The Return of Ginger May

Ginger is/was an amazing dog. Amazing. She only barked when we left. She loved riding in the car. She didn't mind Judson all up in her business all the time. Over the weekend we noticed that she would get up from the couch and there would be a wet spot. That was nasty. I didn't think it was normal. On Monday night she and I fell asleep on the couch. When Dave woke us up to go to bed we were both covered in potty. Poor girl didn't even know that she had pottied. I cleaned her up, changed my clothes, and set to work on cleaning the leather couch. Four hours later, it was clean and drying. Then the next afternoon she did the same thing while she was taking a nap. And she couldn't stop licking herself. I called the rescue place and told them I would be bringing her in the next morning. Meanwhile, I did a lot of research. It seemed like a UTI. Worst case scenario it was incontinence due to being spayed. Apparently that starts when they are three. She is three and a half. If it was spayed incontince she would have to be on Proin for the rest of her life and it doesn't always fix the leaking. So Dave and I had a long talk. We decided that if we could find out if she had a UTI before, we would definitely return her (they happen frequently). By Tuesday night and Wednesday morning Ginger was leaking everywhere. Poor thing. She did a great job staying on her towels, though. The kids would go to her on her towels to pet her.

We took Lucy to school and then the boys and I took Ginger to the rescue place. There was a different guy there. I explained our problem. He looked at her surrender papers and it said, "runs away, digs under fences, leaky bladder and taking Proin." I was so incredibly sad and so incredibly angry at the same time. I had to pull myself together and told the man we could not keep her. We said goodbye and he took her back to the kennels. Ughhh. The guy had no clue what Proin was or anything about leaky bladders. I was angry and sad.

When we picked up Lucy she asked about Ginger. I told her I had to take her back (she knew that this was a very real possibility, especially with all the potty). She cried, I cried (for the first time all day). We cried for 10 minutes. I explained that they didn't give us all the information and if they had we would not have gotten her. She said, "Mommy, it's okay. Now we know we can handle a dog." So sweet, so mature.

We'll probably get another dog in October. We're going to be gone for eight days in July and half of the month of September. Boarding fees add up, so we'll wait until our summer travel is over.