I have an elderly dog who has to urinate immediately after he wakes up. He’s usually still asleep when I get up at six in the morning, so I can let him out as soon as he wakes up. More and more often, though, he wakes up earlier and pees on the floor by the back door before I get up. As long as someone lets him out and makes sure he actually pees every four hours or so, he’s fine, but no one really wants to get up at two a.m. to let the dog out.
I’ve had a couple of people tell me that they’ve had luck using dog diapers. My dog is pretty big, about 60 lbs or so, and he’s male, so from what I’ve seen, I’d be able to use the wrap style. Does anyone have any recommendations? Any suggestions about alternate approaches? I’ve tried putting down “pee pads” over the treated spot, but he tends to go right at the edge of the pad, which still soaks the carpet. He’s a bright dog, although not quite as sharp as he used to be, but I don’t know that we can train him to pee inside in a specific spot after all these years of training him to go out.
The dog is 14 years old now and, aside from some arthritis, he seems pretty happy. I really don’t want to end up putting him down over what is essentially a behavioral issue, but I’m also not willing to clean the carpet every morning before work. I’d welcome any advice from people who’ve dealt with this issue before.
Have you had him vet checked? It doesn’t sound like a behavioral issue, since you don’t say that he’s had this problem all 14 years; it sounds like a medical issue (which could be as simple as old age).
You can limit water intake at night, and couple that with a late night (rather than extremely early morning) let-out. In my experience, diapers are more useful for ‘dribbling’ issues related to incontinence rather than a full-on urination, so I don’t know how helpful you’d find them. There are large puppy pads (or you can double them up), or ‘fake grass’ type pads for bigger dogs that you can try, but honestly before investing any significant money I’d get him to a vet to find the underlying issue.
My brother had an elderly bulldog with urination problems, and he let it go on WAY longer than it needed to because he couldn’t stand the thought of putting down his dog. Meanwhile he ignored the fact that the dog was miserable because he spent hours confined to a small area of the kitchen while everyone was at school/work, and no dog likes to be where it pees. I’m not implying that you need to put your dog down right now, but definitely don’t dismiss this as a potentially significant health and wellness issue.
I’ll second that. We have a friend with an older dog that was put on medication that tightens the urinary sphincter muscle. The dog strains a little for urination, but has stopped having accidents.
Whoops! That’s a pretty significant thing I forgot to mention!
We see the vet pretty frequently, and she doesn’t think he has any treatable conditions. He had a urinary tract infection earlier this year, and she treated that with antibiotics, but she told me then that he’s likely to have a weakened bladder sphincter. His liver and kidney functions have been in decline for the past year or two, so she doesn’t recommend restricting water at night. He’s not diabetic (yet), but we’re keeping a close eye on him. So far, all the signs point to him just being pretty damn old.
Now that you mention it, he hasn’t actually seen the vet since September, and three months isn’t an insignificant amount of time in an old dog’s life. Thanks for the reminder!
At 14 years old,I think you owe it to this dog to let him out as needed.It sounds as if you have other family members present…and I’m assuming you all use the bathroom during the Nite…let the dog out then???
I have an 11 year old lab that recently started having incontinence issues. She would wake up from sleeping with a little puddle (not a full-size accident) left behind. I have had good results using Corn Silk supplement.
They make medication for incontinence, but after reading some of the side effects I decided to try Corn Silk supplements (Google it to read about benefits for bladder issues). A lot of people online said they had success treating canine incontinence with them. Some people find them in the natural supplements section of the store, but I just ordered them from Amazon. They come in a container of little clear-coated pills full of the powdered Corn Silk. I just break apart two pills and sprinkle it over her food every day, and that has helped tremendously.
We’ve discussed this and haven’t ruled it out. There are a few complications:
We have a two-story house with all the bedrooms upstairs, and the dog stays downstairs (it was a huge relief when he stopped trying to climb the stairs to hang out with us, since his balance isn’t good and I was really afraid he’d end up falling). So, unless someone sleeps downstairs on the couch every night, we can’t know when he wakes up and has to go out.
Unless we set a schedule, it’s quite possible that someone would get up to let the dog out two or three times a night without the other people knowing. Alternately, it’s just as possible that no one would get up. This means it would make sense, if we decide to do it, for someone to set an alarm for a specific time.
Two of us have insomnia, and we take sleeping pills as necessary. I’m a little worried that if we get in the habit of waking up in the middle of the night, we’ll end up making our sleep problems worse.
I’m also a little concerned that we might end up making the dog’s problem worse by essentially training him to wake up in the middle of the night to pee. I think the problem’s gotten worse this week because our night-owl daughter was visiting and she’d let him out right before she went to bed in the wee hours (ha!) of the night.
This may be my solution for the next two nights, until the vet can see him and reassess the situation.
If he’s going to the door, that means he knows he has to go and he’s trying to do the right thing. Poor baby. Good dog.
You might try teaching him that it’s ok to go on a puppy whiz pad - but he’s a little old to relearn at this point. It could be worth a try. Put the pad by the door and praise him for using it.
Diapers would work from a standpoint of not getting urine all over the joint but it might confuse him into thinking it was ok to go in the house. Whiz pads are the best, if you can get him to use them.
Could you put in a doggy door? Otherwise, the answer is, someone should let him out on a schedule. Maybe the insomniacs can get up earlier and the non-insomniacs can let him out later.
I know he’s trying to do the right thing. I probably shouldn’t use the word “behavioral” to describe the problem, because he’s still the same well-mannered boy he’s always been (well, since the 3 solid years of early training, anyway). He’s just an old gentleman who can’t always manage to carry on the way he wants to. I’ll keep keep on putting down pads and figure out how to juggle sleep schedules if the vet can’t help out medically. We thought about putting in a doggy door, but a door big enough to accommodate the dog would also allow smallish humans in. We also have an escape artist indoor cat who would inevitably take advantage of that golden opportunity.
And in the interest of fairness, since participants in a cat thread would have been clamoring for pictures by now, here are a couple.
Update (since I know everyone’s been waiting breathlessly): We saw the vet this morning, and it looks like his bladder infection is creeping back in. She found some “rods” in his urine - not a lot, but enough for her to prescribe a course of antibiotics. Thank you all for the reminder that an old pet’s health needs to be followed pretty closely.
In other news, we finally put down enough square footage of potty pads that he hit the middle of them instead of the edge! Things are looking up all around.
