Lifestyles

Dear Dog Talk: We adopted a beautiful white Samoyed/German shepherd mix from a local shelter. When we adopted her, she was housebroken. She had no accidents for the first couple of years. Then, all of a sudden, we started noticing small puddles of urine on her bed or wherever she had been resting.

The reaction of people was that she was "being spiteful." Even dog trainers said that this behavior sounded like a training problem.

But it just didn't make sense. She could go outside, urinate and then come inside and have an accident. At times, we could see urine dribbling out. She would frantically try to keep herself and the house clean. The dog was miserable, and so were we.

We had our veterinarian test her for a urinary-tract infection, but nothing came up positive. The next guess was "spay incontinence." This condition occurs after a female dog has been spayed and her estrogen level decreases significantly. A typical treatment is hormone injections. However, a hormone injection didn't remedy the situation.

Determined to keep the dog, we bought doggy diapers. Unfortunately, she seldom kept them on. Even if she did, her skin became inflamed. Then we noticed that she was drinking excessively.

After a lengthy test, during which her water intake was closely monitored, it turned out that she had diabetes. However, it is not the kind of diabetes that requires insulin. It was diabetes insipidus, in which the dog's body does not produce the hormone necessary to concentrate her urine.

She now takes a drug called Desmopressin Acetate (DDAVP) that replaces this hormone. It is the same drug that is given to some children who wet the bed at night. She also takes Proin for incontinence. The DDAVP is so expensive that we get it from Canada, but she's worth it.

Nobody seemed to get it. If we hadn't ignored advice from others and found a good veterinarian, we would not have solved this problem. I hate to think what might have happened to our dog under different circumstances. Some people might have tied her outside or returned her to the shelter.

I'd like your opinion of this. Please comment, if you would, about medical problems that are mistaken for training problems.

P.S. Thanks for publishing the letter about greyhounds.

Dear Smart and Persistent: Thank you for writing. I'm sure that too many medical conditions are assumed to be "behavioral problems."

It's easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, but your problem sounded medical to me. The fact that your dog never had a housebreaking accident for years before this is a good clue. Also, visibly seeing urine dripping from her body is a sign that she could not control her bladder.

Lastly, I don't believe that a dog's behavior is ever motivated by "spite." Spite is a human emotion. People who believe that their dog's behavior is spiteful are being anthropomorphic. Humanizing dogs is a common reason for misdiagnosing all kinds of canine behavior.

Another reason that some dogs go untreated for uncommon medical conditions is because many owners cannot afford the high cost of veterinary tests and treatments. I'm happy that you were able to help your dog.

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