Dog hit by car, need some help....

MarcusFenix

Hi all,

My dog was hit by a car last Friday and the poor fella found the strength to get himself home:(, I live in the country and my dogs have free roam of a few fields around my house so I don't think he had too far to go, anyway we brought him to the vet with bad cuts and scrapes on his hind legs, she kept him overnight and it turns out he had a dislocated hip which she put back and cleaned him up.

When we (my girlfriend and I) collected him they said to not let him move too much or walk as it could pop out again, in which case he would have to see a specialist and the vet said that basically we'd have to put him down as the price of surgery would be huge. Anyway we bought one of those cages from argos to keep him in until he can walk and be on his own steam, which can take 6 weeks!:( This is fine except for the fact that my father(who we live with i.e. "at home") is a complete old fashioned cnut and won't leave us put the cage in the house, so I said fcuk him and now the cage is in my room.

This is where the problem lies, he is an outside dog and has never had to go outside for a wee before so he keeps trying to hold it in or something but without letting us know, so he randomly wees his bedding, every hour or so! This is ok in the day, not ideal but bearable, but last night neither of us slept a wink with him peeing all night! He pees and then licks it up:( so we change the bedding. Now I'm going to do all I can to make sure he recovers but we can't go on like this for six weeks!

Can anyone tell me if theres any way to get a dog to pee? or do no. 2 "on request"? We keep bringing him out but of course he won't pee when theres someone standing over him! Please someone help as this has my girlfriend and I in bits, it would kill me to have to put him down if his joint pops out and I want to make him as comfortable as possible while he recovers but this just cannot go on like! Please please please PLEASE help!

Tranceypoo

Oh blimey, poor doggie and poor you!!
The only thing I could suggest is to monitor his food and water intake and make sure you take him out about 5/10 mins after he's eaten, woken up etc. I would think about cutting off his water supply during the night, maybe even after about 8pm, does he drink a lot? Dogs are different, my fella hardly ever seems to drink and never does during the night even though I leave a bowl down.
When you take him out, don't stand over him, maybe put a long leash on him so you can still 'control' him but won't be standing over him, he can still go and have a sniff and do his business 'in private' as it were.
Poor thing, I do hope he gets better and you all get through the next 6 weeks!!

Toulouse

You really do need to just keep bringing him out every hour and just stand beside him. Don't stare at him or anything. Just let him have a little sniff around (on the lead of course) and then loads of praise when he goes and maybe a treat to speed things up. You can also attach a phrase to it such as 'Go Pee' and so when you say it in future he'll know what you want him to do. He'll cop on fairly quick as he's a bit older but it really is just perserverence and consistency.

Wisco

As he's never been housetrained, you need to start with the basics as the previous posters have said- ie, very frequent trips outside followed by reward/praise when he goes.
You should also consider that his urinary tract was damaged in the accident and perhaps he has less control over urination than he had before. As for the recurrence of the dislocated hip- yes, it can happen again and may need surgery to fix it, but unless your financial circumstances are totally desperate, I would imagine you could afford a couple hundred euro- depending what procedure would be done it's not that specialist and many small animal vets will do it in their own hospitals.
Good luck, hope he's healing well.