puppy incontinence and waiting for first heat to spay....I don't know enough abou the breed

[Maribel Jerez-Bennett]

Hello Everybody,

 

I have a five month female ( Maggie) and she has suffered some incontinece while sleeping (usually after long walks). She also has a case of puppy vaginitis. I am currently giving her cranberries, which she enjoys very much and that seemed to help the vaginitis a bit.  I have read that wating to spay until after first heat is recommeded, but I don't know enough to understand why. Is dribbling a common occurence in Irish Setter females when they are young? This is my first Irish Setter, so I admit I am clueless about the breed.( I had no idea they were so willful.) I have also read that it may have to do with vaginal development taking longer in this breed. There seems to be a ridge of skin on the posterior end of her vagina. Does this present a problem? I guess I could use some guidance on the matter, since it seems many of you know this breed well. Thanks everybody for you help in advance.

 

Maribel and Maggie

[Catherine Carter]

Hi Maribel,
My first bitch suffered incontinence as a puppy, usually she woke up in the morning in a wet bed totally unaware of what had happened during her sleep. It soon cleared up and she was a very clean bitch for the rest of her life. You mention that your puppy is incontinent after long walks?....But also you say she is only 5 months old? She should not be having long walks at such a young age.....she needs a bit of exercise and lots of sleep. If you really intend on spaying her, you must wait until after her first heat as she needs to grow and mature first. Are you in touch with her breeder? She would be the best person to talk to about all these questions, although I am sure a lot of the other members here on ES will be very happy to help you.
You said she is willful....this is great!....she is also, I am sure, very intelligent and needs to be given lots of things to learn too!
I hope to see some photos of Maggie and you on the site soon!
Regards,
Catherine

[Maribel Jerez-Bennett]

Hello Cathrine,

Thank you for your advice and experience. I hope to have pictures of Maggie up soon. Unfortunately I am not in touch with the breeder any more. She has turned out to be skiddish and evasive about all of my questions. I was quite frankly glad to hear this was her last breeding. I think of Maggie as more of a rescue than I do a sound purchase, I'm afraid. After our walk in the park today, she wet her blanket after she fell sound asleep. She was just so soundly asleep that she was not holding her urine. When I noticed she was wet, I woke her up and took her outside and she was just holding a lot of urine. She actually holds her urine during the night and she sleeps through the night. I am guessing that she is so exhausted after our walk that she just conks out.

I was interested in what you had to say about walks. I spoke with my vet and have heard several people talk about exercising this breed, but I have wondered what is too much. My vet said as long as I wasn't forcing her to exercise on leash along side a bike or something similar that whatever she ran was fine. I take her to the park and she runs and walks off leash for about 40-50 minutes. During this time she mostly runs and finds other dogs to run with. Should I not be giving her this much exercise? I don't give her more time than what I have outlined. In the evening we go to the park across the street and spend 15 minutes with a potty run and my father takes her for another potty run in the morning for about 20-30 minutes.My reasoning was that I was told she needed to be active otherwise she would become destructive and if I haven't taken her for a walk that is what she becomes. Any other recommendations or suggestions, I am so happy to get all the help I can?

Thanks again and cheers.
Maribel

[Catherine Carter]

Hi Maribel,
Yes! Irish Setters need a lot of exercise but I feel it is better to build it up gradually. I know when she is asleep she is not destructive but what you could do is reduce the walk to 30mns and then use some of this walk to introduce basic training. Mental activity is just as tiring as physical and far less demanding on growing bodies. The first exercise would be to teach her to pee on command at the beginning and at the end of the walk. Then you can have fun teaching her the recall and sit and wait.....not too much at a time and only for part of the walk. The rest of the walk would be also for her to run freely and meet other dogs. Coming home she will be just as tired as if she had run wildly for 50 mns but hopefully she will have then an empty bladder and a good dry sleep. Sometime Irish Setter puppies are so busy enjoying their run they forget to go and pee and then come home exhausted and fall asleep. Take her out again for a pee the moment she wakes up! I take it that you have seen a vet in case she does have an infection?! Let me know how you get on! When she is older she can have 1 or 2 hours of running a day without any problem! Regards,
Catherine

[ursula wilby]

I have had this problem with puppies and there has always been an underlying infection. More common in small bitches than in dogs.
And wellknown in most breeds.
So nothing to get worked up about...take her to the vet for a urine-sample and dont take her for long (cold) walks...its the cold and wet that makes matters worse.

None of the dogs I am talking about have had any problems in later years.

[eva ciechonska]

I too have had this problem with a bitch in the past and the above advice from Catherine, Fran and Ursula is very sound. My bitch grew out of it. I would, however, like to go off on a different point and ask you why you would want to get your bitch spayed. Spaying ruins the coat on an IS. It becomes linty and needs to be carefully managed to look reasonable. If it is on your vet's advice then please re-consider. You do not ever need to breed from your bitch if you don't have her spayed. IS, in my experience, rarely have 2 seasons a year and more often then not go 8 to 12 months between seasons. This is easy to cope with and it is not necessary to take this drastic measure just for convenience. Please, as Catherine suggests, speak to your breeder about all your concerns before you decide what to do.

[Deborah Christopher]

I have an English Setter that had to be spayed due to a womb infection when she was 8 years old and it caused incontinence, she was fine before she was spayed, so I'd ask your vet about that too. I agree with the coat issue, spaying your bitch will make her wooly and very curly and instead of a beautiful shiney coat it will be dull and orange.

[Maribel Jerez-Bennett]

I was informed by the vet that spaying would protect her from breast cancer as she gets older. I am fine with spaying her, I just want to help her resolve the issue of incontinence. I am so glad to hear that this issue can be addressed by waiting her to mature out of it. Thank you for sharing what you know. Do you know much about the breast cancer issue?

Maribel

[colette tuite]

I have owned many Irish setter bitches over the past 38 years with only one being spayed and i have only had one bitch with mammary cancer (not the one spayed) and one person who had a bitch from me developed mammary cancer and she had'nt been spayed.I would leave well alone as Angela said..

[eva ciechonska]

I am with Colette on this one. I too have owned many IS bitches over a similar period. Non of my bitches have ever been spayed and non of them had mammary tumours. Vets recommend spaying to everyone as a matter of course. I would also leave well alone. As for the incontinence, it seems to be fairly common in puppy bitches, she will grow out of it. With the excercise, my puppies are up to about 45-50 minutes by the time they are 5 months old because they go out with the big dogs at that age. Playing with other dogs socialises a puppy and is good for their mental development. If you are giving her 3 walks a day maybe cut out the middle walk and let her play in the garden instead.

[Angela Roberts]

I've had two experiences of urinary incontinence in bitches. One was in my Mum's bitch 20 years ago. She would wet during the night in her sleep. She did not have an infection and it gradually got better on it's own until she was completely dry after 12 months of age. She was never spayed.

Another bitch that I bred a few years later had the same problem. She was treated with homeopathic remedies and was also dry by a few months of age. I advised the owners never to have her spayed unless absolutely necessary for health reasons as she obviously had a weakness there and even wrote that down on her page in my book but they said they could never remember me telling them that and their vet thought it best to spay her (as they do) and she was totally incontinent all her life, wet and smelly picking up dirt all the time which sticks to the wet back feathering and they were constantly washing her back end and she could not go in to the parts of the house that had carpet.

Apart from the woolly coat with a neutered Irish Setter what I say to the people who buy my bitch puppies is if you can’t put up with an odd season how are you going to put up with a dog constantly smelling of urine and dribbling it all over the house and it’s bedding. So the answer to the question when is it best to spay is ‘don’t do it’.

[lyn hathaway]

we had a setter who had to have an emergency hysterectomy due to endometerosis.she ended up on propalene for thee rest of her life and her coat really suffered with large patches on her sides where the coat had gone very thin and bald.
please maribel reconsider the spaying aspect if its only to do with the puppies incontinence.im sure it will make matters worse.

[Sue and Cash]

This is such an interesting discussion. It seems that in the states we just routinely spay/neuter our dogs. Until getting to know many of your outside of the US, I had never heard it would ruin an IS coat. My first setter was intact. All of our since have been neutered. I see more of a coat difference in each dog, not whether they were intact or not. Dublin was done at 5 months and his coat never curled and actually was the least coated dog I have owned. So easy to maintain though! I was looking back at pictures of Casey my second IS and his coat also was quite nice and was neutered about 7 months. I will be doing it to Cash. He is such a hairy beast I will be curious to see what happens. I do notice that many rescue setters are "fixed" and again the coat seems to vary dog to dog. It's just engrained in us here I guess. If you aren't mating them, you remove it. As far as exercise, we have been doing up to an hour of off leash about three to four times a week. With half of the time being play in one place with other pups. We do our walking more indoors right now since it is a mess outside and still ice to walk anywhere. We have a large Petsmart that I use several times a week and we can visit other dogs and do our leach walks in there. But I do limit the outings between naps to an hour, he is exhausted after that.