Old dog pooping in house - strategies?

[Laura Corin]

We will also be taking her to the vet.

Blondie is almost 17 and in good health - she's a small labradoodle, about the size of a show cocker spaniel.  She is happy to walk extremely slowly for about twenty minutes but spends most of the day sleeping.  She is on a special diet for reduced kidney function but seems otherwise physically fairly well - just slow.  She was investigated for arthritis, but the drugs made no difference, so the current assumption is that she is frail rather than in pain.  Her sight and hearing have deteriorated a lot.  She often stands in the middle of the room and just stares, so I suspect she is losing some cognition.  She comes to us for treats and pets, so I think she is still enjoying these.  There's nothing that says to me that her quality of life is very low, but I'd welcome thoughts on this.

Recently she has begun pooping on the floor (solid faeces, not diarrhoea) even if we are in the room with her or she has just been put out.  This morning I put her out in the garden first thing, then again after I showered.  About half an hour later, she pooped on the sunroom floor, either when Husband was in the connected kitchen or when he had left the room briefly.  Yesterday, she started to poop while I was standing in the kitchen with her, but I managed to hurry her outside.  I think she may be losing track of where she is/where she is meant to poop.  The weather is starting to turn, so she will not be able to spend most of her time in the garden.

What are the options we should discuss with the vet?  We already mostly confine her to the kitchen/sunroom area, which has hard floors.  We will be more strict about that.  We are thinking about taking her for more actual short walks (as opposed to just going into the garden) but she doesn't have much energy, so this is difficult to square.  She currently has a bedtime walk only, as that is the time when she seems to have the stamina to manage it.  She has never had a particular poop schedule - could be any time of day.

Any other thoughts?  I am particularly concerned because we habitually take her with us on short stays away (we don't leave her with others because of her extreme age) and I'm worried about floors in other locations.  Are diapers an option for faeces?  She rarely pees in the house (not in the past two months, that I remember).

Thank you.

[Pawz4me]

I don't have any personal experience, but I think it could be loss of bowel control or canine cognitive dysfunction (dog dementia). But I think if she appears to be pooping normally (some sniffing first, normal stance, etc.) then that's not considered loss of bowel control. I think with that the feces just more or less fall out and the dog acts totally unaware that it's happening. But I'm not positive about that. There are some medications and OTC supplements that can slow the progress of canine cognitive dysfunction in a lot of dogs. Anipryl (selegiline) is the one I hear about the most. This article from Cornell Vet School mentions some of them.

I hope you can find something that helps. Old dogs are challenging, but they're so precious.

[Laura Corin]

15 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

I don't have any personal experience, but I think it could be loss of bowel control or canine cognitive dysfunction (dog dementia). But I think if she appears to be pooping normally (some sniffing first, normal stance, etc.) then that's not considered loss of bowel control. I think with that the feces just more or less fall out and the dog acts totally unaware that it's happening. But I'm not positive about that. There are some medications and OTC supplements that can slow the progress of canine cognitive dysfunction in a lot of dogs. Anipryl (selegiline) is the one I hear about the most. This article from Cornell Vet School mentions some of them.

I hope you can find something that helps. Old dogs are challenging, but they're so precious.

When I saw her start to do it, she was doing the normal sniffing in circles and then stance, so I don't think it's loss of control, as such.  Thanks.

[KSera]

We had a senior dog who developed dementia and as it advanced, pooping in random house locations was part of it. She would also stand in odd places and look lost (like, facing a corner of a room or she would get on something and then seem to not know what to do next). In our case, she had some signs of pain prior to this, and they escalated around the same time so that was a more clear-cut decision, but we feel in hindsight we probably waited a little longer than we should have. (Ours had started to pant all the time, which is an indication of pain, in case you ever see that with yours.)

Since it sounds like your dog may not be having any pain and just the dementia, I’d see what the vet might recommend. Does she seem distressed that she has soiled in the house?

 

[Laura Corin]

10 minutes ago, KSera said:

  Does she seem distressed that she has soiled in the house?

Thank you. No, she doesn't seem distressed.  I'm not sure she remembers for long.