I’ve just finished writing my column for The Metro for next week and one of the questions was about the issue of urinary incontinence in female dogs. The dog in question has had various health issues over the last few years but is now suffering from quite severe urinary incontinence which is obviously distressing for her and her owner. As you’ll read in next week’s paper, the owner has tried the two most common forms of medication for this problem which are drugs called Propalin and Incurin, but neither has really worked. Unfortunately there aren’t any other routine medical treatments available so my advice was based around what she could do to help her dog to live with the symptoms of incontinence rather than coming up with a way of curing the problem.

My suggestions were to make sure she is taking the dog out as regularly as possible to help keep her bladder as empty as possible, and also to consider using absorbent pads or dog nappies. This might sound like a rather bizarre suggestion with more in common with my recent article on dressing up pets than sound medical advise, but in fact nappies for dogs are becoming a well recognised solution for cases like this and something I would definitely recommend. Sadly many dogs are put to sleep because of incontinence when either they or their owners can’t cope with the mess and smell any more and this can be really tragic as in many cases there is nothing else wrong with the dog and they could go on to live a happy life for many months or even years if the incontinence problem is addressed.

Absorbent pads and nappies might look funny and seem like an extreme solution but they can make the difference between life and death in some cases so if you’ve got a dog with this issue and you don’t know what to do, take a look at the nappy products out there and think about trying them before you reach the end of the road.