Serious stuff
Serious post this time. A few weeks ago, I thought I was going to lose Max. He's 13 yrs and 3 months and that's old for a dobe, but he's been so fit I've always kidded myself he'll go on for ever. Anyway, he'd been quite a couch potato since I've not been going out to work, especially when there was a cold, wet spell. I'd noticed he'd lost muscle tone on his back end. I had a couple of days when I couldn't walk them much and I then came down one morning to find a lake of pee and Max losing his back end every few secs. Poor lad couldn't make it to the door, but peed across the doormat and then couldn't cock his leg. Big panic and off to vet. Transpired he'd presumably both got lazy and stiff and also been leaving it too long to go for a pee, so he had a urinary infection. Anti-inflammatory eased the stiffness; antibiotics cured the infection; and 3 walks a day, rain or shine, built the muscle tone back. I shall learn that lesson and not let it happen again. Coddling him is obviously riskier than sending him out in bad weather.