Old Dog - Urinating problems

My first post so I'd like to say hello to everyone.

I have a 16 year old female English Springer Spaniel. She is suffering from a leaking heart valve and she has multiple medications for this but in general she is well and happy. For the last 6 months, when she goes to sleep I find that she often has urine around her back legs and is laid in it. She has had anti-biotics and recently an untrasound of her organs, blood and urine tests and the vet has given her a clean bill of health. She is very stiff and struggles to get up after laying down and she appears to be in a bit of pain which I assume is athritis and she is currently on Tramadol for pain relief. However, when I put her out in the garden or take her for walks she will not urinate. Has anyone had a similar problem? Is it due to the pain in her back legs or some other problem? Any thoughts would be most welcome...

 

did you have a urinalysis run to rule out a urinary tract infection?
If she's a spayed female it can also just be incontinence and there is a medication for that...can't remember the name of it but your vet would know. It works quickly and is pretty affordable.
I had an older female shepherd who was incontinent and it got to the point where I bought cheap WalMart kid pullup diapers, cut a hole for her tail and she wore those.
Sadie also had liver disease which caused her to leak but before that it was usually a UTI (she was chronic) or simply incontinence due to aging.
i reread your post - you did have a urinalysis done. It's probably just incontinence...i would ask the vet about the drugs for that and diaper her cause the urine can cause some nasty skin burns.

 

i did a search this is the drug
Phenylpropanolamine
and some info
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm ... 34&aid=487

 

Thanks for the responses. Rosie had been on Phenylpropanolamine for 3-4 years and it worked fairly well when she was just a little bit incontinent but it makes little difference now. The period when she wasn't urinating came to an end and she has gone back to being wet most of the time. I am just having to deal with it as best I can making sure she goes out as much as possible, cleaning her up when required, regularly bathing her and having to keep cleaning the carpets in the house. I don't know whether I would feel comfortable putting diapers on her. I have been lucky that she has been such a devoted and loving dog for 16 years and its unfortunate that she's getting so old..