Seeking help with paralysed dog bowel movements
Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:27 am
Hello all
Wow, I wish I had found this forum sooner - my greyhound Zelda had an accident 6 months ago and broke her back and two ribs, was paralysed from the waist backwards and completely incontinent (it was just leaking out of her 24/7 at the start). She had a metal implant in her spine and has been recovering since.
She can just about walk again now, and over the past couple of weeks her peeing has got loads better - she doesn't really pee in the house anymore and can make it outside (even throughout the night) and pees outdoors.
Bowel movements are still giving us trouble - I haven't slept through the night since October and desperate for advice! I sleep downstairs with her because I don't want her to spend all night covered in poop and wee (no more wee, but still the poo is a problem).
We were feeding her a couple of small meals a day, but this just resulted in poop all day and all night. We changed to just one evening feed around 7pm, sometimes we make it through the night with no poop, sometimes there are multiple poops throughout the nights. Usually they occur around 4am when they happen.
I added sweetcorn to her poop to see how long it took to process - the first sweetcorn poop took about 14 hours, but then about 20 hours later there was still sweetcorn poop coming out!
I thought feeding her at night would work because of this time frame, but it seems like because her mobility is limited at the moment it's hard to get her stimulated to go so we are still having night poops sometimes.
We use the ice cube method for stimulation (I have used the squeezing method as well but found ice cube worked better), but this doesn't always produce a poop before bed. Sometimes even when it does, she still ends up pooping in the night.
Generally the trend is that we always seem to have multiple poops between 7am - 9am (ish) - occasionally we will have one at about 5pm, sometimes one last thing at night.
I am at a complete loss at what to do because despite the overall time trends, there are STILL rogue poops that happen in the middle of the night, and sometimes in the middle of the day.
Pooping is the final hurdle we have to somehow manage with her - once we are confident she isnt going to poop the bed and mess all over herself I'll be able to sleep through the night.
She's had the runs a couple of times - sometimes seemingly randomly, sometimes caused entirely by us feeding her scraps - we shouldn't, but she gives me those eyes and I can't help it!!! We're moving her onto a hypoallergenic kibble (Wainwrights salmon and potato) - we have been feeding her boiled turkey, boiled rice and brocolli with the kibble mixed in but someone said to try and stick to one type of protein, so we're just going to try the kibble rice and brocolli and see what happens.
Does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm going to try moving her main feed to the morning, to see if that makes any difference ... but I would welcome anything else! It's been six months of very hard slog for me and my partner and though I love Zelda to bits I am desperate for a night of sleep!!!
Wow, I wish I had found this forum sooner - my greyhound Zelda had an accident 6 months ago and broke her back and two ribs, was paralysed from the waist backwards and completely incontinent (it was just leaking out of her 24/7 at the start). She had a metal implant in her spine and has been recovering since.
She can just about walk again now, and over the past couple of weeks her peeing has got loads better - she doesn't really pee in the house anymore and can make it outside (even throughout the night) and pees outdoors.
Bowel movements are still giving us trouble - I haven't slept through the night since October and desperate for advice! I sleep downstairs with her because I don't want her to spend all night covered in poop and wee (no more wee, but still the poo is a problem).
We were feeding her a couple of small meals a day, but this just resulted in poop all day and all night. We changed to just one evening feed around 7pm, sometimes we make it through the night with no poop, sometimes there are multiple poops throughout the nights. Usually they occur around 4am when they happen.
I added sweetcorn to her poop to see how long it took to process - the first sweetcorn poop took about 14 hours, but then about 20 hours later there was still sweetcorn poop coming out!
I thought feeding her at night would work because of this time frame, but it seems like because her mobility is limited at the moment it's hard to get her stimulated to go so we are still having night poops sometimes.
We use the ice cube method for stimulation (I have used the squeezing method as well but found ice cube worked better), but this doesn't always produce a poop before bed. Sometimes even when it does, she still ends up pooping in the night.
Generally the trend is that we always seem to have multiple poops between 7am - 9am (ish) - occasionally we will have one at about 5pm, sometimes one last thing at night.
I am at a complete loss at what to do because despite the overall time trends, there are STILL rogue poops that happen in the middle of the night, and sometimes in the middle of the day.
Pooping is the final hurdle we have to somehow manage with her - once we are confident she isnt going to poop the bed and mess all over herself I'll be able to sleep through the night.
She's had the runs a couple of times - sometimes seemingly randomly, sometimes caused entirely by us feeding her scraps - we shouldn't, but she gives me those eyes and I can't help it!!! We're moving her onto a hypoallergenic kibble (Wainwrights salmon and potato) - we have been feeding her boiled turkey, boiled rice and brocolli with the kibble mixed in but someone said to try and stick to one type of protein, so we're just going to try the kibble rice and brocolli and see what happens.
Does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm going to try moving her main feed to the morning, to see if that makes any difference ... but I would welcome anything else! It's been six months of very hard slog for me and my partner and though I love Zelda to bits I am desperate for a night of sleep!!!