14yr old Yorkie started to urinate indoors -help!
 

Hi
My little girl has been house trained for many years now, but she has started to urinate indoors. I am wondering if this is due to her age? Perhaps she is no longer able to hold the urine in for long. She will bark to ask to go out, but sometimes urinates before I can open the door. Other times, she does not bark to be let out and I find a puddle! She is not urinating more frequently, she just waits too long before asking to be let out.

If it is due to her age, should I start putting nappies on her? She hates them, but I cannot have her wetting everywhere. I hate to make her unhappy, though.

Can anyone help?

My Tibbe will be 10 in August and this year he has had one or two accidents in the house for the first time in his life as he apparently can no longer hold urine as long as he could all of his life and also think he sometimes has little warning now that he's apparently losing bladder control. He's been totally clean in the house since he was 18 - 24 mos. of age and now these two accidents. But I'll have to say, each time he had his mistake, HE was unapologetic, did not act 'guilty' as he clearly thought they were my fault. He looked quite accusingly at me and instantly came to me acting excited but kind of judgmental and wary. I got up to go see. He took me right to the puddles each time and stared at me as if to say, 'see what you caused'. I agreed and told him so and we went right outside to show him I still think outside is the best place to urinate and hopefully sending a message mom will now be ever-ready to let him out and won't hold him responsible for a bladder that no longer holds urine as well.

I was slow to recognize his potty-needs - signals or not, thinking anything I saw was too early for his norm or possibly he had no warning. My hip was hurting, didn't want to move unnecessarily, so I count all mistakes as mine. I realized that now that he is aging, I must be more diligent and always allow him more frequent trips outside whether he asks or not, my hip discomfort aside. Lesson learned.

You might want to take her out an hour or two earlier and more frequently than her old potty schedule for a while to see if that stops the unwanted puddles and if it does, make it a permanent change for her relief. Hugs to both of you as you face old age and faltering body parts with grace and humor.

If increasing her trips outside doesn't work, the puddles could be a behavior change to indicate something that is bothering/worrying her. That's a whole other situation you need not worry about if more frequent potty sessions outside stop the unwanted puddles.

Forgot to mention that of course any time a dog breaks housebreaking, always UTI can be a worry so familiarize yourself with the symptoms and watch for those just in case, vet as necessary.

Thank you so much for your helpful reply.

I thought it was adorable the way your little guy tried to make you feel like the guilty one - LOL! I always say that they are just too cute for their own good, sometimes! Toots gets away with murder by looking, or doing something, cute! She is totally not bothered about leaving a puddle. She refuses to feel guilty and listens, indulgently, to my talk about where she should be urinating, with a look of complete boredom on her face, then wanders off to do something more exciting than listening to Mom telling her something she already knows. I don't bother with the 'little talk' now - it clearly has no effect. It seems it is actually ME that has to be trained, to take her out early enough!


I don't think she has a UTI, as she is not urinating more than usual, but I will look up the symptoms just to be sure. I will start to take note of when she needs to go and make a schedule to remind myself when to take her outside. I will take her out earlier, as you suggested, before her little bladder gets too full.

Thanks again for your advice.

I think when they get older they can't hold it as long , Alfie has had the very old little accident now but we just clean it up and totally ignore that it's happened but Lottie who is only 18 months younger than him is obviously mortified in case we think it's her but Alfie simply does not bother , we just try to make sure he I never left too long .

Haha. He totally laid the puddles at my doorstep, not HIS, little stinker. I swear under his little good-boy-minds-momma-and-keeps-her-happy-to-get-ahead-in-life, go-get-em terrier persona, always looking for trouble and running his household like a tiny sheriff, he's still a bit of a black-hearted little pirate in in some corner of his heart. Some might say Tibbe is over-indulged! ;)

Thanks for your reply. :aimeeyork

lol!!