I am sorry for all of your troubles with Lucy. I hope someone can help you here. I am not that person. But had to tell you the picture of Lucy is just adorable! I love all of the balls around her!
Need advise on puppy peeing issue. (Medical issue not Training)
I had been on here a while ago researching so problems we were having with our pup Lucy. She basically has no bladder control and will leak out whenever she needs with no warning.
She will wake up wet if left to sleep and will start to leak if she doesn't go out soon after drinking water. She does not squat and go inside just leaks out.
She is basically house trained in the sense that she knows its wrong to go inside. She will ask to go out and do her business when number 2 is involved but when it comes to peeing she has to be brought out. we have to watch her and see if she's starting to leak and then take her out. Almost as if she doesn't feel that she has to go. She knows the potty command at this point and will squat and do her thing as soon as you ask her outside.
She has been treated for possible bladder infections a couple times with different antibiotics. We gave her time to grow out of it so to speak and there has not been much improvement.
Currently for the past 3 weeks she has been on a medication called Proin. It works for her and she stays dry pretty much all the time. She still won't ask to go outside to pee for some reason but she stays dry when inside. I really really don't like he on the medicine. She is very lethargic on it to the point that I want her to nip at us or beg for food. She did get used to the meds and perk up a little but still not acting like a normal 5 month golden should act. She has been holding her bladder longer now as in 1.5 hours instead of 20 minutes and she can hold it through the night. But still she doesn't let us know when it's time to go we just are on a habitual schedule of taking her out to pee.
The idea of the pills is supposedly to help expand her bladder and train the muscles to function properly on their own. Unfortunately it is hard to tell of they are working enough to be able to take her off of them. We have tried to move her to one pill a day per the Vets instructions and she starts to leak again at night. The vet put her back on two a day for now and we are waiting to talk to him again on Friday. The leaking when on one pill a day wasn't as bad it seemed as before she was on the pills but we were told if shes still leaking to keep her on 2 a day for now.
I don't trust the Proin and have read some not so good reviews of the stuff but most complications from it seem to be in older dogs. Still I do not want her on it any longer than she has to be.
I have read a bunch about these symptoms and not to much has been promising. I am thinking we need to take her to see a specialist but don't really know where to find one. I also really need to find an alternative treatment other than the proin. I have seen things ranging from herbal to acupuncture for dogs. Unfortunately I don't know exactly what is going on with her so i'm not sure where to turn.
She is such a sweet pup and we can tell she doesn't know what is going on when she leaks. The pills have made it manageable and at least she's not getting 5 baths a day now. We just want her to feel better and be a healthy young pup. I worry about her developing the right way and if there are going to be any problems with spaying later on. I have heard that spaying incontinence is fairly common and we didn't even get to that part yet.
If anyone has any advise or experience with these types of problems your input would be greatly appreciated. We want to follow all avenues of treatment and try to make the right decisions along the way.
Thank you
She will wake up wet if left to sleep and will start to leak if she doesn't go out soon after drinking water. She does not squat and go inside just leaks out.
She is basically house trained in the sense that she knows its wrong to go inside. She will ask to go out and do her business when number 2 is involved but when it comes to peeing she has to be brought out. we have to watch her and see if she's starting to leak and then take her out. Almost as if she doesn't feel that she has to go. She knows the potty command at this point and will squat and do her thing as soon as you ask her outside.
She has been treated for possible bladder infections a couple times with different antibiotics. We gave her time to grow out of it so to speak and there has not been much improvement.
Currently for the past 3 weeks she has been on a medication called Proin. It works for her and she stays dry pretty much all the time. She still won't ask to go outside to pee for some reason but she stays dry when inside. I really really don't like he on the medicine. She is very lethargic on it to the point that I want her to nip at us or beg for food. She did get used to the meds and perk up a little but still not acting like a normal 5 month golden should act. She has been holding her bladder longer now as in 1.5 hours instead of 20 minutes and she can hold it through the night. But still she doesn't let us know when it's time to go we just are on a habitual schedule of taking her out to pee.
The idea of the pills is supposedly to help expand her bladder and train the muscles to function properly on their own. Unfortunately it is hard to tell of they are working enough to be able to take her off of them. We have tried to move her to one pill a day per the Vets instructions and she starts to leak again at night. The vet put her back on two a day for now and we are waiting to talk to him again on Friday. The leaking when on one pill a day wasn't as bad it seemed as before she was on the pills but we were told if shes still leaking to keep her on 2 a day for now.
I don't trust the Proin and have read some not so good reviews of the stuff but most complications from it seem to be in older dogs. Still I do not want her on it any longer than she has to be.
I have read a bunch about these symptoms and not to much has been promising. I am thinking we need to take her to see a specialist but don't really know where to find one. I also really need to find an alternative treatment other than the proin. I have seen things ranging from herbal to acupuncture for dogs. Unfortunately I don't know exactly what is going on with her so i'm not sure where to turn.
She is such a sweet pup and we can tell she doesn't know what is going on when she leaks. The pills have made it manageable and at least she's not getting 5 baths a day now. We just want her to feel better and be a healthy young pup. I worry about her developing the right way and if there are going to be any problems with spaying later on. I have heard that spaying incontinence is fairly common and we didn't even get to that part yet.
If anyone has any advise or experience with these types of problems your input would be greatly appreciated. We want to follow all avenues of treatment and try to make the right decisions along the way.
Thank you
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havent any advice sorry just wanted to say what a gorgeous little girly you have there 
Thank you for the responses. We have her scheduled for an ultra sound this Friday just to make sure all the plumbing is in place where it should be. She has been doing really well this past couple days. I know she is on the medicine but she has been holding it longer than usual and staying dryer than usual. Partly may be because she is getting bigger she is growing sooooo Fast!!!
The vet said that she may need to go through heat to get things working properly. I don't know much about a golden in heat so that should be interesting. Something to do with the hormones helping to get her right. I don't understand what were supposed to do after that with all the spaying incontinence that I have heard of it makes me nervous. I don't want to get her good and then go and mess it up again. :doh:
Hopefully we will have more of an idea what it is on Friday and can take it from there.
Till then here's another pic of the cuteness lol
The vet said that she may need to go through heat to get things working properly. I don't know much about a golden in heat so that should be interesting. Something to do with the hormones helping to get her right. I don't understand what were supposed to do after that with all the spaying incontinence that I have heard of it makes me nervous. I don't want to get her good and then go and mess it up again. :doh:
Hopefully we will have more of an idea what it is on Friday and can take it from there.
Till then here's another pic of the cuteness lol
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I'm glad that things are starting to look up for you and Lucy! It's always a long road to recovery... just hang in there.
Sorry it's been so long since I have posted anything but I just wanted to post a quick update on Lucy.
After additional testing it turns out that Lucy is affected by Juvenile Renal Disease. This is a genetic disease that is affecting the function of both of her kidneys resulting in decreased function. Unfortunately there is no treatment to cure the problem only treatment to make the symptoms less debilitating.
A dye study was performed on our girl to determine if the peeing problems were a "plumbing" issue or if they were something else. At the time we brought her in we were actually hoping that it would turn out to be an ectopic ureter as that can be treated with surgery. Unfortunately during the test they were able to tell that her ureters were in the proper location but that her kidneys were not filtering the dye properly. This finding as well as the lab results confirm that her kidneys did not properly develop and are not going to function properly for a normal time span.
For now Lucy is fine however she is more tired than a normal pup would be. We have been able to regulate her incontinence problem with the Proin pills so she is dry most of the time. She drinks a lot of water to try to help flush the toxins out of her body and that's about it. The prognosis is not so good however. I don't know how we are going to handle it but sooner or later she will stop wanting to eat and drink and her body will start to shut down from there.
The only thing that we can do for her is try to regulate her diet the best we can to take it as easy as possible on her kidneys. We will be trying to formulate a diet that is full of good protein and low in phosphorus as the phosphorus is know to damage the kidneys and the protein breaks down into nitrogenous wastes that the kidneys need to filter out and cant. All this will do is slow the progression of the disease and make her feel better during the process.
In November when we had her tested her BUN levels and Creatinine Levels were borderline at a BUN of around 31mg/dl and a Creatinine around 1.6 mg/dl. We recently had her tested again and the Levels have almost doubled to a BUN of 57 and a Creatinine of 3.1. These represent a change from mild to moderate kidney disease. The disease can get bad when Creatinine levels reach around 5 mg/dl. Our only hope at this point is to slow the progression with diet.
After contacting the breeder it turns out that there are other sick pups from the litter as well. There was another light colored pup that also is incontinent and is showing misshaped kidneys. Also the dog that the breeder decided to keep is showing one bad kidney. My sister has another dog from the litter that has normal blood work but is drinking water excessively so we don't yet know what her status is but she is much better off than Lucy at the moment. The breeder agreed to refund the money and is just as devastated as we are. There is no test for the disease as they do not yet know the genetic markers for many diseases in dogs so there is no way she could have known.
We are devastated to say the least. Lucy is by far the cutest sweetest lil girl and so full of love it is literally amazing. We are going to do everything possible to make her comfortable and happy while she is with us as well as to make sure she is not suffering. Lucy will let us know when she is tired of fighting I'm sure, but we don't expect that that will happen soon as she is a fighter. The scary thing is that this is unfortunately a common disease in dogs and most of the time there are no symptoms until the end. So just in case you haven't given your pup some love today go do it now cause you never know.
After additional testing it turns out that Lucy is affected by Juvenile Renal Disease. This is a genetic disease that is affecting the function of both of her kidneys resulting in decreased function. Unfortunately there is no treatment to cure the problem only treatment to make the symptoms less debilitating.
A dye study was performed on our girl to determine if the peeing problems were a "plumbing" issue or if they were something else. At the time we brought her in we were actually hoping that it would turn out to be an ectopic ureter as that can be treated with surgery. Unfortunately during the test they were able to tell that her ureters were in the proper location but that her kidneys were not filtering the dye properly. This finding as well as the lab results confirm that her kidneys did not properly develop and are not going to function properly for a normal time span.
For now Lucy is fine however she is more tired than a normal pup would be. We have been able to regulate her incontinence problem with the Proin pills so she is dry most of the time. She drinks a lot of water to try to help flush the toxins out of her body and that's about it. The prognosis is not so good however. I don't know how we are going to handle it but sooner or later she will stop wanting to eat and drink and her body will start to shut down from there.
The only thing that we can do for her is try to regulate her diet the best we can to take it as easy as possible on her kidneys. We will be trying to formulate a diet that is full of good protein and low in phosphorus as the phosphorus is know to damage the kidneys and the protein breaks down into nitrogenous wastes that the kidneys need to filter out and cant. All this will do is slow the progression of the disease and make her feel better during the process.
In November when we had her tested her BUN levels and Creatinine Levels were borderline at a BUN of around 31mg/dl and a Creatinine around 1.6 mg/dl. We recently had her tested again and the Levels have almost doubled to a BUN of 57 and a Creatinine of 3.1. These represent a change from mild to moderate kidney disease. The disease can get bad when Creatinine levels reach around 5 mg/dl. Our only hope at this point is to slow the progression with diet.
After contacting the breeder it turns out that there are other sick pups from the litter as well. There was another light colored pup that also is incontinent and is showing misshaped kidneys. Also the dog that the breeder decided to keep is showing one bad kidney. My sister has another dog from the litter that has normal blood work but is drinking water excessively so we don't yet know what her status is but she is much better off than Lucy at the moment. The breeder agreed to refund the money and is just as devastated as we are. There is no test for the disease as they do not yet know the genetic markers for many diseases in dogs so there is no way she could have known.
We are devastated to say the least. Lucy is by far the cutest sweetest lil girl and so full of love it is literally amazing. We are going to do everything possible to make her comfortable and happy while she is with us as well as to make sure she is not suffering. Lucy will let us know when she is tired of fighting I'm sure, but we don't expect that that will happen soon as she is a fighter. The scary thing is that this is unfortunately a common disease in dogs and most of the time there are no symptoms until the end. So just in case you haven't given your pup some love today go do it now cause you never know.
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