Monty

From only three days old I knew that Monty was a special puppy. No matter how long she feed on Mum’s teat she would still cry for more. At 12 days old I had her checked by the vet because of the constant crying, our fear was that she was “retarded.”

As she grew she seemed mostly normal, so I kept her to see how she’d grow, though by 3 months old I knew something was very wrong: she was peeing literally every 5 minutes. I was fortunate that when I took her to the vet again her gut reaction was “diabetes insipidus” but because of its rarity we tested to rule out more obvious causes first.

We measured her water intake during a 24-hour period and she was drinking more than triple her own body weight. I have to admit that at this point I was crying every day, I was sure she was going to die. How could any animal survive so much water? I feared renal failure and worse.

After several days we decided to try the water deprivation test, gradually cutting back her water intake to see if she could concentrate urine. Through only a few hours of this she lost several % of her body weight by dehydration so we were very close to diagnosis.

I was keen to try her on dDAVP, anything just to help her. It broke my heart when she would cry because she just couldn’t drink enough, or pee in the hallway desperately trying to make it outside. Within hours of her first shot I noticed a difference, urine with colour! I’m sure no one in the history of the world has been so excited to see a dog pee.

By the second day of medication she was a new puppy! She was roaring round the house showing activity and curiosity like never before. I discovered that she was really housetrained, we never had another “accident”. There was no decision as to whether to medicate or not, she had become completely normal and could do anything.

The next hurdle was the cost of medication; at over $30 a week I was going to have to budget! Luckily in the 18 months since her diagnosis, in combination with a Professor of Pharmacology, I’ve been able to bring the cost down to only $4 per week! We manage this by compounding Minirin tablets that have a huge dose of the active ingredient, into an injectible compound.

I am so lucky to have a girl like Monty, she has gone from strength to strength. She always has a smile on her face, and a happy tail for me. Once she was on medication I began breed showing her and she has become a favourite with all the people in our breed. She has even won Best in Shows and Reserve in Shows! I will eventually compete in obedience with her, too.

I hope this has given hope to other people facing life with a DI pet. They can have a life as good or better than other animals especially with a little help from their humans.

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