My wife and I have a weenie dog (a mini dachshund) named Fritz, who
turned 10 years old last month. He's 2 foot, 7 inches long, from nose to
tail...and he has been getting crotchety at his old age. 

  He became an insulin dependent diabetic earlier this year, and requires 2
shots of NPH insulin (8 units per shot) per day. He also has lost most of
his vision due to cataracts from the diabetes.

  To work with his insulin, he gets Beneful weight loss formula (he loves
that)...but, he also gets 1 cc of clomipromine (read that Prozac for dogs
) with some Alpo dog food (he won't take it otherwise), as he is
high strung.

  Thunderstorms terrify him. I can't blame him for that, as I've been
indirectly struck by lightning twice, and been under a tornadic funnel
cloud once.

  Anyway, our vet told him to give him the stuff approximately 12 hours
apart...say 9am and 9pm daily. The problem is that with him being diabetic,
he understandably has to have a nature break more often...even though he's
well housebroken. He has gotten so that he will wake me earlier and earlier
each day (as early as 4am!), and want his stuff then!!

  The vet said that "we'd just have to play hardball with him".
We can't tell if and when he's going into reaction, and he hates going to
the vet with a passion. The vet doesn't even know why his "alarm
clock" is so skewed.

  If anyone can offer any suggestions, ideas, etc. on how to deal with
this, my wife and I would greatly appreciate it.

Daryl Stout, 1:382/33



--- GTMail 1.26