Involintary urination

Question
She did bleed and her vulva did swell when she was put on the hormones.  Also, when she first started doing it this summer, her vulva did look a bit swollen to me than it normally does in the fall, winter, and spring.  Also, I saw something on the internet while I was researching that said incontinence can occur from excessive intake of water.  Do you think that that may be the reason?

I hope that helped.
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Followup To

Question -
Hello,

I have a 26 month old lab and pit bull mix.  We have had her since she was 4 weeks old.  We got her fixed when she was about 7 or 8 months old.  Everything was great with her.  She is potty trained and usually doesn't go to the bathroom in the house.  

However, when she was a little over a year she started to urinate while she was lying on the floor or our bed.  We contacted our vet and he said that she didn't have an infection.  He put her on hormones because he thought that her muscles had weaken.  Well, that just put her into heat.  That action also concerned me, so I contacted the vet again and took her in to him.  He said that was normal since she was fixed and was put on hormones.  She was taken off of them and the problem went away, until a year from then.  She is now doing the same thing again.  

I don't know what I should do about this behavior.  I don't want to put her on  hormones again because she went into heat before.  Could this behavior have something to do with the heat.  We live in Northwest Pennsylvania and all through the fall, winter, and spring she is fine.  She goes to the door when she has to go to the bathroom and doesn't leak urine while she is sleeping or lying down.  This is really becoming a problem for my husband and I because we like to have her with us on the couch and when we sleep and we want to get new carpet in our house.  But we don't want to keep having to watch and worry about her leaking on everything.  She is now sleeping in her cage again because of this problem and we would rather let her sleep outside of her cage.  

Also, it seems like she's kind of being lazy when she goes outside.  Last night I tried something new.  Before I brought her in I said "do you have to go pee" and she usually understands that and goes to the bathroom.  This time she just looked at me.  So I went and got her leash and started walking down the street.  I didn't get 2 houses down the block when she urinated for about 30 seconds.  So, it seems like she has to go but she won't go while she's outside all of the time.  So, when she comes in and lays down she leaks.  

I don't really think that this is a problem like I've seen on the Internet since I've been doing some research.  I don't think that her muscles have weakened because she doesn't do it all year long.  Just during the beginning of the summer time.  I've also seen that this problem could be because the vet didn't do her spaying correctly.  I've read that the vet may have left something in her during her surgery and that this could be a form of her going through heat every year because her ovaries and uterus were not fully taken out.

Any insight that you may have would be greatly appreciated.  I know that I put a lot of stuff in this posting but I wanted to give you as much information about Maggie and her problem right now that I could.  Thank you for taking the time out of you day to try to help me.  I really want to help my dog get over this or control it so that she can start spending more time with us in the house without us worrying about this when she is in the house.

Thanks again,

Amy

Answer -
Hi Amy,  I have a question that I need answered to try and figure out what is going on here.  When she came in heat after the hormones were given to her, did she bleed?  Did her vulva swell, and what other symptoms did she show?  let me know.

Thanks,

Dawn

Answer
Hi Amy,  Excessive water intake would not cause incontinence at that young of an age.  There is something strange in all this because when a dog is spayed they remove the uterine horns, not a uterus like humans (where the pups would reside as well as where the blood builds up and is expelled as they come in heat, like when humans have periods).  If the uterine horns were removed (completely) like they were supposed to be (correctly) she should never have bled.  It should have been physically impossible.  I think you need to find another vet.  I may be wrong, but it almost sounds like he left a uterine horn in (there are two, basically it is like our fallopian tubes).  Have any males shown interest in her?  Just curious.  I would have another vet check her ideally when she is showing signs of heat so they can maybe do an ultrasound and see if they can see a swollen fallopian tube or possibly they can check some other way to see if something was left behind.  Hope this helps, and good luck.

Dawn