How serious is urinary incontinence?

My 7 month old GSD has been housebroken for about 4 and a half months now, NEVER has an accident in the house and then recently started peeing in random spots, the bed, the bathroom floor and on my car seat. She doesnt sit up or squat, it just happens unfortunatly. I took her to the vet today and they said that it was urinary incontinence, but the dr. kinda had me worried. I can handle the PPA pills everyday but I don't want her to be grouchy or uncomfortable or in pain.
how serious is this and how long will she have to be on the pills?
what else can i do? they took a urialysis but they said it wasnt a bladder infection or uti.
why would this just show up now? doenst make sense to me...

i feed her holistic food and holistic treats so hopefully its not the food problem but if i started using cornsilk and other remedies would it do her any harm if she turns out to not have this problem and its actually something else?

She seems a little young to get that diagnosis, IMO. I'm not a vet, but if this were my dog, I'd look at her diet and get her off grocery store dogfood and on to a super premium dogfood like Innova, California Natural, Solid Gold, etc. I've known several dogs with irritable bladder-type symptoms and a change in their diet fixed it. Specifically, no CORN. Also, take a look at the treats that you're giving her, and stop giving ones with lots of nitrites in them. In other words, stop giving processed treats, because those are loaded with nitrites.

The PPA won't hurt her. It's phenylpropalolamine, which is the same ingredient in dexatrim, so it's a minor stimulant.

Again, if it were my dog, I'd look at this as a possible irritation, and ask my vet if s/he could treat it that way, by giving corticosteroids first and seeing if that will help. If it does, you know it's an inflammatory process.

Here's a link with information about urinary sphincter incompetence (nice name, eh?):

http://www.provet.co.uk/health/diseases/...

Also, if this were my dog, I'd look at a holistic approach. Here's a post I found on how someone else handled their "leaky dog" with a holistic vet and homeopathic remedies:

http://list.weim.net/pipermail/barf/2001...

Good luck. I'd pursue whether this is really the right diagnosis and check whether or not she could be experiencing a touchy bladder from allergens or additives in her food. Then, if that's not what's happening, I'd look at the homeopathic remedies.

Good luck!

It's my understanding that homeopathic remedies cannot hurt your dog. If your holistic dog food includes flax, eliminate that-- it irritates many dogs. Good luck! Report Abuse

http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/ClientED/incon...
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_uri...
http://www.medi-vet.com/UrinaryIncontine...

Here are some articles to check out. The incontinence could be caused by several different things. If you do not agree with the diagnosis from your vet, get a second opinion. Can't hurt anything, right? (Well, maybe your check book!)
Best of luck with your girl, hope she is fine!

Things sound pretty hard to deal with. Have you tried putting a diaper on your dog. I hope the pills help.

All I can say is i wish you both luck! They do have doggy diapers if she would leave one on.. I hope these pills work..at 7 months i have not heard of this.

puppies can get incontinence, but you have to watch it, it can be a sign of other things.

One of our dogs had this once, it started shortly after house training her as well. After a couple of years we realized if she got nervous, upset, excited or scared, even in the slightest bit that was how she showed her emotions. She did eventually out grow it, but we also figured out what was triggering it and then would work with her in those situations, like for starters when ever someone would enter a room she would wee a little on the floor, so we started ignoring her when we came in the room and then when she would go lay down and quit waiting for a greeting then we would go pet her or scratch her belly, we would wait til she wasn't so excited and then she didn't wee on the floor.