Standard Poodle Drinking Water Excessively

Question
My 13 year-old standard poodle Ebony's health has been steadily declining due to old age.  Ebony has had arthritis for the past 10 months or so because he has difficulty negotiating stairs and often trips and stumbles down the stairs.  He also has difficulty getting up after being in a supine position for an extended period of time.  Ebony was first prescribed DuraMax, a canine anti-inflammatory.  Then we changed veterinarians, and the new vet prescribed Rimadyl.  We kept a close eye on him and while he initially did better arthritis-wise (perhaps due to the wonderful summer weather), as he was into his third week on Rimadyl, he started to become extremely lethargic and would sleep all day, rarely venturing to get up.  He wouldn't even get up when we called his name.  We physically had to nudge him or prod him to get up.  He also started losing interest in eating.  This dog would go to all lengths to eat absolutely anything in his younger days -- he would somehow get candy out of a zippered purse, would pull a roasted chicken cooling on the countertop, off the countertop and eat the entire thing, and eat any wrapper that wrapped any and all type of food.  Ebony's interest waned to the point that he stopped eating for three weeks.  We had had enough and called the vet to say that Ebony displayed all the side-effects that Rimadyl had.  We took him off Rimadyl immediately and it took about two weeks for Ebony to slowly get his appetite back.  He still won't finish all his food, even if there is human food (table scraps) in it.  During the past ten days we have also noticed Ebony drinking water voraciously.  And you can guess this one -- he is urinating voraciously and inappropriately.  You cannot smell the urine because it is so diluted with all the water he has been drinking.  Just last night, I myself awakened to use the bathroom and caught Ebony getting ready to urinate in the carpeted hallway.  He actually started to urinate on my bare foot. I do not know if this is a side effect to being weaned off the Rimadyl, or it is also simultaneously occuring because it is still summer (about 90 degrees on average each day this past week in Philadelphia).  My seventeen year-old daughter has taken to sleeping with Ebony in the basement on an air matress so that she is aware when he needs to urinate and can just let him out the backdoor so that he doesn't have to negotiate any steps.  Yet, she is groggy from sleep and sometimes doesn't catch him fast enough and he ends up urinating before she can let him outside.  We understand that there is probably a medical condition (perhaps trying to flush his body of the drug) going on here. The vet thinks it may be a coincidental bladder infection.  She says the blood test to test this rare condition is $200.00 just for the blood test.  FYI -- he also had a blood test before the administration of Rimadyl  and then again six weeks later to test how his kidneys and liver were functioning.  The creatinine in the liver was high, but his kidneys were fine.  What could possibly be going on?

Answer
Hi,
I'm sorry your having so many problems with your ageing baby.  it is so hard.  Have you looking in the drug at all?  I am not up to speed on Rimadyl but I feel sure your vet would know if indeed it has these severe of side affects when coming off of the drug.  Medication like that rearely stays in the system that long anyway so i doubt that is the cause.  I would venture to say kidney infection as well.  If you vet is asking for another blood test, and financial wise it is an unfair burden to your family - why not ask him if he can treat him with the appropiate medications for a kidney infections and see what he says.  At his age, I don't think the medication could "hurt" anything.  They may not want to do that but given the circumstances, explaining the situation like you just did to me - I'd think that it may be the way to go.  Your doing all you can, and so is your daughter but you need some relief.  Just a thought - I hope it works out for you.

Brandie