u/lavenderkeek

Our 7 month old sheltie has started peeing a lot over the last day. I noticed she had a couple accidents which is unusual, but then we left for 2 hours and came back to at least half a dozen pee puddles. Pretty decent amount in each. My dad was left in charge of watching her and apparently didn’t see it occur once 🙄

I’m going to call her vet when they open in 40 minutes, but freaking out a bit.

She does have a recessed or inverted vulva that the vet is hoping she outgrows.. I forget the exact terminology, I’m sleep deprived from her right now. Could this be a uti even if there’s excess urine? She does not help or cry when I’ve seen her pee. She seems to go a fair bit, though probably not as much as her usual amount.

Urine is typical consistency and color - maybe a bit clearer sometimes. I’m just scared it’s her kidneys or diabetes because while she is going a lot, I don’t think she’s having unfruitful straining. But we were warned her vulva may cause UTIs when it was discovered.

I kept her out of her pen overnight with me because I didn’t want her to try to hold it in the smaller space and she had ~6-10 accidents again.. whereas she hasn’t had a pee accident in over 2 months. Something is definitely up.

To add.. there has been a major shift in her routine. My husband is out of town and she spends most of her time in the finished basement with him in his office. I spend a lot of time down there too and also train with her and take her outside so she loves me too. But he’s gone for a couple days. And my parents and sister are visiting so she’s been spending a lot of time with us on the main floor and very little in the basement. I don’t think the change in routine can make her produce excess urine, but just wanted to mention that.

My husband and I currently make about $285k from our salaries. We also rent out our first home that we got before Covid so it’s got about $200k in equity in it with a $160k mortgage and a 3.125% interest rate. It nets about $850 per month after mortgage, taxes, and insurance. We consider it our fall back plan if everything blows up. Our car loan gets paid off in a few months, which frees up about $850 per month. No credit card debt.

Our current home has a mortgage that is two years in with a balance of roughly $380k and a 6.875% interest rate. We pay $1k extra per month now and plan to up that to $1850 once we pay off the car loan, since we’re used to that money coming out anyway.

We max out our retirement accounts and have about 6-8 months worth of expenses in a HYSA that is 3.8% I think.

We’re strongly considering just brute forcing down the mortgage of the home live in now, with the goal of having it paid off in less than 5 years. We’re extremely risk adverse because we’ve watched family mishandle money and lose it all, but we’re always going to need somewhere to live and paying so much per month in interest is killer.

Our plan is to pay the $1850 per month extra, then add in a larger payment once or twice a year based on our savings and what we feel comfortable with. I’ll have to double check our terms for recasting, but we’d also like to recast once we make a bigger dent then continue to pay the same amount anyway. I’d like to ideally put at least $60k per year towards the house, which would allow us to also save money while aggressively making payments.. then basically just pay it off in full one day once we get close. Then after that, we can breathe easily and figure out the next step to do with the cash flow/savings. Once the mortgage is paid off, that frees up the $2500 in interest we pay per month plus all the extra payments we’d hypothetically been making.

The idea of having no mortgage on our house is amazing. My husband works in tech and he does worry about job security one day due to AI, so he really likes the idea of us basically being able to sustain our lives on any jobs because we won’t be carrying an expensive mortgage. We’re fortunate that we live in a pretty low cost of living area and have pretty modest tastes (other than the car that we’re about to pay off.. he wanted his one nice car splurge, haha.)

But how dumb is this plan? Does it make sense? Or should we consult a financial advisor and try to figure out the whole investment accounts stuff now instead of going with what we feel is the safer bet? Both of us grew up in households that struggled on and off so we don’t really have anyone close to advise us.. and the fear of the rug being pulled out is always there.

I’m just curious how everyone’s sheltie does with strangers. I’d read a lot about them before getting one and read that they can be aloof, but our 5.5 month old girl loves everyone. She runs up to strangers to say hello, snuggles into random people’s sides if they’re kneeling at the private dog park we go to, etc. We’re actually thinking of doing therapy work with her once she matures more because of how sweet and calm she is.. at least until she decides it’s time to play some more. Hence the needing to mature 😅

She has been heavily socialized, though, but I’m wondering what’s truly typical. I’m pretty solidly a sheltie person now and I’m pretty sure our future dogs will be shelties, but curious if it truly is common for them to be more aloof and what that may look like if our next pup is more typical. ❤️

Hi! Our puppy is 4.5 months old and started coughing every time she drinks water 2-3 days ago. She's fine with food and treats. Plays like normal - barks, growls, plays tug with her toys and zooms around like a little maniac with no issue. Seems unphased other than this. The liquid she coughs up is usually clear, but sometimes a small bit of foam.

She does eat her food FAR too fast.. like we need to use slow feeder with her or feed her by hand or she'll just gulp her entire bowl done in seconds.. but it doesn't really seem like she does the same with water. Most common cause that I've read is due to drinking water too fast, but again it doesn't /seem/ like she's drinking too fast.

We gave her access to our cat's water fountain and she does seem to cough up /less/ with that, but still a little bit. So maybe forcing her to slow down has helped.

Some thoughts: She is teething and just lost one of her big canines yesterday, so I'm wondering if maybe she scratched her throat as she swallowed a tooth unexpectedly? Or she did eat some of the little weed-flowers in the yard and eats grass/weeds so I'm wondering if she ate something not so pleasant and it irritated her throat. I've also seen her grab small rocks and eat them here and there, but if it was an obstruction then I would think she'd have trouble eating solids and also going to the bathroom? But maybe something scratched her throat going down.. still don't know why food is fine in that situation, though..

We plan to take her to the vet on Monday but would love any feedback/thoughts/opinions. I have some unexpected pet loss trauma so I'm freaking out a little bit, haha.

* Species: Dog
* Age: 4.5 Months
* Sex/Neuter status: Unspayed
* Breed: Shetland sheepdog
* Body weight: 20 lbs
* History: None really.. had pretty bad idiopathic head tremors when we first got her, but growing out of them. Fully vaccinated with all her puppy shots.
* Clinical signs: Coughing right after drinking water and spitting up some of it.
* Duration: Pretty much just right after drinking.
* Your general location: NC