# Peeing in her bed



## rosemaryninja (Sep 28, 2007)

This is really weird.

I've had Honey since she was a puppy. She potty-trained with very few problems (okay, lots of problems, but time has dulled the memory) and will be 9 next month (oh my goodness *sheds tear*). She's been reliably toilet trained ever since.

A couple of months ago, I bought her a new bed. Before that, she slept in baskets lined with blankets and bedsheets. Her new one is more something like this:










About a month after the bed came in, she started peeing in it at night. I don't see her when she sleeps, so I don't know if she actually pees on it while sleeping or actually squats over it, but in the morning it's damp with pee. 

I'm not really sure what to do. She doesn't pee anywhere else that she's not supposed to, and doesn't dribble or leak when lying anywhere else. 

She checked out a few months ago at her last general exam healthy, and is spayed. We brought her to the vet a couple of days ago and asked about incontinence, but he didn't think it was an issue.

Any thoughts? Does this sound medical or behavioural? And if it's behavioural, what should I do?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

rosemaryninja said:


> She checked out a few months ago at her last general exam healthy, and is spayed. We brought her to the vet a couple of days ago and asked about incontinence, but he didn't think it was an issue.


I don't know why he would think that. Unless I had some indication it was something else, its the most logical conclusion. It's not unusual for an elderly female dog to have incontinence. My 8 1/2yo Great Dane Abby has just started having this problem. It is always when she is asleep and never has any accidents or pees in inappropriate places when she is awake.

The vet prescribed a drug that I can't read on the label because the label is torn but it ends in "...rin". My wife says it's a human female hormone pill. I was told to give her a pill every day for a week, then give a pill once a week after that. It helped a lot. After she had a few more incidents, I decided to have her a pill on saturdays and wednesdays instead of one a week and no problems since then. I had to get his pill at the human drug store.



> Any thoughts? Does this sound medical or behavioural? And if it's behavioural, what should I do?


Unless you know anything that indicates otherwise, definately medical. If you get up in the morning and notice the wet spot assume she peed in her sleep. If she gets up from a nap and you see a wet spot, assume she peed in her sleep.


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## rosemaryninja (Sep 28, 2007)

Honey's still asking to go out when she needs to pee, and she never dribbles. I think that's why the vet dismissed incontinence. I guess -- and this is going to sound really ignorant -- I didn't think she was old enough to be incontinent. 

Will she have to be on medication for the rest of her life?


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

rosemaryninja said:


> I didn't think she was old enough to be incontinent.


To be completely honest, an 8 1/2 year old Great Dane is much older than your dog is at 9 years. A Dane's life expectancy is 7 - 10 years.



> Will she have to be on medication for the rest of her life?


I assume so, but as of now, its only 2 times a week.


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## rosemaryninja (Sep 28, 2007)

RawFedDogs said:


> To be completely honest, an 8 1/2 year old Great Dane is much older than your dog is at 9 years. A Dane's life expectancy is 7 - 10 years.


I know, which is why I was so surprised. I didn't think she would have any chance of being incontinent till she was maybe 12 or 13.


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## LucyGoosy (Mar 19, 2008)

When one of my collies got older, she started actually peeing on her dog bed but no where else in the house--she would go over there, do the nesting/scratching thing on the bed, then squat and pee. The vet couldn't find anything physically wrong with her, and the only thing she could suggest was that she was that she felt the urge to pee when she was in the same room and she couldn't hold it long enough to walk outside (dog door leading to fenced yard). Another thought I had was that she was getting a little demented in her old age (started around 10 yrs old) and thought if she peed there, it wasn't peeing in her actual house, since she had rarely used the dog bed for an actual bed (used the couch or a chair to rest on instead), and it was the only thing on the floor. It was very strange. 

My other collie became a little incontinent when she got older and would leak in her sleep. I noticed the difference between her and my other one because she would dribble on her butt/leg hair and it would smell. The other one didn't smell because it didn't get on her hair. The vet put her on Proin for the incontinence and it worked like a charm for 2 more years until she died.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

Spay incontinence is fairly common, too, and can happen at any age. I know some people use natural supplemts to control the leaking....parsley or alfalfa or something like that.


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## JustTess (Mar 19, 2008)

The older schnauzer mix I watched used to pee just as she was waking from a deep sleep. She was about 12 years old and she was already showing signs of aging (long deep sleeps, confusion, loosing hearing). She would go outside as normal when awake, though, we learned to get a washable pad for her to do her long sleeps on.


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