacteria, yeast, or both?

FWIW, before I took Fanny in to the vet, I'd been trying to doctor her myself using a vaginal yeast cream. I just assumed vagina = yeast, so I went to Walgreens and bought a tube of the stuff made for women's vaginal yeast issues.

When that didn't do anything after about 3 days, we went to the vet. Turns out Fanny's was mostly bacterial. So I guess the moral of the story is you have to know what the crud is before you know the right medicine!

Hope your girl feels better soon.

ETA: about the urine-catching. Fanny's legs are like 3 inches long. When she squats, I don't think I could get a spatula under her, let alone a ladle or anything else. The one time she had a bladder infection---like 5 years ago, while we were on vacation, camping in an RV, of course---the vet used a syringe through her abdomen and withdrew a clean sample directly from her bladder. It sounds worse than it was.

I had to get a clean catch from a Pug mix once. I read on here about a small flat pie pan (like from an individual chicken pie) glued to a paint stirrer, and it did work. Kinda. Didn't get a lot of pee, but enough to culture.


Edited by Connie Sutherland (05/14/2012 05:10 PM)
Edit reason: edit

Those couple of days before we got into the vet was awful I felt so bad for her.

No Tracy the vet didn't do a culture of the vulva, strange now that you mention it they were down there trying to get urine an couldn't so why not that? They just sent us home with the meds.

I don't know about the ladle unless it was 2 quart size, I can see the pee shooting into the ladle and right back out the ladle all over me.
I like the home made pie pan ladle sounds safer.

Ouch

"the vet used a syringe through her abdomen and withdrew a clean sample directly from her bladder. It sounds worse than it was."

I probably would have said the same thing unless the needle was stuck in me.

I probably used the wrong word. "Culture" I think is when they take a sample and try to grow it in a dish of agar, which takes a week for results. What our vet did was swab the area on a glass slide and look at it under a microscope right there to see what critters were in the exudate.

OT... sort of:

Being the lazy person I am, I taught Fama to poop right on the shovel instead of on the ground where I would have to scoop it up. Love them markers