dog diapers

[lmperez]

Hello, It has been a while since I have logged on here. To recap I have a little paralyized yorkie that is able to go to the bathroom by herself but is unable to satnd so I place her in diapers so she does not pee all over herself. Well since she has gained more control she holds it longer so when she does go she lets go alot and it comes out of the diaper. I use the little denium ones and I cut the poise pads for humans and place them inside and she still goes through them. I was just wondering if anyone has this problem or has a good idea to help. She weighs 2.5 lbs so most of those disposable diapers wrap around her 2x.
Thanks

[CarolC]

Longer answer tonight with pictures (this is so interesting) but I have a question? I also use denim diapers and generic Poise pads for my dog, so I am not sure if your pads are the same? On your pads, is it thicker in the middle of the pad and kind of thinner as you approach the back edge of it, like maybe they are designed so the wearer doesn't have a visible lump showing on their rear...tapered to a thin edge? Or are your pads pretty much the same thickness end to end and edge to edge?

[lmperez]

I have the maximum absorbancy (14) regular. They do not taper they are the same all the way down.

[CarolC]

OK, then that's not the problem. I did try some pads that were thin on the edge and they were no help because when I put them in my dog's denim diaper the thin part was right where she needed the most absorbency.

Here is a picture of my dog's diaper after wearing it from 9am - 3pm, so 6 hours. She is 7 lbs. It's only half a pad and it's less than half used. I have to overlap the tail hole a little when I stick the pad into the diaper, in order to have the protection where she needs it. Do you think positioning the pad a little more into the tail hole would help? Or is she simply soaking the whole pad?

[lmperez]

I do the same thing as far as putting it into the tail opening. Your pictures look like mine. It does not even last over night. I wake up to a mess every morning. She is not that big but she holds it for a long time then she lets loose and I think she overwhelms the pad and it leaks out the side.

[CarolC]

They do make diaper covers with a cord lock tail, but would that help? I can get you a link for that. It just seems almost impossible for a 2.5 lb little dog to void more urine than an adult Poise pad can handle. Is there any chance she has kidney issues? I know she's still young. My senior dog drank a LOT of water after he began to have kidney trouble. The vet said he was not concentrating his urine. With him I used the Serenity Ultimate pads, which are more absorbent than Poise, but I'm not sure how they would fit in a tiny little dog's diaper, even cut in half? The thing I do here is let my dog sleep without a diaper in a playpen. This works well with a small dog. If they wet in one spot, they move to another spot. I end up doing a load of doggy laundry every other day but that's not bad. In the bottom of her playpen I put a crib pad which is a flat pad with kind of a synthetic felt exterior and a waterproof interior. The felt is lofty enough that it pretty much keeps the dog from really lying on a wet spot like she would on a regular blanket.

[lmperez]

Thanks. The play pen is a really good idea. I will have to look into the kidney idea. I don't think so though because her coloring is not dark nor does it smell. I do know that when i change her in the morning 6:30 and the I was getting off work at 11 am she would still be dry then an hour or two later there is a mess. I have trying to figure out if there was some kind of a pattern that I could put her on a toilet training but it differes daily, plus I will be starting full time work next week.

[CarolC]

Oh, yes! I work full time and little things like extra baths and the time it takes to blow dry can be a challenge, especially if it happens 10 minutes before you have to be out the door. Actually I wasn't so much talking about a UTI, which might cause a dark color and/or odor. I was talking more about kidneys that do not concentrate the urine. I don't know enough about it to explain it very well, but what happened with my senior dog was that I noticed he was drinking a LOT and of course urinating in the house before I got male wraps for him. I even went out and bought him a bigger water bowl. The vet used a catheter to collect a urine specimen and showed me how the urine was a light color, kind of too clear, not at yellow as it should be. He said that meant the kidneys were not concentrating the urine. Then he used a test strip and it showed a whole bunch of values immediately (whole thing took 5 min) and he read them and said my dog was beginning to have kidney problems, so we changed his diet. My dog kept his kidney values at the same level for a long time on the right diet. But anyway, I only meant to say you would not necessarily be looking for dark urine.

I was thinking, I know you have a very special dog with CH, but would expressing her bladder be an option for you? Imagine if you could just pick her up and carry her over to a puppy pad you have laid out on the bathroom counter, and squeeze her little tummy and she empties her bladder. Wouldn't that give you both more control over unexpected messes? It might be nice for her, too, if she does not like getting wet, especially if you are not home to rinse her off. I guess since she has bladder control, you could probably just express her first thing in the morning and before you go to bed? Even if you don't get her fully empty, you could reduce the amount of urine quite a bit and maybe she would not overwhelm the pad. I don't know, I've never had a dog with the same condition as yours. I would like to know what solutions you arrive at. Best wishes on this!

[lmperez]

I will look into the kidney thing. As far as expressing I guess I could ask my vet. I didn't think I should being she has control.
Thanks for all the info. I will let you know if I come up w a solution