I will send you a note on your blog in the next several days.

Jane again!

One thing that I can say we’ve learned from this issue around Joey’s prostrate gland is to not be afraid to question a doctor, look at the lab results yourself, get a second opinion, and take time to think matters over if necessary.

We had Joey’s long-time veterinarian fax the results of the palpation exam to the other vet, and our conclusions. We feel that the communication was and is essential.

Jane

Joey is allowing me to answer for him, and he says thanks for asking! He has few posts about that, and I have a few pages about that, and they interweave with each other chronologically, so his links to mine, and mine link to his in appropriate places. If you want to read the WHOLE story as we’ve written it, see the posts and pages below:

Joey’s posts on the topic begins with :
part 1: this too was injured when i was hit by the car,

followed by my page: : to neuter or not to neuter?

followed by his post, part 2: a healthy unaltered male – once again .

If you read the posts and pages listed above and still have any questions, please let me know and I’ll try to write them better.

In a nutshell, the veterinarian made an incorrect judgment when she noticed blood in his urine. Yes, there was some blood in his urine, but she assumed – incorrectly – it was from an enlarged prostate gland (whatever that is). It was not. It was from his lacerated penis. Since there were so many dogs in the hospital, Joey got excited even when he peed and marked, and then small amounts of blood leaked out. That’s the blood the doctors saw in his urine.

Also, the veterinarian made an incorrect judgment when she noticed that he urinated and no urine came out. She assumed, again, it was from an enlarged prostate. It was not. He just marked so much there that he marked himself dry. Joey’s dad had seen this happen previously when he took Joey for long walks and this is what we suspected all along. Certainly we were on heightened alert for signs that he had trouble peeing or pooping. He never did.

The signs of infection were so borderline that it wasn’t anything conclusive.

Finally, when his own veterinarian did a one-month checkup of his prostate, when she palpated the gland, it was enlarged but not an abnormal size for an unaltered male. The veterinarian says what is important is not just if the prostate gland is enlarged, but if it is symmetrical or asymmetrical. If it is asymmetrical, it indicates a possible tumor. Definitely trouble. Joey’s was symmetrical.

Unfortunately, the veterinarian where Joey was boarded did not look at Joey’s full chart to read about the injuries to his penis. Or maybe this falls under the category of looking for one thing and then diagnosing all of the symptoms to prove what you’re trying to find. I know that animal castration is very popular and that veterinarians advise dog owners to this. But on our dog, on Joey, the symptoms were due to other causes. Though at first we were very nervous, and of course we took the initial caution very seriously, the more we thought about it, the more we learned about it (including having the doctor fax us the lab report and looking at it) the more it didn’t seem to fit with our dog. We didn’t discount anything. We simply developed a plan: Our plan to wait one month and keep a careful watch on him and to then have him checked out and examined – not to rush with surgery and castration – was the right path.

The good news is that Joey is not going to be altered, and that he’s a HEALTHY and WHOLE MALE DOG, as his posts on the topic say. And he’s well into his 10th year of living.

In fact, yesterday I took him to a dog park for the first time! It turns out that our local dog park DOES allow uncastrated male dogs. I can’t believe how lucky we are; so many dog parks do not. Joey and I went there for other reasons and I was elated to read the “Rules” sign. I was nervous when I brought him in, step by step, and kept him on lead for a long time. I waited until a group of dogs came over to him and they all got along. Then I said “Joey, sit” and took off the lead. I’m thinking and saying, “Should I do this?” I was really nervous. The people around me encouraged me, saying “Yes.” To my joy, he played great with the other dogs, male and female, the other dogs played great with him, there was a lot of energy and happiness there on the field of the dog park. I kept an eye on him the whole time; also, he was so obedient! Much more than before he was hit by the car. Every time he strayed too far, usually with another dog, I called ‘”Joey, come” and he turned around and looked at me and ran right back to me. No females are going to have to go home and say, “Mom, Dad, Sit down. I have something to tell you. I’m pregnant.”

Now let’s say that the manual examination of Joey’s prostrate had shown it to be asymmetric. Then what? Well, we would have had an ultrasound test on his prostrate gland to detect where the problem was. Had there been serious indications at this point, we would have needed to remove a tumor or we would have looked into using medications, possibly natural medications, to shrink the prostate gland.

We’re happy that Joey’s fine. I’d like to do a page on this some time. There are a lot of claims that castrated male dogs are more friendly and domesticated, less aggressive, than uncastrated. We simply haven’t seen this. Joey has never been aggressive (though he has always had a lot of energy). He has always been as nice as they come. There is always a risk to surgery. Joey’s sister Rosie had a botched surgery to have her spayed. We don’t want to have to do any unnecessary surgery. We also keep open the possibility of breeding Joey: On his father’s side, he comes from a long line of champion hunting dogs.

So we’re happy that Joey’s well, happy, lively, maintaining an excellent weight, and allowed to play in the dog park that we have in our neighborhood, only one mile away. This will certainly transform Joey’s life, and with it, our lives. Even Joey’s own vet is happy with the situation as it’s been resolved. And even Joey’s beloved Dr. Kiko is happy, his Critical Care doctor, in the end, that Joey is remaining whole.

Happy to discuss any of this with you, Lena!

Regards to Luca,

Jane

Yes, the first four weeks I had the full leg splint. The doctors wanted to see how my leg would heal without surgery. They were careful – having me in the full-leg splint – but conservative, allowing that I might not need the surgery. The extreme limitations on my movement were because they were hoping I might not need the surgery. But I did. The surgery actually took place Week 5.

I went to two hospitals. For the first hospital, they stabilized me, gave me oxygen, cleaned up some of my wounds where I was bleeding, and so on. They gave me a lot of love, too. At the other hospital,where I stayed for the 5 days, on the first day I was given the pain killer Fetanyl which was put on my side as a patch. You can see the area on my side where I was shaved. I was given antibiotics too. Also on the first day the doctors took x-rays of my internal organs to see if I was bleeding internally. I wasn’t. They gave me IV for several days. I was pretty hooked up. And I had dental appointments too; the dentist asked my parents if they wanted him to just pull my teeth, or try to save them. In the end, my parents decided to just have my broken teeth taken out. They knew that I would be fine and eat very well without the teeth I would lose, and they didn’t want me to have to go through surgery just to have my teeth look pretty. I had my broken teeth pulled out a few days later.

The doctors also – now that I can spill the beans – put a lot of cream on my belly, which had been scraped raw, and kept an eye on my lacerated penis, to see if that it would heal normally.

Maybe the doctors decided to do surgery on Luca’s forearm right away because, as we are now learning, Luca being a small dog, those bones are much more delicate than the leg bones of a large dog like me. Maybe it’s something to ask Luca’s doctor! You are learning a lot about your dog! This is wonderful. And Luca is learning a lot about you! He is learning how much you care about him!

Your pal,

Joey

What did the hospital do during the initial visit after Joey was hit? Stabilized him? Did he have any internal bleeding, etc?