Corralling dog poo
October 11, 2020 4:07 PM Subscribe
My dog is fecally incontinent. How do we keep her poo contained?
Our 15.5 year old Lab is fecally incontinent. She’s been thoroughly checked and the causes are not fixable. She only cannot hold her feces.
At night — usually in the middle of the night — she poos on the floor. Putting a diaper on her seems not good — we’d have to clean her fur every morning. Cleaning up her poo is getting harder because she panics and then drags her feet through it. Are there any options? She won’t sleep outside. I spent two years waking up at 4 am to let her out and she doesn’t poo. A crate seems cruel if she would have to stay cooped up with the poo. Her incontinence is medical and not behavioral.
Our 15.5 year old Lab is fecally incontinent. She’s been thoroughly checked and the causes are not fixable. She only cannot hold her feces.
At night — usually in the middle of the night — she poos on the floor. Putting a diaper on her seems not good — we’d have to clean her fur every morning. Cleaning up her poo is getting harder because she panics and then drags her feet through it. Are there any options? She won’t sleep outside. I spent two years waking up at 4 am to let her out and she doesn’t poo. A crate seems cruel if she would have to stay cooped up with the poo. Her incontinence is medical and not behavioral.
I don't have personal experience, but here's an article. It says baby diapers work, too.
posted by aniola at 4:16 PM on October 11, 2020
posted by aniola at 4:16 PM on October 11, 2020
Has your vet considered something like Proin? It helped my senior pug greatly.
posted by answergrape at 4:17 PM on October 11, 2020
posted by answergrape at 4:17 PM on October 11, 2020
Clip her fur very short on her butt, so it's easy to clean. Put a diaper on her at night.
Just in case you need permission to think the unthinkable, I've know dogs of this age with this condition that were euthanized because of this by their owners. We euthanized an old, old cat for the same reason.
posted by the Real Dan at 4:19 PM on October 11, 2020 [7 favorites]
Just in case you need permission to think the unthinkable, I've know dogs of this age with this condition that were euthanized because of this by their owners. We euthanized an old, old cat for the same reason.
posted by the Real Dan at 4:19 PM on October 11, 2020 [7 favorites]
Does she have any awareness of when she's pooping? If so, maybe limit her to one room with a small indoor spot for her to poop in. I've seen pheromone "attractant spray" for puppy training pads and the like.
posted by needs more cowbell at 4:21 PM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by needs more cowbell at 4:21 PM on October 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
Uh, a house about two blocks from me has a sign for 'mozzie pants' hanging outside and I finally visited their website. Maybe Mozzie Pants will help.
posted by batter_my_heart at 4:26 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by batter_my_heart at 4:26 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
Is there anything you could rig up to alert you when she’s up and pooping, so that you could then just get her out of there before she panics and makes a bigger mess? Would she go on a tray of sod? Can you change the timing of her food so you change the timing of her poops?
posted by HotToddy at 4:36 PM on October 11, 2020
posted by HotToddy at 4:36 PM on October 11, 2020
Personally, I found diapers to be worse than having to clean the shit off the floor but if your dog is getting upset and dragging her feet in it, maybe diapers are a better bet. I would recommend washable versus disposable, as the disposable ones can be uncomfortably warm and sometimes have a plastic-y noise factor which can bother the dog.
Does she have a "spot" that she seems to go to more frequently? We were able to kinda-sorta train our dog to poop on training pads.
posted by sm1tten at 4:37 PM on October 11, 2020
Does she have a "spot" that she seems to go to more frequently? We were able to kinda-sorta train our dog to poop on training pads.
posted by sm1tten at 4:37 PM on October 11, 2020
Talk to your vet about something that might work as a doggy sleeping pill, possibly with some dietary support for firmer poops, if possible. When our elderly dog reached this stage, he would poop (blessedly solid firm poops, I can see where anything else is not going to work as well) in his sleep and never know it*. Every once in a while I'd smell it and get up to remove it before morning, or would just check with a flashlight during my 3am pee run, but a lot of time we just found them in the morning when we got up. We've always had a stack of cheap fleece throw blankets for dog hair purposes, and they were perfectly fine for the occasional issue where he'd roll onto a turd and smash it.
You don't want to constipate him, obviously, but it's worth asking the vet. I suspect the remarkable arthritis drug that kept GIR with us as long as we got (galliprant/gapiprant) was responsible for his fairly dry poops.
*He absolutely did know it was happening when he was awake, and would try to squat-waddle to the back door leaving a trail as he went, often finishing before he got out the door. I preferred the sleep pooping, honestly.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:28 PM on October 11, 2020
You don't want to constipate him, obviously, but it's worth asking the vet. I suspect the remarkable arthritis drug that kept GIR with us as long as we got (galliprant/gapiprant) was responsible for his fairly dry poops.
*He absolutely did know it was happening when he was awake, and would try to squat-waddle to the back door leaving a trail as he went, often finishing before he got out the door. I preferred the sleep pooping, honestly.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:28 PM on October 11, 2020
Get a kids play yard, set it up in an area with vinyl floor, layer in newspapers. Get a raised dog bed, so she has a nice place to sleep in the contained area.
Ask the vet if there's any diet that will help her have solid poop, which is a lot easier to clean.
posted by theora55 at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
Ask the vet if there's any diet that will help her have solid poop, which is a lot easier to clean.
posted by theora55 at 6:51 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
If you get diapers, make sure you get the kind that's for poop. It looks like some of them are for helping with pee only.
posted by aniola at 8:15 PM on October 11, 2020
posted by aniola at 8:15 PM on October 11, 2020
You can also ask your vet to show you how to stimulate your dog to have a bowel movement before bed time, I do that with my paralyzed fosters and that usually gets them through the night. I also express them so they urinate, which sounds tough but is actually way easier than cleaning up accidents.
posted by yodelingisfun at 10:23 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by yodelingisfun at 10:23 PM on October 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by aniola at 4:12 PM on October 11, 2020