Incontinence

[areias]

Hello.

I have a 7 year old spayed female German Shepherd who over the past year has gotten increasingly incontinent. She is 100% housebroken, but when she is relaxed (laying down/sleeping) or during thunderstorms she wets herself. I don't think she realizes she does it. I took her to the vet who ran tests to make sure she didn't have an infection, and everything came back negative-it supposedly just happens to some older spayed females. Anyways, they gave us a prescription to a medication.. phenylpropanolamine it was called. It had very little effect on her, and we never got a second bottle. She's getting increasingly worse..we've gotten her her own washable doggie bed, which she won't sleep on, we have a soft mat on top of a plastic mat which she'll sleep on sometimes at night, but we can't really banish her there 24/7. Other than banishing her outside or to a crate all the time (which we would never do), we can't find many options. I have heard of another drug, something called DES (don't know the whole name), but I'm not sure on this, and I'm worried about side effects.

Does anyone have any suggestions, or has dealt with this before? We would never put her down because of this, but anything that helps is worth it. Thanks very much.

[lv4dogs]

Did you bring her back to the vet? Maybe she needs a stronger dose? I know that phenylpropanolamine sometimes takes a couple/few weeks to take full effect, did you give it long enough to see if it works?
Or even get a second opinion?

If all else fails is there anyway you can try to get her on a very strict schedule?
For example, keep her in her crate at night, then after she goes potty after waking up she may be able to be trusted to be free in the house for say maybe an hour. Then bring her back outside. then she'll be trusted in the house for another hour or so. Then crate her when you go out. etc... If she looks tired bring her out to potty before she gets a chance to potty in the house.
I know with this problem she'll never be 100% reliable but a strict schedule might help quite a bit. It will at least help with the amount of urine she leaks.

[pnance]

My RB male terrier Sandy was incontinent the last couple of years he was with us. He was completely housebroken but whenever he'd sleep he'd "leak". Drugs didn't work on him and I wasn't a big fan of the possible side effects. Instead I purchased baby diapers and put those on him when we weren't home or he was laying on the bed or carpet. A friend and the vet also recommended using baby crib pads on the furniture. They're designed to catch pee, thin, and washable. We'd lay them all over the sofa's so even if he didn't have the diaper on it wasn't an issue. Females, it's even easier, you can purchase the diapers people use for female dogs in heat, just get a few so you can wash them and still have one available. Just be sure to remove them before you let her out to go potty or she might get the idea it's okay to use those to take care of business in. With mine, since he was a male I had to be a little more creative.




RB Sandy: Sept 1986 - Sept 2002

[dragondawg]

DES or Diethylstilbestrol is a synthetic female hormone. It was once a money maker for Ely Lilly back in the 50s and 60s. Eventually it was link to cancer in the female offspring of women who took the drug, and was taken off the market for human use. At one point it had become extremely difficult to obtain, but apparently it's still available, and used in Veterinary medicine.

The idea of DES is that in some female dogs spayed too early the muscle and surrounding estrogen sensitive tissues did not get a chance to fully develop. Thus there is not enough pressure on the urethra to keep urine from seeping out. In the younger dog where they have good muscle tone, they can compensate for it, but as they age and the muscle tone is lost then you end up with incontinence. What the DES does is to cause swelling of the Estrogen sensitive tissue, giving the muscle something to push against, claimping down on the urethra.

If it were my dog I would question the Vet about the idea of giving one of the estrogen analogs, rather than a synthetic estrogen such as DES which has been linked to cancer. You would be trying to use the absolute minimum needed for short periods of time. The danger is possible stimulation of the mammary tissue leading to cancer if too high a dose is used. Hopefully you can minimize that danger while getting enough tissue developed or barely swelled to help give the dog better control.

If you have noticed your dog drinking more water, panting, or gaining weight then you should ask your Vet about the possibiity of Cushings disease being present.- see Cushings thread. For example when a dog is placed on high doses of prednisone (i.e. mimics high levels of corticosteroids as seen with Cushings) it's not too unusual for their water consumption to increase, and for them to have wee-wee accidents in their sleep. Just another possibility to ask the Vet about.