BehavioRx Case of the Month
for October 1999

The clients called about their nine-month-old spayed Dalmatian, who had started wetting the blanket in her bed about a month earlier. At night, the bed was put into the clients' bedroom at the foot of their bed. During the day it was left in the den. Wetting only seemed to happen when the dog slept. They had showed her the blanket and slapped her on the snout, shouting "NO!" After a about four days, the Dal was avoiding her bed when the owners were around in the daytime and growled as she approached it at bedtime.

The Dal had been spayed at five months, well before her first heat cycle. Veterinary examination and urine samples ruled out vaginitis and urinary tract infections and the dog was deemed to be in excellent health otherwise, so consideration was being given to placing the dog on a type of female hormone, since bladder weakness often responds positively to this therapy. However, the veterinarian advised the client to seek our behavioral advice before starting the treatment.

In consultation we discovered the Dal was still being fed a dry puppy food, a bowl of which was left available at all times. [Demand feeding] She rarely seemed to "eat her fill" at any single time, but nibbled her food several times a day. She also drank a great deal of water after and between her "nibbles."

The clients were advised to seek the veterinarian's advice about an adult diet, then to measure carefully how much food she ate in a 24 hour period during a normal day's activity. This quantity of food was then split into two meals.

However, rather than feed the Dal dry food, they soaked it in hot water for about fifteen minutes in a large frying pan, adding hot water until the kibble bits gradually soaked up all the water. The moist meal was then put into the Dal's food bowl and presented to her. The clients said she ate her new rations ravenously, drank extra water only occasionally on quiet days, or after play periods or walks, and the bed-wetting ceased.

Soaking dry food in hot water for 10-15 minutes starts breaking down the binders in the kibble, releasing some of its tasty fat and flavoring and cutting down the time it takes the stomach to break it down for its trip through the small intestine. Otherwise, dry kibbles stay in a dog's stomach up to sixteen hours, whereas raw meats and foods require only about five to six hours.

The clients also purchased a new blanket for the Dal's bed, just to ensure that no urine odors in the old blanket could trigger some old visceral 'habits' as she slept.

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