We have a Great Dane named Hamlet who is about eight and a half years old. He is small for a Dane (about 130 pounds) and all in all in good health. A while ago I noticed he would sometimes leave a very small wet patch of urine when he got up from sleeping – which is one of his favorite pastimes.
In the last week or so the amount of urine being leaked has gone from about the size of a dime or quarter to being a lot of liquid - enough to soak through the comfortor, blankets and sheets on my bed - and I realize I have to do something. For the last eight years I have been feeding him Pedigree. Is there a switch I can make to his food that would help with puppy incontinence? Any other suggestions?
Great Danes living eight and a half years are similar to humans living ninety or so years. He’s a really old man.
Doggy diapers are sold quite a bit. They’re harder on the males I would think, having to be a bit bigger, and the dogs would chew at them, but it’s really the only thing. If you don’t want to go to Petsmart or wherever and get diapers, make sure you take him outside every two hours at least to go. I don’t think it would be a sign of anything wrong with his kidneys or bladder, just that he’s monstrously old.
Do not switch his food this late in life. He could get very sick on you, and that’s not good at his age.
The same thing happened with my 12-year-old shepherd. After a thorough exam, the vet determined it was just weak sphincter muscles caused by age. She prescibed phenylpropanolamine HCL which did the trick. We started at the prescribed dose and then slowly backed off to about half that (as instructed by the vet), and the mutt is fine. No side effects and no more incontinence.
I’ll second Violet’s recommendation to see a vet first. I hope Hamlet needs nothing more than this.
Dogs, just like people, can suffer from incontinence as they get older, the cause, just like in humans, can be from many different reasons.
Depending on that cause (I’m not a vet, so I won’t try to ascertain what the cause is), there are medications that can be given to curb the leakage in some cases. Otherwise, there are “doggy diapers”, and padded beds that are sold in some pet stores.
Could be a urinary tract infection, too. Our dog started leaking when she was about seven, and we took her to the vet who prescibed antibiotics. The leaking stopped in a few days and never returned.
Get thee to a vet. The vet will give you advice that no one here is qualified to give.