Our 13 year old Heinz 57 started losing her bowels about a year ago. We took her to the vet and they ran tests that all came back normal, made a few suggestions and prescribed Proin. None of it worked, so we discontinued the Proin (a lot of possible side effects and no benefit) and just dealt with it because she has solid BMs 99.99% of the time, we have hardwood and tile floors and we're both working at home, so we can catch it quickly and clean up after her. Over the last year the incidents have become much more frequent, but thankfully she only poops once a day, so once it's it of the way, we know we're good for about 18 hours and can go about our normal lives.
A couple of months ago she started losing her bladder. It just happened a couple of time the first month, so we didn't think too much of it. We passed it off as our fault for not letting her out often enough or her getting overly excited, just like we did when she started losing her bowels. Then it started happening more frequently - sometimes when she was excited, sometimes 5 minutes after she had been let back in after being outside for 20 minutes. One day a couple of weeks ago she peed in the house 3 times. She used to let us know when she wanted out, but now she gives no indication that she needs to pee or poop and we haven't been able to identify a tell. Sometimes she'll be passed out cold, snoring, and will wake herself up pooping.
We went back to the vet and they ran more tests which, according to the vet, came back shockingly clean given her age. They prescribed Proin again and said that if it doesn't work our next options are a vitamin b12 shot once a week or diapers. I doubt that she is the kind of dog we can give shots to - she's very high strung and anxious and immediately resorts to biting - but we may be able to manage it if we approach it correctly in the beginning and adopt a similar method to the one we use when we cut her nails (covering her eyes like a horse), but we haven't asked what the cost would be yet, so I don't know if this is a long term solution for us. Putting her in diapers would probably go very badly because anytime she feels like she's being restrained or singled out she lashes out and if she lashes out once, she'll escalate everytime after that.
I think there are surgies, but we're not in a place financially that would allow us to pay thousands of dollars for anything. My FIL suggested that we sequester her in a room instead of kenneling her when we aren't home, but this would be highly unsanitary, require regular deep cleaning, and the only room we could feasibly sequester her in contains our pantry, which we can't secure and she can't be trusted in unsupervised for long periods of time. Obviously, letting it go like we did the BMs is not an option. She tends to pee as she's walking and there's a lot of it. Plus, it's hard to find all of it.
The vet told us to wait a week to see if the Proin works, but we're already 4 days in and she's peed in the house twice today, so I'm not getting my hopes up. In the long term, this isn't good for her, our other animals, our house, or us. We can't take her anywhere because it's a guarantee she will poop or pee, we have to keep all stimulation to a minimum and with things starting to reopen where we live, we won't be home all day to keep an eye on her and clean up after her anymore.
We're going to explore the vitamin b12 shots, but if that doesn't pan out, it doesn't work, or we can't manage her, the next option we see is euthanasia. We hate that it might come to that just because she's peeing in the house, so I'm here to ask if anyone has any advice or has had a similar experience that could help us? Is there an option that we don't know about/haven't seen/haven't considered? I know euthanasia elicits strong and negative reactions, but if you can't be kind and productive when I'm asking for help, please just move on. I just don't want to play the 'what if' game for the rest of my life.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/mpt827/dog_losing_bowels_and_bladder_in_house_more_often/
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