Hormone Responsive Incontinence.

[guppyfry]

Keeta is a 70lb GSD/Rott mix, a rescued stray adopted a year ago. She is now around 2 or 3 years old. I had her spayed shortly after adoption. Over the last few weeks, I've noticed that she leaks urine on her blankets when she is lying down or sleeping. Her housebreaking has been very reliable all this time, no accidents on the carpets except for the other night. I had a vet appointment to check for a bladder infection, and the test results came up clear. The vet believes that she has Hormone Responsive Incontinence - quite common with spayed females, it seems. The condition responds well to drug treatments, which I've been researching: either oral estrogen therapy (possible side effects: bone marrow suppression), or phenylpropandamine (PPA), numerous but rare side effects, including heart problems), or a combination of both both therapies.

Okay, I consider myself a medication minimalist, and the idea of giving Keeta anyone of these medications is alarming. Does anyone have any knowledge or experience about treating this type of incontinence? Are there any natural/nutritional therapies worth a try?

So far, her leaking is not of great concern to me. I only occassionally find wet spots, and she may go for several days without any problems. I'm willing to live with the problem as it is. One worry is that this may be something that gets worse as she gets older, in which case I would want to initiate treatment.

I'm doing Schutzhund training with Keeta, I worry that long-term effects of these medications may affect her ability as a working dog.

If anyone out there has a dog with Hormone Responsive Incontinence, I would love to hear how it has affected you, and what treatment options you decided to use, and why.

Thanks, I really don't know what to do at this point. Natural/Nutritional therapies would be my treatment of choice.

[Rubyhead]

One of my female rotts began 'leaking' around 2 or 3 yo. After going through all the same test as you have done we were presented with the same options. We decided to go with the phenylpropandamine because we could find a theraputic level at which to medicate her. For instance she doesn't have any breakthrough leaking on one dose a week. So as long as we give her one pill a week, she's set. But if we forget we'll soon see puddles.

Also in our experience it did become worse as time went on, it progressed to the point where I could see it driping out of her. No matter how 'little' the leakage, it doesn't seem very sanitary to have dog pee, here there and everywhere.

I, too, will be interested to hear what other people have done in this situation.

[BellasMom]

One of our foster dogs has the same problem...she needs to be crated during the day so if left untreated she would have been laying in her own urine all day and that wasn't really an option...she's an older girl, about 7.

We started her on the oral estrogen....once we knew that was a fix we just kept stepping it back to determine how often she needed it...so far 1 tab every 10 days does the trick....the vet says it may need to be increased as she gets older, but she's been on this regimine for 6 months now it's working quite well...don't know about bone density but she hasn't had any other sort of side effects...

Good luck with your girl....

[guppyfry]

Thanks for the responses. Glad to hear that your dogs and fosters are doing well. I guess one pill once a week, or once every 10 days isn't too bad. . .

And no side effects? Did you initially get regular vet monitoring to catch potential problems?

[Rubyhead]

I havn't seen any side effects and it has been quite a few years now.
good luck
niki