Beagle behavior problem

Question
Kristin--We rescued our beagle, Maggie, four years ago. She's probably around 10, but not sure. The problem is seemingly excessive thirst, wanting to go out about once an hour, and peeing in the house if she can't get our attention or we ignore her request (for instance, if we took her out in the previous hour).

Some background:

She is very docile.
She is crate trained (not by us).
She has been house trained (not by us) and we know she is capable of holding urine.
She knows to go to the back door to go out to pee and poop.
She takes Phenobarbital for seizures.
She has been checked repeatedly for urinary tract and kidney dysfunction, but everything comes back normal. There is nothing wrong with her digestive or urinary systems.
She drinks up to 64 oz. of water, which I think may be too much for her weight.
She is very inactive--she limps and doesn't like going for walks anymore. She sleeps a good part of the day. She is totally disinterested in dog toys.
She will sleep in her crate for about 9 hours at night.

Her routine is as follows: Wakes up in her locked crate at daybreak and starts whining and batting sat the gate, making quite a racket. We let her out, she runs straight for the water bowl. We give her about 1 cup which she drinks very quickly. She runs for the back door to go out. She pees and poops right away, then comes in and has her breakfast (1 cup of Newman's Own dog food) with a little more water. The rest of the day she either sleeps, or she is standing by her water bowl and occasionally barks for water, which we give her because we feel sorry for her. Then she goes to the back door. If we are home all day, the number of times she wants to go out is between 5 and 10 times. Sometimes she goes out and just wants to sniff; if it's been raining or snowing, she wants to drink the rain or eat the snow! We've taken her to the vet several times, and her kidneys and urinary tract check out fine every time, so this has got to be behavioral. How do we stop the cycle of her wanting to be let out at least once an hour? If we don't let her out, she pees on the floor, and I think it's her way of protesting, but we need to break this cycle of constantly wanting to go out.

I suspect we are giving her more water than she needs. I would like to re-train her so that she goes out no more than 3-4 times a day:  first thing in the morning, when we arrive home after school and work (around 3 p.m.), after her dinner (around 6), and then right before bed around 9:30. Does that sound unreasonable? I'd also like to get her to be quiet until we are up in the morning and ready to let her out.

We are miserable--because of this behavior (both the peeing, and waking too early), we are all frustrated and not feeling too kindly toward her. She is not a lovable sweet thing anymore, more like just another chore. I hate feeling this way about a dog--I know she can't help it and it's up to us to change things. I just don't know what to do. We have been on the verge of giving her back to the rescue organization, but can't bring ourselves to do it.

Any advice would be so very much appreciated.

Thank you very much for being available to take questions!

Liz

Answer
Well you may want to reduce her water intake as that my solve problems a lot,and that is a problem with some dogs,just drinking too much therefore they go more often then they need to

And like people,as dogs get older they have a harder time of holding it in-so reducing the water may help for that reason as well

so what might help is to pull water up to two hours before last letting her out,and just giving her tiny amounts like half a cup every 90 minutes or so(you can tweek it to suit your needs)instead of just keeping it down all the time

Now I know you said the vet did check for kidney and urine track problems-but sometimes it is hormonal such as:Diabetes,Cushing's Disease,Addison's Disease and Hypothyroidism,and you may want to ask the vet about those problems if you haven't already as all of those problems cause a dog to drink and pee more often