Actually it’s become my dilemma. Last week days ago Trixie came down with a skin irritation. I took her to the vet and he prescribed some allergy pills that would relieve her itch. He said they had steroids in them that would cause her to pee more often. He wasn’t kidding. She’s gone from being a very good house dog to having several accidents a day. I’m not even sure if they’re accidents any more or just habit. She can last fine from 9 pm until 7 am without a problem, but once she’s up she’s going often… and anywhere. I’ve been taking her out every couple of hours where before she’d go 5 or 6 hours without a problem.
I stopped the pills a couple days ago, earlier than he prescribed, and she’s not irritated like she was. I just thought the medicine would wear off my now.
My wife thinks we should buy a litter box since one of our friends has one for their dog and he uses it. But Trixie’s not a pup and I don’t think she’d learn to use it.
My dog has allergies that manifest as a skin irritation. If it’s allowed to get bad, he does have to get a steroid shot which causes him to drink and therefore pee a lot. But if my mother starts on him soon as he starts the licking and chewing on his paws with Benedryl, it doesn’t get that bad and the problem is managed that way. And, yes, it’s totally safe for dogs.
if she is eating anything with chicken n it stop ..i find it is too”hot”for some dogs and it will clear up soon after stopping
Instead of medicating your dog, try a food change first. What kind of food does she eat? If it contains corn, that could be the issue. And like Thomasina said, chicken is a big offender as well. I work at a pet store and have this conversation with people nearly every day.
Her diet hasn’t changed since we got her 18 months ago and this is the first problem like that. The vet doesn’t think it’s her diet.
Could it be shampoo? My l’il Sassie got such a bad skin reaction from that cheap Chinese Shampoo Crap. My l’il Yoshi almost died from liver failure from eating Chinese tainted Dog Food. Bottom line, don’t buy Chinese. They killed over 70,000 of their own children with Melamine tainted baby formula. If they kill their own, they don’t care about yours. I would suggest that you take into account every thing Trixie does and ingests in a day or two so you can figure it out, before the Vet charges you $10,000. My rant for the day! Jeez Jonco, did I do it again or am I good? 🙂
I kinda liked your other rant
On a semi-related subject, I was recently prescribed with a steroid containing inhaler. Didn’t know about the steroid part until later. The result was that the “boys” and “Mr. Big” all but disappeared. WTF is going on? I said to myself. For other reasons I got onto another type of inhaler.
Bottom line: It took quite some time for me to see my friends again. So, possibly, the steroid effect on Trixie many take some time to wear off also.
Good Lick!
I sure hope that you have stopped peeing everywhere…
my dog has been on steroids for almost 2 years and after the first 2 months, the accidents stopped. If it is just allergies, the vet should be able to come up with a different drug. The steroids can cause problems with kidneys if this is going to be an ongoing thing with Trixie
Hello: We use the dog training pads for those times Lou can’t get out quick enough. (Apartment life!)
There is a spray that I used called Simple Solutions Puppy Aid Training Spray that makes the pad all that more attractive. Only used it a couple of times and the message was received. I know someone that swears by the dog potty – as seen on TV – and she has 3 small dogs.
Almost forgot to mention as a reason for the irritation – wasn’t Trixie a sidewalk supervisor during your latest home renovations? Maybe the dust raised or whatever got to her.
My dog is about the same size, and she has seasonal allergies like Trixie does.
Few things my vet said that maybe yours missed. Baths, make sure she gets a bath a week to wash off the pollen and stuff. Just make sure to use a conditioner.
We give Sofie 3ccs ( 1 teaspoon) of liquid children’s allergy medicine orally and that works wonders.
Good luck, I know its disheartening to watch your dog go through the discomfort or itchy skin…Just got to find what works.
What about putting baby oil in their bath water? It would help the dry skin.
It’s her diet. If you ate the exact same thing for every meal you’d probably start showing some crazy signs after 18 months. The reason they say not to change dog foods is that the big dog food companies don’t want you switching. It’s good for their business. But horrible for your dogs health. Slowly transition her to a healthy food that does not contain corn. Really, all grain should be gone. It provides absolutely no nutrition for dogs. None. But it is an inflammatory and will cause allergies and a host of other problems as your dogs age. Also change protein. If she’s getting chicken go to beef, or vice versa. Once she’s back to normal you should start introducing different proteins and different brands. Transition slowly until their gut returns to normal. I can now feed my dogs anything without a transition time because they are used to getting a variety of foods. You dogs should also be getting a variety of quality food. Just like us. I almost lost my dog Mauzer because of kibble. It’s damn near poison for dogs. It’s a dead food that has to be sprayed with rendered fat to get dogs to eat it. And then they become addicted to it like we do with sugars. They can survive on it, but not thrive. I now feed my dogs a raw food diet that is balanced and designed to match what their natural diet would be. I realize that not everyone is willing to go that far, but the difference in my dogs health is stunning. You can see pictures of her at facebook.com/mauzerpuppy. Also, get her off the steroids. ASAP. They are so bad for a dogs long term health. And they don’t really fix the problem which is the grain. Please feel to contact me if you want any more information on this. Here are a couple of websites to check out.
A quick google search gave me this place. http://fourmuddypaws.com/nutrition Take a drive and talk to them about dog food and nutrition. Most small natural dog food stores have very knowledgable employees.
This is a site to check out when you’re ready to learn about the horrors of pet food. If you’re like me you’ll get pissed at what they admit to putting in the food. Lord knows what they don’t admit. http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com
“Like” Doctor Karen Becker on Facebook. You can ask questions and usually get a reply in a day or two. You just have to ask general questions because she’s not allowed to treat dogs that she hasn’t seen.
Dr. Becker’s book. http://www.amazon.com/Beckers-Real-Food-Healthy-Dogs/dp/098253311X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322717779&sr=8-2
I’m not some crazed naturalist. It took me a year to finally make the leap to go natural because I thought it was nuts. When Mauzer got so sick that I thought I would loose her I decided to give it a try. I had spent thousands with her former vet (where Oprah took her dogs when she lived in Chicago) and they kept coming up with every disease out there, but they always said it wasn’t her food. Though they had me trying all sorts of different kibble. They just didn’t know what was wrong or what to do. Within days of being on raw she got dramatically better. You don’t have to go as far as raw if you think that’s too far. There are a lot of quality dog foods that don’t have grains. You need to go find them. Really. And start reading and understanding labels. You’ll be stunned.
Aw, poor girl! 🙁 Hope it gets sorted soon.
Sounds like your sweetie was placed on Prednisone, very often used for any type of allergy, and yes, side effect is a whole lot of urine. Not to worry, that will stop.
Allergies can be anything and can crop up at any age. Food is usually the first suspect. Chicken is becoming very intolerable for pets recently. As are many grains, soy & wheat or byproducts. The biggies with grains. The only way to know if this is food is to reduce to a single carb & single protien food. Duck, Venison, or Bison w/rice or sweet potato are normally tolerable.
Be aware that seasonal allergies can also hit out of the blue, as can delayed reactions to vaccinations. All allergies are auto-immune conditions. Meaning the immune system has flipped a switch.
The number one product I use for my own as well as my pet clients for too many conditions to list is called Transfer Factor, it seems to flip that switch back to normal. And no, I am not a distributor for the company, just extremely happy with the results I have seen using it. Good luck with Trixie, as a multi-pet household, I know how much we all worry about the health of our fur kids.
Kristine
Because she has no place to go when she needs to she let it go anywhere.
I had a similar problem with 1 of my cats. Cat1 claimed the litter box so Cat2 went everywhere, got us mad sometimes.
A 2nd litterbox solved the problem totally.
they make this pee patch (grass patch in your home) just got to clean it daily.
my dog is scratching too, she went from white to pink :s. i have been adding liquid sheep fat to her food (a good tablespoon per day)and after 2 weeks she isnt scratching that much anymore and slowly turning white again. maybe it will help Trixie too.
the steroids dogs are given here (prednison-ish) is only for a week, 2 days 1 pill, 2 days 1/2 pill, 2 days 1/4th pill.
you could try what George said, a litter box, but if that does not help i would (depending on the area you live and your backyard) open the backdoor a few minutes every hour for her so she can take a pee.
hope she will be ok again asap.
Lose the steroids. There has to be some better way to treat the Trix!
Dog Diapers. All I’m sayin’
Poor Trixie! Perhaps you can try puppy training pads. They have pheremones in them that attract the dog, which i suppose encourages them to use the pad rather than the floor. We use them for our cats and they work like a charm 🙂
Are you sure she has not developed a urinary tract infection? Our black lab can go all day, but once she starts to urinate, she cannot stop going. She will have 4-5 accidents in the house at night. It seems like we were constantly putting her on antibiotics. A friend suggested cranberry pills (pet version). Once we started her on those, the problem cleared up in a matter of days, without antibiotics this time. Worked like a charm ever since.
Poor Trixie! Hope she gets better soon
Thanks to everyone for the comments and advice. Her skin problem is all but gone. She’s off the meds. I’m just wondering how long it takes for the steroids to leave her system and will she get back to normal peeing outside. She can go all night without a problem but during the day is when she has the problem. I have a SpotBot carpet cleaner that does a pretty good job of cleaning the carpet but I just worry that she’ll continue going inside now because she knows she can.
awww, poor puppy dog! And you guys too for that matter….maybe it’ll wear off in time? Hopefully there will be a good solution soon!
Hopefully she doesn’t get to the point of needing steroids again, poor baby. One of my dogs has bad allergies that are seasonal. We can’t figure out what it is exactly, but it seems to be something in the yard. When he starts to get itchy he gets Benadryl. We use the tablets smushed into a small bit of cheese. It’s much easier than using the liquid, for my dog anyway. Fortunately it only got bad enough for steroids for him one time. You could try some regular baby diapers and cut a hole for her tail. Put them on her backwards, so they sticky tabs that would be at the front of a baby’s stomach are at her back, will make it easier to take off when you take her out. I imagine she was bothered by not making it outside in time as well. Mine have always seemed so embarassed or ashamed when they’ve had accidents indoors.
Jonco – I never liked the idea of teaching a dog to pee inside. Ask the vet if there is another treatment since this is a problem. I assume you don’t have the opportunity to take Tixie out more often since you didn’t mention that. Our dogs sleep in the bedroom with us (and sometimes in the bed!) and they will alert us if they have to go out during the night. We taught them to ring a set of bells we hang from the doorknob (ready for this, we call them “tinkle” bells). On more then one occasion we awoke at 3am to let one or more dogs out.
Some dogs are prone to skin problems. Ask your vet and do some googling to see what has worked for other owners. A diet change may help even if she has had the same diet all along. I am a big believer of good quality food for our pets. For us we stay away from food that is majority made of grains.might be good to ask your vet what “home remedies” to stay away from.
Good luck!
Trixie normally goes out 4 to 6 times a day and hardly ever has an accident. But with these meds (which she’s off of now) she’d have an accident after having been out an hour earlier. The vet said this could be a one-time problem or it could recur. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Read this.
http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2011/12/01/allergen-free-pet-foods.aspx
Have they tested Trixie on cleanser – it’s a not uncommon problem in modern times with often changing and more&more antibacterial ingredient … have you changed anything there?
Wish you all success in finding out and defeating the problem!
PS:
Old dogs aren’t really dumb, only gone lazy 😉 – try to get her used to the litter box if you really want (=> I’m more at it like Woohoo, inside is not best idea)!
Our dog is on the EXACT same pills. We thought she was done peeing in the house, but it all started again. Thankfully, the dog pees on the bathmats, which are washable.
Spotbots are fine, but is seems they mostly move the stains around, leaving nice yellow circles.
Jonco, awesome you are getting so many responses 🙂 First let me say no dog is really that comfortable peeing in the house unless trained to go on special pads, and many smaller dogs are, this certainly solves the problem for those in apts or who don’t have dog doors. The pred/allergy and changes in Trixie’s system may have her feeling more anxious during the day, and anxious dogs usually have to pee more. Because she was used to going outside, retrain her former routine, you can put a pad right next to the door she usually goes outside from, that will click back in the association of going outside to potty. Possibly she has a UTI, but they are usually worse at night not during the day. Goddess, I totally agree with you, a change in food with NO grains I’m betting will relieve any future allergy problems.
I always have at least 5 to 6 greyhounds and have done greyhound rescue for over 12 years, I’ve been through the dog food mill, most did not develop allergies to foods until older, 1 at 4, 1 at 9 and now 1 at 6. The stuff in commercial dog food even high end foods is mostly garbage. One of my dogs has gotten salmonella 4 times from chicken based so called high end foods. Transfer Factor knocked that out right away, along with licking paws, nails falling off, and a host of skin allergies, along with dietary changes. If I only had one dog, they would all be on Honest Kitchen’s dehydrated raw, no grains in it. I totally endorse a raw food diet if it is formulated for the specific animal by a nutritionist. Turkey seems to be not on the allergy list.
Right now I currently feed, Infinia, Turkey + Sweet Potato (never on any recall lists) but I only give a cup to a cup 1/2 and add fresh foods and supplements. If there are any incontinence issues going on, grains are also a no no, they add to that problem. And vet options for any dog diagnosed with female incontinence are awful !! Many UTI’s are often mis-diagnosed, when the problem is actually incontinence. Bladder Strength by Vetri Science Labs is an awesome natural product for both dogs and cats who are experiencing either or. My vet is old school…however he will be the first to say most commercial foods are garbage, and he fully endorses both Transfer Factor to mediate any health condition & Bladder Strength. With our pets these days we have to work both with our vets and think outside the box, as there are so many more treatment options that are safer as well as resolve the underlying health issue and not just treat the immediate symptoms. Any vet who is unwilling to work with their clients to treat both traditionally or take a more natural route if that is in the best interest of your pet, well, I’d switch vets ! 🙂
Shirley’s Wellness Cafe has a wealth of info, health & product related, as well as the links Goddess gave you. The folks at Shirley’s are also available to call and I believe they have a vet one can consult with as well for free.
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/tf/s/pets.htm
My mother now in her 80’s has often said, all the family dogs lived to be over 15, they didn’t have commercial foods in those days, the dogs ate what they ate, they also didn’t vaccinate other then rabies when that became available, food for thought.
Best to all with your Fur Kids,
Kristine
Hope she is feeling better.
We have a rescue dog that is not fully housebroken. We trained him to go on Pee Pads – it’s been a great compromise!
Trixie seems to be much better now. She had no accidents yesterday or today.