Incontinence In Bitches

[Eza]

My BCx bitch has been incontinent for a few years now (shes 7 this year).

We just buy cheap mats with a plastic or rubber base on them and chuck them out every 12 months.

For each incident we have been using Febreeze to get rid of the smell. Mats get washed weekly or fortnightly depending how bad shes been.

Some weeks she wont leak at all, other weeks she is doing it all day all week.

I found her biggest trigger was wheat and she is now not having any dry food at all and minimal leaking.

She also leaks when she gets over excited. We had her on a steriod but she lost the plot and was a bit of a space cadet. We happy managing it without medication at this stage.

[dianed]

My older dog became incontinent last year,I wouldnt give her medication because of previous cancer problems. I got some waterproof toweling mattress protectors and cut them to fit the beds and then some cheap polar fleece blankets as they dry fast. I found out later someone at our local market makes waterproof dog beds. I also make her go outside before we go to bed, it seems to work ok. If she gets smelly I shampoo her rear end. My girl was a rescue pup and desexed at 12 weeks old , the vet thinks that may have contributed towards it.

[LOLAFOLATA]

My girl (dane/mastiffx) also suffers this problem. I'm not comfortable with having her on hormone drugs for the rest of her life. Currently on 1/2 incurin every second day trying to increase to every 3rd although she is already dribbling. She was initially on Sibesterol every five days but this stopped working and we noticed her back end became swollen and she was dragging it along the ground (not worms) hence the change to Incurin.

I have emailed CSJ UK for more info on their product "Hold-It".

Not sure if Sudafed is suitable anymore as it can no longer be purchased otc as pseudoephadrene (drying chemical) is now a restricted drug. Could be wrong here

We purchased elasticised undies lge size and pads for our lab from PetBarn. Believe they come in larger sizes suitable up to giant breeds. I am also looking into vetbed material from the Wolf's Den

Interesting comment about acupuncture - must enquire.

Will also be watching this thread with interest - this is apparently quite a common complaint with, especially, the larger girls

Edited March 19, 2009 by LOLAFOLATA

[Winterpaws]

Well I am at my wits end with this and completely tearing my hair out

Incontinence seems to be getting worse desite bumping up the Propalin dosage and it's costing a fortune in beds as you need to replace them all the time

Just had a quick chat to my lovely vet and he has thrown a couple of options at me and wanted to see if anyone has had any success

Female hormone injections - but a possible side effect of aggression? Yuck!

Deslorin (sp?) - the male desexing drug which can apparently be effective for female incontinence

Injecting something into the urethra?

None of them sound particularly nice but I just have no idea what to do - even restricting her access to water at night we are left with a puddle and right now I have just looked at her bed and she has soaked it through.

Help!!!!

[dwynwen]

My Suki has been incontinent to varying degrees for years.. we had her on Propalin for a couple of years and it became ineffective.

Once she was off it I realized she'd been having a low level side effect of some kind because she was a much happier (but leaky) dog off it. I suspect she had mild nausea ..

We tried Stilboestrol but it made her bleed (yes, she's spayed).

So now we just manage it - she wears pants with an incontinence pad at night and I put mattress protectors on all the dog beds as well as one of those plastic backed picnic rugs on the one human bed she likes to get on..

Does your girl leak/dribble constantly WP? or just flood the bed when she sleeps?

The mattress protectors we use hold a couple of litres ... they're brilliant and machine washable.

eta - we have a couple dog beds that are sponge rubber with a plastic waterproof cover - also use a folded synthetic fill doona which is washable. A couple old snooza type mats have stood up to a _lot_ of washing.

Edited June 19, 2009 by dwynwen

[Winterpaws]

She goes up and down Dwynen. For the last few weeks it seemed t be getting better but then in the last few days it has gotten worse during the night and today she has literally soaked her bed

Fortunately she is not a furniture girl and these days if she does want to get up on the lounge with me I have to tell her no But none of the dogs generally sleep on the lounge so I don't feel too awful

I need to go and buy new beds again as the last ones I bought are smelly and stinky. I did buy some mattress protectors from Ikea but they were useless - is there somewhere else I can get a good one (without breaking the bank....). I'm trying to keep them sleeping on fairly thick beds as they both really feel the cold, but at over $130 a bed it is starting to get exxy..

I saw on great rugs they had some incontinence beds which look good but they also look too thin and don't seem to have a way of securing them to the top of another bed? Ummm the dry bed cushion bed on this site - http://www.greatrugs.com.au/store/index.htm

[VJB]

These beds are pricey, but I love them, and they should last you forever. They are www.barkaparka.com.au

They also make something called a Drytop cover for incontinent dogs. I don't use the drytop cover, but I can give the thumbs up for the bed itself...; As costly as it is, the bed will last a very long time.

[Winterpaws]

What I need is someone in Australia to start selling these - http://www.seniorpetproducts.com/product/w...&parent=248

I would buy 6 - 10 of them and quite happily rotate them and the covers - it's the inner foam in the beds that costs a bomb

[Winterpaws]

These beds are pricey, but I love them, and they should last you forever. They are www.barkaparka.com.au

They also make something called a Drytop cover for incontinent dogs. I don't use the drytop cover, but I can give the thumbs up for the bed itself...; As costly as it is, the bed will last a very long time.

I did look at these but my cats will pee on anything with the beans in it :rofl: OH bought a bean bag once and it lasted two days before the cats thought it sounded like a litter tray and started using it as a toilet

I don't mind spending the $$ on decent beds, just want to try and make sure I can make the next lot last.

None of the drug options are sounding very good so I am thinking of trying the McDowell Incontinence Mix and seeing if that works?

[Staranais]

You all have me worried. Are all these dogs spayed? I'm having Tilba spayed on Monday & this is one of my concerns with the op.

Spaying does make urinary incontinence much more common in bitches, especially if it's a very early spay (one paper I recently read estimated that bitches spayed under 3 months old had a 12% chance of suffering from urinary incontinence in the following 6 years, whereas bitches spayed after 3 months old only had a 5% change, and entire females had only about 0.25% chance).

But waiting till after the bitch has her first season gives her a much higher chance of developing a malignant mammary cancer, and that risk becomes higher still if you wait till after the second season.

So it's a trade off. No easy answers, sorry! If I had a female pup that I wanted spayed, I personally would wait till she was around 5 months old (or until a month or so before I expected her to come into heat) to do it. Other people will have other opinions about when it should be done. How old is Tilba?

[vampy]

I have a male dog who is partially incontinent and lives mainly indoors. We tried everything to protect our furniture and his bedding but the house started to smell like a urinal. We've had great success with material we bought from Clark Rubber - the foam and pool supplies shop. It is water proof and water resistant and comes in black - our favourite colour. The best thing is it really only needs a wipe and it is clean and smell free. We have wrapped his mattress in the material and then placed it in a soft cover for comfort. When he has an accident we take the cover off, wipe down the material and put a new cover on. The mattress beneath is perfectly dry and odour free. Our couch is now draped in this material as are all of their beds that lie around the house. We just put blankets and mats over the material for their comfort and when accidents happen we simply change the covers. It's made a huge difference here.

[Winterpaws]

Thanks Vampy.

Looking online at all the different options I am thinking of just buying them each a single bed foam mattress from Clark Rubber and then using some of that material, or buying a single bed mattress protector. Then I could just throw a fitted sheet over the top?

VJB - I spent ages looking through barka parka but then realised that they say you shouldn't use the dry top all the time Which is something we do...