Bama... The Wonder Dog

So, for about the last month (actually probably a lot longer, but it makes me feel like a bad pet parent to admit it) Bama has been shaking her head and scratching behind her ear. It is loud... those floppy lab ears and her dog tags rattling when she shakes her head at 3 am will bring us out of a dead sleep. Monday night, she does it repeatedly to the point that I thought Trey was going to beat her when he shot up out of the bed. He let her outside and we listened to her bark for another 2 hours until it was time to get up. I get to work tired and needing a coffee IV and tell my co-workers about the head shaking/ear scratching loudness that kept us awake all night. My boss looks at me and says "Umm, Melissa, you need to take her to the vet. She probably has ear mites!" Naturally my next step was to Google "dog ear mites" and self-diagnose this is what she has... I am horrible... She is in pain and I am yelling at her to stop shaking her dang head. I go home that night and check her ears. I won't go into detail about the grossness that it involved. Called the vet yesterday morning and explained said grossness... Vet said it sounded more like a yeast infection in the ear. Trey took her yesterday and $182.30 later, we were diagnosed with a canine yeast infection of the ear canal. Which, according to the vet, Google and my coworkers is quite common in dogs with floppy ears... Who knew? Trey comes home with the credit card slip to pay for the vet visit, cytology, three prescription pills, ointment and an ear irrigation system. We have a 12 day regimen (2 times a day) to get rid of this infection and then we will have to irrigate her ears at least every other week in an attempt to prevent recurrence.
It gets better: 2 o'clock this morning, Bama is whimpering in our room. Trey does not hear her over his snoring and I am ignoring her because I think she is just whimpering because her ears ache and I don't want to yell at her to be quiet since I already feel like a bad doggie mom... Then I hear her peeing on my flipping bedroom floor. I punch a snoring Trey and jump out of the bed saying "She's peeing on the floor!" The Snore King says "The vet said the medicine would make her have to pee a lot!" You have got to be kidding me! He could have told me this before bed so I would have let her out instead of thinking she was just whining. Trey lets her out then he climbs back in the bed and is snoring again before I ever even get the first spray of carpet cleaner on the carpet...
So, the moral of this story is two-fold:
If your dog starts shaking his/her head and scratching at the ears excessively, call me and I will explain the grossness so you can see if you need to pay a visit to the vet.
If you ever get yeast infection medicine for your dog, make sure you let them out as soon as they start whining!