Anyone have any experience with an older dog having bowel incontinence? The bladder is fine, just the bowels. Vet says nothing is wrong, but I disagree. I have a hard time believing that this is something you have to live with.
My mom’s elderly springer spaniel had the same issue in his last couple of years. He would leave a “trail” when he walked and didn’t appear to he aware he was doing it. In his case, the vet also said there was nothing really that could be done and it was just something that happens when they get old.
Sometimes, arthritis meds can help, if they are not assuming the position to go due to pain, so not going fully when they go outside.
I had an elderly Doberman (age 12) who would Poo in his sleep and sometimes when he was awake but on his bed. He didn’t even really know it was happening. It wasn’t all the time or every day but a couple times a week.
My old cocker had “sleep pooping” as well! In fact we have a photo of him asleep, and if you look closely enough you can see some little turds behind his tail (we really didn’t notice that for a long time).
It was no big deal - didn’t seem to bother him and we just picked up the nuggets. He did develop an odd habit of only wanting to poop on concrete when we went out for a walk. Pee in the grass, poop on the concrete.
Sadly, it is something you need to live with unless you want to make the dog wear diapers or something.
My old dog (16) would just be walking along and a turd would pop out. Her dimentia was so bad she didn’t even realize it.
Try to make sure the dog goes out on a schedule, i.e. right after it eats. I did this with my old dog and while it didn’t solve the issue 100%, it did cut down.
You may ask your vet about cisipride (sp)…it helps the bowels empty completely by increasing the motility of the intestinal track. It sounds counterintuitive, but lots of older dogs can not get it all out like they used to and combined with a less firm spinchter muscle incontinence can result. The treatment worked very well for several years on my mothers absolutely ancient cocka poo who had a horrible back in additon. Good luck…
Have his spine xrayed to see if there’s any nerve impingement causing the problem. See a rehab vet who is more knowledgeable than “regular” vets. See a vet who does acupuncture. There is a very specific acupuncture point for those kinds of problems.
It sounds like old dog syndrome! Yes, she poops and walks and poops in her sleep. She’s an outdoor dog…comes and goes as she wants (underground fence), so we don’t have a “go out” schedule. She was on rimadyl, but that covered up the effectiveness of the fence collar so she started escaping and it didn’t really help the pooping. She’s quite active but I suspect dementia or something like that.
I was just wondering if this was more of a medical condition than maybe the vet had overlooked.
In an off hand conversation with a pet store owner, he said when he switched to a high protein food with no grains, for his cat, his cat stopped dribbling poop. It was high protein or low residue (foods that produce less volume of feces).
You might want to try either a no grain or low residue diet and see if it works for him. It might help or might not, keep an eye on him to see that it works for him. High protein is not recommended for weak kidneys for example.
Thank You!
Have been having this problem with 17 yr old lab mix. I was thinking it was old age, but have not heard of anything but bladder being involved. I hate to drag her off to the vet unless I’m sure its neccessary. So thank you for letting me know its an age related thing.
No help but reminds me of a funny story. My English husband (the one who had his chicken stuck in the oven this past christmas) had his whole family over for Christmas two years ago. We went over to my Mom’s house and were taking a big group photo in front of the Christmas tree with the old dog included. He was very incontinent and would not squat so nobody knew what he had done until we stopped looking at the camera and saw his big pile…which shows up in all the pictures in various stages of coming out! We debated it being the Xmas card the next year!
