Old age dog problem

[Coffee]

We have a 17 year old border collie. She's been a fantastic dog but is getting rather old now! This past year she started to lose control of her bowels. Would have little accidents every now and again, but we accepted it was just part of getting old. The last couple of months though...OMG is getting bad! She just seems to pooh all the time! She walks across the room and it's literally falling out of her backside (she seems to have no idea it's happening). She's laid down in her bed or on the carpet and she stands up and there is poo there cos she's done it while laid down and not realised! Yesterday I counted she pooed 8 times in the house! If she does realise what she's done she gets embarassed and tries to eat the evidence
I am getting to the end of my rope with it! She's been our baby for so many years and we love her to bits but it's getting so hard to cope now we have a 5 week old baby! I am worried sick about how we will cope when the little mister starts crawling!
Don't know what I am asking here as I know there are no miracle answers! Guess I am clinging on to the hope that someone has a magic solution! The vet says all we can do is take her out more often but that doesn't work- many times we have taken her out then as we walk through the door she poos! To top it all off if absolutely anyone comes to the house and she gets slightly excited she always drops one out! It's SO embarassing!

Anyone else in this situation with their old dog? I feel like I need a support group or something!

Anyone else in this situation with their dog?!

 

[Skye1]

Yes my 13 yrs old girl has just started to do it. Other things are 'going' with her too, like her mind, sight etc I've seen massive changing in her.. going off her food, having sick days etc. I know she hasn't long left.

Most rescue centers (if any) will not take in a 17yrs old dog.They are all struggling for space with the young ones and to find a home for a dog of that age is impossible (just in case you had thought about it)

Have you a crate you can start putting her in ? She will get used to it at her age and will probably feel more secure in there. For a border collie you can get a decent sized crate and paper line half of it and have a nice comfy bed in the other half. Maybe just let her out for cuddles and comfort when the baby isn't around and a night time ?

Oldies never need much and it sounds like she may be coming to the end.

 

[Coffee]

Thanks skye1! Comforting to know I am not the only one with this problem!
I would never take her to a rescue centre / give her away. She is our responsibility and she has given us many years of happiness, we owe it to her now to look after her until she goes to the big kennel in the sky. It's just so heartbreaking really that it's come to this as we have pretty much restricted her to the kitchen now (laminate floor, easier to clean!) and she's not happy with that after being allowed to roam the house for so many years. I feel so sorry for her. Like your dog she is also losing other things- she has gone very deaf and has bad cataracts. I am at the stage now where I am just wishing she would go quietly and happily in her sleep as she's not happy anymore and neither are we.
Guess it's just no fun getting old eh?!

 

[PeanutBean]

I've never been in the pets section before. We had this with our old dog who we lost a year ago. It started when I was pregnant, not pleasant as we were often woken in the night by the smell of poo. He died a year after it all started and we had some improvement through different things we tried. The first thing was to change his food to a senior that was low bulk so that he only needed to go once or twice a day. That was the best thing we could've done. We were also very careful about letting him out very frequently to give him the chance to go outside. I so know how it is. Our old dog would sometimes have an open bum! I've never seen such a thing before! Not pooing just open! Mostly the poo would fall out while he was asleep. Fortunately for us Byron never crawled and my dog had died some months before Byron walked. It was really really hard though. We could never have got him put down but I could totally understand why someone would. I would advise, assuming you can cope, change the food, maybe limit to certain parts of the house to minimise the impact (we stopped him coming upstairs in the end, he couldn't climb the stairs by himself anymore because of his bad legs and tended to poo all down them when coming down), and just manage as best you can. If LO starts crawling and there is still an issue (one way or another) then you may just have to bite the bullet and say goodbye. I was so stressed with ours, I wouldn't ever put us through that again if there was a way of avoiding it but I wouldn't have put him down. There's no rehoming such an old dog though.

 

[coccyx]

I'm sure you would never try to rehome your old family pet. We had a 17 year old Lab and had to make the tough decision to have him put to sleep. Absolutely broke my heart, I am crying now and it was 6 years ago. I just knew it was the kindest thing to do as he was struggling. all the best

 

[Cariad_bach]

17 is a great age, im afraid if shes going blind, deaf, and is incontinent and unhappy at the restrictions your having to place on her for her own good then maybe the time has come to have a chat with the vet about when to help her on her way to rainbow bridge, its not nice hun but somthing i wish the laws would allow someone to do for me if i was in need when im old.