Not growing

Dr. Shatila called first thing this morning to report that no bacteria grew from the urine that was collected yesterday. That's good news; it means Dionne has no bacterial infection that might explain her symptoms yesterday. (If the bacteria didn't grow, Dionne certainly has. She weighed in yesterday at 29 pounds, 6 ounces -- a full pound more than last week, when she got her third set of shots.)

The weird thing is that her UTI symptoms seemed to disappear overnight. She woke me at 5:30 a.m., asking to go out, but that's pretty normal. On our walk this morning, she didn't stop every 5 minutes to pee. She didn't appear to strain.

Dr. S still was concerned about the large number of "struvite crystals" he saw in the specimen yesterday, and he said the pH balance was off. So he's asked me to bring her in Friday for another urinalysis.

I said I would, but I'm not real happy about taking an asymptomatic dog in for more testing. For one thing, it's an hour or two out of my day, and a $40 fee (at least, assuming he doesn't also charge for the another office visit.). And if she's still got crystals... so what?

In the meantime, Dionne was even peppier today than usual. She seemed particularly entranced by opportunities to seize various cloth items around the house: dish towels, my sweaters (left lying around), sofa throws.  Soon she and I will depart for the airport to pick up Steve. That'll make her stay up a bit later than usual; maybe we can all sleep in?