Water tablets = weeing on carpets, help!

My housetrained cav has started on water tablets to control the fluid in her lungs caused by heart failure, (she'll be on them for the rest of her life) ... trouble is she's drinking bucket loads and despite getting up several times each night to let her out, she does sometimes have accidents on the carpet downstairs, (this is getting more frequent!).

Has anyone else had this problem? If so, I'm curious to know how if taking the water pill at a certain time helped, or reducing the amount of water available in the evening/at night? (This seems a bit cruel if she's so thursty!). Or, is it indeed possible to get some sort of 'litter tray'' like for cats and re-train them to use this when inside? Has anyone ever done this before with an older dog - is it possible?

Thanks for any advice!

Peeing

When one of mine started on diuretics I had the exact same problem - it does settle down! She couldn't control herself and once took an accidental pee on me (it just came out without her being able to stop!)

I find if you give it to them in the morning (my one is now on twice a day so this no longer applies) the peeing later on in the day is less. Maybe reduce the water at night (or lifting it after a certain time) but if she is still peeing a lot at night this may be a bad idea because anything that she has inside is just coming out and it is not being topped up.

Bringing her out frequently (every hour or so) to get her to empty out is the best way, I found, to stop the peeing in the house. At night, some good old newspaper for her to pee on is the best. There are puppy pads available, I haven't a clue of the brand name, but when I bought these they were used as a sitting cushion and then ripped to shreds!

The one positive thing about the peeing is that it's very dilute pee, thus cleaning it up isn't too difficult. An enzyme cleaner should sort out any trace in the carpet (esp if she is going int he same general place each time).

The poor pets body just needs to adjust - I know it is such a pain in the bum at the moment but is should settle down. Good luck

The general recommendation with that drug is to give it then take the dog out 30 minutes later and again another 30 minutes or so later and that should help a lot. Eventually you can probably just get the dog out anytime from 45-90 minutes after the pill and the dog will hold herself. After that initial pee they usually are fine til the same applies after the next dose.

Leo was on frusemide for a while and it took a couple of weeks for him to realise he had a full bladder. Initially he wet himself a few times but after a few weeks he rarely had accidents. I always would take him out about 60 minutes after the pill. With an older dog I'd probably try to not leave the dg longer than 3-4 hurs anyway as their bladder muscles lose tone anyway with age and that coupled with frusemide can make them leaky all right.

Management is your best approach as well -- you probably should reduce her access to rooms and also maybe take up rugs in hr primary room.

With Leo I found that once he had peed if h had accidents it was mainly wetting himself while sleeping in a bed, not going inside the house deliberately.

For the dog's experience, think of howeyou feel an hour after 3 cups of coffee -- they really need to go!

I just have one thing to add. When Geordie was on Lasix for 2 weeks with his heart condition, I found approximately 10 pee spots on the carpet within just a very few days of him being on Lasix.

I called our vet, and she said to bring in a urine sample - sure enough he had contracted a bladder infection. The vet explained that sometimes when they take a diuretic, their urine becomes so dilute that the acidity is lowered and therefore bacteria can easily grow in the absence of a slightly acidic environment. Geordie took antibiotics for 10 days or maybe 2 weeks and recovered completely.

Many pee spots in the house over a short period of time is one sign of a bladder infection.