Bed Wetting

[Ozfozz]

As some of you may know, Rigby has always had a bit of a problem with bladder control.
This usually manifests in the form of submissive urination, or in times of over-stimulation (really high energy training sessions can be a trigger).

Yet most of the time during the day she appears to have some pretty solid bladder control - there's never any accidents outside the triggers.

Now a few times over the past year, Rigby has appeared to wet the bed. It hadn't happened in a while until I went away for a night last weekend and she slept in my parents bed and they complained of waking up to wet sheets and her in the middle of it.

I've ordered a diaper for her to wear at night as a precaution. But the thing is, in previous instances I always got the distinct impression that it might not be urine. It was certainly big enough to be urine, but (sorry) the smell seemed off. And this past weekend my dad said the same thing....

With it happening so infrequently and unpredictably I haven't been to the vet about it yet. Plus I'm not sure how I'd explain it to a vet either.

Does anyone have any possible solutions as to what's going on? I'm sort of at a loss.

 

[stardogs]

With the odd smell, I'd check for a UTI first.

Could it be drool?

 

[Ozfozz]

With the odd smell, I'd check for a UTI first.

Could it be drool?

She was checked for a UTI after the second time it happened. She came back normal with trace protein.

Drool is a possibility. My dad said she seemed to be licking a lot that night (I've never noticed that in instances before). But she's not a drooly dog at all otherwise and it seems to be a pretty large area spanned for such a small dog. It seems odd for her to drool so much in her sleep, could there be something that would cause that?

 

[Stillwater]

Sounds like spay incontinence. That happens in their sleep as they age, and I find it more with bitches who have been spayed before their first heat. After a while it will begin to happen when they are awake as well. The bladder never fully matures when they are spayed before their first heat and it becomes a problem as they age. The muscles are weak and relaxed when sleeping ends up with a wet bed.

You can get some OTC pills to try first from Petsmart or other pet stores. The vet will have a stronger pill if the OTC ones do not help.

Petsmart has Bladder support pills.

 

[Julee]

Shadow has had spay incontinence since she was spayed at six months. She's been on Proin for almost 12 years, works wonders for her.

 

[Ozfozz]

I was thinking spay incontinence even before the bed wetting issues.
It's difficult to tell just how old Rigby is. The shelter claims to have spayed her whilst she was in their care, but that could have meant that they checked to ensure she was spayed.
She was almost certainly over 1 year old at the time that she got to the shelter.

My previous vet didn't seem overly concerned about it (this was before the bed wetting). It is under control for the most part. Aside from the bed issue last weekend, it's been weeks since there's been an accident in the house.

But I do plan on talking to our new vet about it. She has been on a few different petstore brand pills I remember that there was an issue or side effect or something with Proin that caused a few people to advise against it but I can't for the life of me remember what that was... I think it might have been something to do with increased irritability - which would not be good considering she's already kind of an irritable bitch...or loss off appetite which would have been a problem years ago when she was really thin. But I'm not sure.

The drool speculation is starting to make sense though. If for no other reason than an explanation for the weird texture/smell. Although the volume and her history sort of out weigh it. I've never heard of mass sleep drooling in an otherwise non-drooly dog