Who's Trained Whom? Hmmmm?

This is going to be a bit hard, because the majority of my dear readers know sweet Mama Pajama so well, she could easily be one of their own. But my new friends from blogland barely know her at all. I don't want to bore the former, nor mystify the latter, so here's the skinny.

Mama Pajama is living proof of miracles. At least to me. She was a brilliant little lure courser, and was actually the number one whippet in the country in AKC lure coursing. She was always one of the smallest, but zoom she would dust the big boys, including her brother Fat Charlie. She got her obedience title (just to humor me) and had a magical way of communicating with her special people.

And she charmed everyone who met her.

Then she got sick. She got a horrible disease, called neutrophilic vasculitis. A wacko reaction by her body to a wasp sting, where she started attacking her own microscopic blood vessels, choking off the oxygen supply to the surrounding tissues. She rotted. Her ears died, and she had deep abcesses in her feet, and she lost a lung. Her kidneys stopped working and we made an appointment to have her put down.

But as clear as a bell, she told me, "Not yet."

And then she got better.

She's been on prednisone for six years. She'll be eleven in June. She appears to be in complete remission, and other than her raggedy ears and some places where her hair never grew back, you couldn't tell she was ever sick. She has had a little problem with bladder control ever since she became ill, though, which has persisted. OK, she leaks like a sieve. She simply doesn't seem to feel when her bladder is full, and will wake up sopping wet, and I do mean sopping.

So I decided to teach her to pee on command. When she would go out, I would say "go pee" and when she did, I'd give her a treat. Often, she would squeeze out a little unnecessary turd and expect a cookie, but no, I held firm. Only pee got treats. It took a long time, but after six months she pretty reliably peed on command, even though she didn't feel any urge. As long as I remembered to get her out in a timely fashion - every couple of hours - I didn't have to wash slip covers and bedding and her.

Yesterday when we went on our walk, Mama Pajama peed and I gave her a treat. It was a particularly good treat. We walked on, and Mama Pajama peed again. That was unusual. We walked another thirty feet and down she squatted. This concerned me. And she continued to strain to pee every ten to thirty paces throughout the walk. I called the vet.

"I think Mama Pajama has a bladder infection," I told them, hoping and praying that it wasn't something much more ominous. "Yes, I can have her there at 2:45 tomorrow. Thank you."

I expected to spend a long and sleepless night, taking Mama Pajama out repeatedly. Giacomino got cystitis once and he had to go out every half hour all night long; it was horrible. But I woke up a couple of times and peered in her crate to make sure she was still breathing, and she was, and she wondered why I was disturbing her rest. I let her out and collected her normal looking pee in the morning, and went about my business with Mama Pajama as happy as a clam. I started to wonder if... Nah.

Mama Pajama was thrilled to go for a ride in the van, but frankly disappointed with my choice of destinations. But she was happy to see her vet tech friend Robin, and polite, if a bit reserved, in greeting Ol' Poke 'n Stick himself. Doc, in contrast, was thrilled to see his little miracle, and went on and on about how great she looks. Before Doc came into the room, I admitted to Robin my silly theory that I might have created a peeing monster, but I said I thought that was pretty far fetched. Robin went out to test the urine I brought.

She came back in smiling. Mama Pajama was still spilling some protein in her urine, but she didn't have any infection. "So, do you think I've trained her to pee every ten feet?"

Robin said, "I think she enjoys you as her own personal Pez Dispenser!" I laughed at that. Robin always makes me laugh.

Doc pronounced her "Great, just great," and I celebrated.

And when we left the clinic, Mama Pajama didn't squat. But I gave her a special treat anyway.

Hug your hounds