BITCH INCONTINENCE – LIGHT ON A RAINY DAY  😉

‘Sorry! I can’t help it…..!!!’

This is a very common problem, especially in spayed bitches. Mallie was not affected with the problem at all, until after she was spayed. I will always kick myself, as she had a C-Section for her last litter, and really I should have spayed her at the same time, but I didn’t fancy the idea right then (thought she had enough to cope with!), but, possibly the two operations, fairly close together, did not help things!

Mallie was five when she was spayed. Fit, competing, working and never a heavy girl anyway. After about four or five months we realised that occasionally the sofa seemed a little damp after she had laid on it of an evening. Or, the vet bed in her basket in the kennel slightly whiffed of wee.

I would wash her bedding, and think nothing of it, then it would occur again just a few days later. Finally, a couple of days in a row, when I went to work, she would let herself into our bedroom and sleep on our bed, sometimes only for half hour, but there was a definate wet patch where she had been. Soaked right through the duvet – nice!!  😉

I took her to the vets to discuss, and they advised me that unless it was a problem seriously affecting her life or very unpleasant for us, we should consider, for a year or two, living with it, because once on medication, it would be for the rest of her life. So we went away, changed her to sleeping back out in the kennels again (in the height of luxury, I’ll stress here!) and made certain no doors were left open to bedrooms if she was in the house.

I suppose it was maybe 18 months we plodded on, until even though it didn’t distress HER unduly, she is not hugely the sensitive sort like that (although some bitches do get most distressed about being aware they have ‘wet’ themselves) it was starting to get unmanageable if she was ever in the house, and she started to leak a bit even when she wasn’t asleep from time to time, just laying down.

I was a little upset at starting her on lifelong medication for anything, but it was inevitable. We started her on Propalin syrup, twice a day in her food. She took it well, no apparent side effects, and literally within a couple of days, the wetting had stopped.

We had a choice of 30ml bottles and 100ml bottles, which were about £13.00 or £35.00 respectively. We started with a 100ml one. I cannot say enough about the change in her in this area. Never a drip! Try and I might, even when she fell into really deep sleeps, I couldn’t find a trace of the old problem.

After a couple of months, I took the plunge and reduced her down to one dose a day. And held my breath…. and nothing! Which is really fantastic. We have been on one dose a day, of a slightly smaller doseage than suggested by the vet, and for months she has been dry. Which really is a relief in many ways….

* Its a horrible problem to think about all the time.

* There are only so many times you can wash bedding daily or scrub the sofa cushions (Have you ever TRIED getting cushion covers back on foam cushions…. OH MY GOD!)

* Her dose is pretty low, and, even if it is for the rest of her life, and I fully appreciate she may need the dose ‘upped’ at some point, its nowhere near as much as I thought in terms of medical intrusion.

* You can play with the dose to take it as low as is useful to your individual bitch.

So all in all, its been something that felt like a weight over our heads in the months leading up to ‘giving in’ and putting her on meds. But now, there is no looking back and shes like a new woman!  😉

Di  –  Nov 2010