# Puppy incontinence of sorts?



## Winterlily (Oct 13, 2010)

I've had Molly for about 5 weeks now - she's now 16 weeks old. Since I've had her, she's occasionally (by no means all the time) urinated while sleeping. She doesn't wake up, she doesn't move off the wet spot. I only know it happened when she gets up, moves, I see the wet spot, and her bottom end is all wet. She's even done it while sleeping on me (!). She also has to pee an awful lot - much more than I think is normal for this age. (I'm a dog trainer, so I've dealt with a lot of pups this age.) I don't mean that the volume of pee is a lot, it's not - I mean that she has to go out much more frequently than I'd expect at 4 months old. She's still needing to go out nearly every hour while she's awake. Though I CAN leave her crated for a max of about 3 hours occasionally, without her going. Example of frequency: A couple of days ago, she went out and peed. Came in and started playing with my son. They were not running around crazy, just playing tug-o-war etc and about 10 minutes later before I could get to her (my fault entirely), she peed in the house - a lot. I cleaned it up and got her out again (what, like 2 minutes later), and she peed AGAIN. I don't think there has ever been a time I've taken her out that she's not peed. She's not sort of marking or holding a bunch back I don't think - it doesn't seem like it. A urine sample was checked at the vet, and they said there is a SMALL amount of elevated white blood cells that normally they'd just attribute to having come from the skin (because obviously it wasn't a "clean catch" type thing), but since she has symptoms, they want me to give her 10 days of antibiotic (clavamox) - which I'm doing. The vet said if it's not that, they're going to want to do imaging studies to make sure all the internal urinary anatomy is right especially because of the peeing while asleep. (FWIW, she does NOT dribble urine, thankfully.)

What do you all think about this? Anyone had this before? The breeder said she's just dreaming and pees during her dream and will grow out of it, but the vet disagrees. I haven't a clue. In 20 something years of working with dogs, I've never had nor known a pup to do the peeing-while-asleep thing.

Any thoughts? (By the way, if it matters, she came to me with Giardia and we treated her with Flagyl - in 2 weeks she'll be tested again to make sure, hopefully, that's gone. And she had - still has in one - decent yeast infections in her ears, also being treated with drops. Not sure that has anything to do with the urination thing, but just in case, I thought I'd mention it.)

Thanks!


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

Might be that she has the equivalent of cystitis (bladder infection), which would mean she often needs to urinate because the infection irritates the inside of her bladder and her urethral sphincter. If she's wetting herself in her sleep, it's enuresis and not the normal puppy problem of weeing in an inappropriate place or wetting herself out of excitement. It could also be that there is a problem with the muscle tone in her urethral sphincter or there is an anatomical problem with her bladder or the pressure in it.

The only other thing I can think of is if she has been spayed. I have read some research about spaying very young bitches that was done in a shelter, and there was a much higher risk of urinary disruption when the dogs were so young, possibly because their bodies were so small and the procedure disrupted their anatomy in that area too much. Older spayed bitches can sometimes have urinary incontinence that can be fixed with HRT, but this won't be the problem with your puppy.

It sounds like the vet is doing the right things, and I hope they find out soon what the problem is and she stops weeing on you.


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## Winterlily (Oct 13, 2010)

Thanks Zyrcona. I'm hoping it's as "simple" as an infection. (And just for the record, nope, she's not spayed yet.)

If there's a muscle tone problem, what do they do for that and how is it even diagnosed? I know how they'll look for anatomical ureter problems etc and roughly what they'd want to do to try to fix it, but if it's just ... well, "just" ... a muscle tone issue, what then?


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## lilypoo (Jul 25, 2011)

My border collie mix does this but we don't know why. She will urinate in her sleep and it does wake her up. She was a rescue and was abused, so we have always thought it might be psychological. She was on a med for it when she was being fostered prior to me getting her, but we trialed her without and there really wasn't a difference. I can't remember the name of the med though...was about 7 years ago. She also has accidents when she's startled or excited; not little drips like many dogs will do, but all-out, let the whole bladder go. Again, we have always attributed it to past abuse (not saying your dog was abused but in our case, we know she was).

We've periodically tested her to rule out UTIs and high blood sugar since both can cause issues with frequency.


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## Feathersprings (Jul 15, 2010)

A friend has a lab with that problem from an early spay and she was. Put on a hormone as I remember to correct the problem.


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

Winterlily said:


> Thanks Zyrcona. I'm hoping it's as "simple" as an infection. (And just for the record, nope, she's not spayed yet.)
> 
> If there's a muscle tone problem, what do they do for that and how is it even diagnosed? I know how they'll look for anatomical ureter problems etc and roughly what they'd want to do to try to fix it, but if it's just ... well, "just" ... a muscle tone issue, what then?


If it is a muscle tone problem, she is still very young and this sort of thing often corrects itself with time and practice. The situation is similar to a young child who wets the bed and occasionally wets himself/herself while awake, which wouldn't necessarily be a cause for concern in a human. If there is something the matter with her bladder, the vet may be able to correct it with surgery or medicine. At this point I wouldn't worry too much about it as long as it's not an infection. Make sure she has something to sleep on that you can wash easily and see if time resolves it. It sounds very much like she is wetting herself (if she's doing it in her sleep and not squatting in a normal wee position when it happens, then it's involuntary and she's not in control of it) so it's not necessary to punish her, and probably best to distract her while you clean it up.


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## Winterlily (Oct 13, 2010)

Zyrcona: No, of course I'd never punish her for it any more than I'd punish my 5 year old son when the same thing occasionally happens to him! I just, as you say, give her a new toy to bounce around with, and I clean up.

Mama & Feathersprings: Thanks! Nope, she most certainly was never abused, and wasn't spayed early (or at all yet), so it's not spay incontinence. And yup - she's been tested for high sugar even though the vet said it's exceedingly uncommon to find diabetes in a young pup like this. 

Sounds stupid, but here's hoping it's "just" an infection - the meds should make this a non-issue if so!


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## Winterlily (Oct 13, 2010)

Just an update of sorts. Molly just finished her 10 days of antibiotic, and in that time, hasn't done the pee-in-her-sleep thing and SEEMS a bit better able to hold it while awake. Hoping not to jinx myself here, but hoping this was it and the meds took care of it. <fingers tightly crossed> A bit early to say for sure, but...


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