Female dogs,spaying, and incontinence.

[Dobified]

I read somewhere ( I think it was Dogs in Canada )that if you spay a female dog to early in life, ( I think it was before 1.5 yrs old and she is maiden, you run the risk of her having incontinence issues. Anyone else heard of this ?

Reason I am asking is my female Jenna never had puppies and was spayed at about a year, she had gone through one heat cycle. Now she is having trouble at night when she sleeps, she sometimes pee's the dog bed. This is a majow reason why we do not let her sleep on the bed. ( she has pee'd that too ). Poor Jenna.

Can anyone give me more info and what I can do to help her ? Advice is very welcome.

[SouthPaw]

I hope not as Stella got spayed yesterday. The poor little dear is out of it. I just gave her a dose of pain drops and she was literally falling asleep on her feet.
I have heard that spayed females have problems later in life more so than average but then there are many health benefits in spaying plus no unwanted puppies. How old is Jenna now? Chelsea had some trouble in her last year but she was 13-14 and I don't think accidents would be uncommon. She was also deaf and a very sound sleeper.

[Moo]

I know that incontinence is often linked to spay, but I have never heard of an age relation.

Here's a bit of a site... it basically sums up that they think it's due to low estrogen levels.

juhen incontinence results from loss of urethral sphincter tone, the disorder is known as sphincter incompetence. The causes of sphincter incompetence are unclear. The disorder can occur in male and female dogs of any age or breed. The most striking feature of urethral sphincter incompetence, however, is that the overwhelming majority of cases are spayed *******. The onset of incontinence can take place immediately after surgery or many years later. In most cases, incontinence is observed about three years after spaying. Obviously, the underlying mechanism of incontinence in these dogs must be related to ovariohysterectomy. Some veterinary urologists believe the culprit is low post-surgical estrogen concentrations. This is supported by the finding that many affected ******* respond to estrogen therapy. However, the theory doesn't explain why some ******* become incontinent after spaying and others don't. It also doesn't explain why pregnant ******* (with high progesterone and low estrogen levels) don't become incontinent.

[Love_My_Labs]

I have heard of this by many of my friends who have or have had female dogs. And in each case the vet prescribed Sudafed believe it or not. I guess it tightens up the stomach area and helps "fill" that empty space where the uterus used to be.



It's funny that you have mentioned this, cause I plan on speaking to my vet to pay extra to see if I can just have Emma's tubes tied, somewhat like we women do to prevent unwanted babies.



I'm not sure if that's possible, but I do plan to ask for sure, only cause I don't want to have to deal with it or cause my dog un-needed problems.



My cousin had a Shepard and after her 3 years of continuous incontinence and her dog was actually embarrassed and actually started to hide all the time she had to have her put to sleep. The older she got the worse it got.

Maybe I'm being selfish, but I plan on looking into other options when it comes time for Emma to be fixed. But I don't want her to have to go through what Nikki, my cousin's dog had to go through with.

I wish you the best of luck, but talk to your vet and see if he or she would reccomned the Sudafed. I know that it has worked for several of my friends dogs.

[Love_My_Labs]

Here is a little bit of information that I found that supports the Sudafed theory:



Treating incontinence in dogs

Question: Dear Dr; I have a dog with spayed female incontinence. For over a year I have treated her with ppa (acutrim) with total success. Unfortunately, this drug is now unavailable. Hormonal tx is out of the question since she has liver disease. My vet has no answer for me, and I am at my wit's end. Any suggestions? Thanks in
advance Annette


Answer: Annette-

I am sorry for the delay in replying to your question. There are several medications that are currently
being used to treat incontinence in dogs in an effort to find one that replaces phenylpropanolamine
(PPA). They are:

1) Diethylstilbestrol (DES), which is a synthetic form of estrogen. There is some fear of bone marrow
suppression when using DES but I do no recall ever experiencing this problem in practice, so I
presume it is rare. I know of no reason that DES can not be used when there are changes in liver
function, but your vet may know something that I do not. DES is currrently only available from
compounding pharmacies but all the ones that we deal with have it, so it is readily available.

2) Imipramine (Tofranil Rx), a tricyclic antidepressant, causes urine retention in some patients treated
with it, so it is being used in the hopes this effect will occur in patients with incontinence. Initial
reports are encouraging, but that is often the case when people are looking for a substitute for a
medication and want to have good results.

3) Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed tm) causes similar effects to phenylpropanolamine but has not been
used extensively. The dosage is 30mg for small dogs and 60mg for big dogs. I have been using 30
lbs. of bodyweight as the dividing line between large and small. I have not had enough reports back
from owners yet to know if this is working at all.

4) Some compounding pharmacies still have phenylpropanolamine powder and can custom make
capsules with the appropriate dose for a patient who needs this medication. It is worth calling around
to the various compouding pharmacies (or checking online for veterinary compounding pharmacies)
to see if one of them has this medication. Your vet should know of some of these, as well. There are
several that advertise nationally.

Good luck with this. I hope that one of these suggestions is helpful if you have not already found a
solution to the problem.

Mike Richards, DVM
1/8/2001

[GretaJack]

I have heard that spaying early can cause incontinence, but there is controversy over what is considered early.

Also, just a thought, as far as tube tying, I don't know if it can be done or not, but my guess is that you are still going to run the risk of having other health issues that are related to not having a dog spayed, such as pyometria, uterine cancer, etc. Personally, I would take the chance on incontinence to prevent something more severe from happening

[Dobified]

Congrats on reaching 2000 post there GretaJack !!!!


So, I guess a trip to the vet may be in order. I don't feel comfortable just giving her sudafed, although I think that is a great thing to be able to do. I want to make sure she has this problem. Although it is pretty obvious, she may have it.

She is also a licker when she is nervous. She will lick until the dog bed she is lying on or whatever she is lying on are soaked. But when she pee's there is way more wetness.

Poor Jenna is a bit of a nervous girl from her previous abuse she suffered before we got her. That may also be a reason.

Any other ideas, thoughts ?

[GretaJack]

We had a boxer in last week with the same problem as jenna. She was put on the PPA but had side effects and now they are trying the DES. But I would definitely get her checked out by a vet.

[Ken Nielsen]

So we can't post the word B i t c h e s on the dog forums, this seems to be ok on a forum about dogs. Anyway, my little Buttercup, at 9 months, woke up in the motel room we were staying at in the middle of the night and both her an Honey Bee barked their heads off for a minute at somebody coming in late at night across the hall. After they were done, I noticed she peed about a quart of water (felt like it any way) on the bed. Good thing it was a King sized bed and I could move to the side that was still dry. I thought it might have been just because she was new to our family coming from an abusive situation, and the barking excited her emotionally to the point where the pee was scared out of her. This was before I had her spayed.

Night before last, just 14 days since she was spayed and now about 10 months old, she came in after our evening walk, drank some water, and proceeded to pee on the other of twin beds I have. I caught it when it happened and was able to just throw the cover blanket into the tub with no harm done, and wash it the next day.

The point I want to make here is to set a time at night where the water dish is picked up and not accessible to the dogs. I think this will help the situation where, both times, there was water always available and accidents have happened. With my other dog, Honey Bee, she was spayed at 6 months and never has had an accident in the house at any time, with water always available, and with her getting up at any time of the night and drinking like a horse.

Different dog make-ups and personalities I think has something to do with it also.

I think not having water available in the evening, after the last outdoor time, should cure Buttercup's problem.

We will see.

[daisysmom]

I had Daisy spayed at 6 months which was the age the vet recommended to me. She has never had a problem and can last through the night for 9 hours or better. I guess it just depends on the dog. Maybe I am just lucky and she will have a problem later??? I hope not.