Could be why she was at the shelter to begin with. Get a prescription for "Proin", then get it on PetMeds for a fraction of the price the vet will charge.

Then ----- give 1/2 of the dosage the vet prescribes. I am convinced our dog was over-dosed. She was on 1 pill a day (cut in half and given twice a day.) She is 35# and she was acting very strange and had a couple of seizures. We cut the dosage in half and she still doesn't "leak" and is back to normal. Normal for a 15 year old dog anyway.

Questions...How long is her walkies in the morning? When you wrote you wrote that she did it again this AM, I have three things in mind, either she is not done with her walkies, some dogs need more time - a 45 minute walk should be the minimum OR she is needing to go to the vet she may have some sort of problem with actually physically getting the message to her brain from her bladder, Next - does she pp in the same place every time?
By the way, the reason she was scampering around outisde was that she was probably finish going and excited to have you outside with her. SInce you have her on a voice command for going, if you catch her again, say No Potty Bella. Resolution for now, when you get up and are ready to go outside whith her ask her if she wants to go outside, put her leash on and say, lets go outside. Dogs are smart, they learn by rote, and if you start this, then while you are getting ready during the morning, stop every now and then and ask her if she wants to go outside, some dogs will lie just to get outside, mine does, but usually when we are out there and I say pp outisde, he goes, so it does not matter if it takes a bit. I also noted that her last outside time at night is at 7pm, I suggest just before turning in, you take her out for a 10 minute walk as late as you can before turning in. Let us knkow what happens

Thank you Roberta and Mazer for your quick replies.
Roberta: I will ask my vet what his thoughts are on the Proin, I am willing to try anything. She has been checked out twice, no UT infection or anything of the sort. All normal.

Mazer: Sorry I wasn't exactly clear in my earlier ramblings, Belle goes out again at 10PM before I go to bed. We do ask her if she wants to go outside, (she ALWAYS wants to, she loves being outdoors). Our walk is about 35-40 minutes each morning, at the minimum. She will usually pee once or twice, real quick and have a BM. I let her sniff to her hearts content, and we vary the route so to keep it interesting. The last 15 minutes is a final jog around the township park, (maybe 1/4 mile?) Then a slower walk back to the house, letting her have ample time to finish any business.

Part of the problem may lie with her previous owner, who the shelter informed me was elderly and not very mobile. Apparently she ate hot dogs for every meal, (and whatever else she could get her jaws around) and was 15 pounds overweight when we adopted her. I'm thinking maybe the housetraining was not very thorough? We started off with the crate and a strict schedule for meals, which my vet recommended to reinforce the idea that all potty activities are outside.

I will try to keep my patience, and my sense of humor. We truly love her and she is such a joy in every other sense!

Thanks again for letting me ramble/rant!

gardenut - I don't see the age of Belle, is she a puppy? I would put her back in the crate to start with. Reinforce her training.

If you haven't already done so, get a urine from her and take to your vet to analyze. More difficult with a female dog. Just take an old lid to a tupperware container and slip it under her from behind when she squats. Then put the sample in the container matching the lid you used. They don't need alot of urine to check it. My old girl has had UTI several times throughout her life.

If she is leaking, she won't squat to do it. My oldest lab came with a zillion issues, one being that she has a leaky bladder. She just leaks if she doesn't take her PPA or Propalin, I am assuming this is what the poster above was referring to.

My gal never squatted to pee in the house, I just noticed a small puddle when she would get up from lying/sitting down.

Is it possible that she just isn't fully potty trained yet? I would be hesitant to give my dog a med before I ruled out the incidents just being accidents or UTI.

My youngest lab had accidents for the entire first year we had him. I thought I was going to go out of my mind. I took him out regularly and did everything possible, but he was just hard to train. He is fully trained now thank the Lord above. He would look just look at the door, I would be right behind him to open the door and he would stand there and start to pee. Frustrating. I cleaned up more pee accidents in 2004 than I care to remember. He just didn't catch on, where everyone else had caught on fully by the third month at the latest. Usually having more than one dog helps, the puppy just follows the other dogs' behavior.

I think sometimes they just forget and get caught short while in the house. How long have you had her? What kind of dog is she?

My two boys go out for last call at around 9, if I am up late, I will put them out again after the news. My old gal is more like 7:30 p.m. She wants to get upstairs and go to bed! She's going to be 12 and when I say to her "do you want to go out", her ears perk up and she follows me to the door (of course, I have to speak loudly now since her hearing is going). She knows that after she goes out and does her business she will get to go upstairs and lie on her comfy dog bed. Everybody goes out around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. on weekdays, sometimes not till 8 a.m. on weekends if am lucky. The go out first thing, then come in for breakfast and then back out about a 1/2 hr. later and then in till 2. I don't go out with them, we don't go to the park, we don't take long walks, etc. Of course, there have been incidents few and far between where somebody gets the runs and makes a mess. Different situation. But for the most part, on the days I go to the office they stay in the house from 7 until 2 with no potty breaks.

Best of luck and keep us posted!

Hi Labmomma - you were a great help to my earlier post as well. Belle is slightly over a year, (about 14 months, the shelter figured) Her owner passed away, his daughter did not want her, kept her in garage for week or so, then turned her in. The shelter told me she would hold it all night long, so they assumed she was housetrained.

I did have her checked, twice now - no sign of Urinary infection, etc. She does not drink a lot of water, just the normal amount, (in other words, I fill her bowl in AM, then next AM there is always some remaining before I dump, washout and refill.)

I am mystified, but am thinking also that perhaps you are right, it is just going to take more time. It's frustrating though! This is my first "real dog" (I have dogsitted for friends, neighbors before) and sometimes I think I am too much of a worry-wart. However, my husband for years was a "no animals in the house" type and s-l-o-w-l-y we (myself and the kids) brought him around. He probably loves the dog as much as we do! But, that said, he does not appreciate the urine on the rug, either. I will just keep reinforcing the "go potty outside" and continue her crating in the day. Thanks.

No problem, so I am assuming that she isn't leaking in the way that my old gal does??

We just had to wait till the thickhead got the potty outside picture. He had two role models who never potty in the house unless sick. Some dogs take longer than others.

I defintely would continue to crate her. I put my 3 year old back in his crate when I go to the office at times when he has exhibited bad behavior in my absence. For example, everyone had run of the house until the day I came home and a telephone book was torn up, a can of protein powder was opened, eaten and wet enough to be ground into my foyer floor. With the 2 boys, I wasn't sure who the offender was. I put the youngest in the crate, the middle one and the old gal in my office with a baby gate and that's where they stay now while I am out. Just makes it easier. I can control the situation without having anxiety over what's gone on while I've been away.

Hang in there, she will get it.

We just starated puppy training and the instructor said a couple of things that you might find interesting. First she said that when animals go pp in the same area it is because of the scent they pick up, makes sense. I have used the Nature's Miracle product but she suggested apple cider vinegar. Test first on your carpet but after blotting up the pp, just pour full strength and let air dry.

The other might suggest a reason your dog is going at the same time of day. She said some dogs drink alot of water after eating dry kibble. She suggested wetting the kibble only enough so that it still floats and doesn't get soggy. She says this will keep them from having to drink so much water and that some broad chested breeds have been known to throw up the water and food from drinking so much.

Don't know if any of this applies to your situation, just thought I would share.

Again, thanks everyone for their concerned replies. Belle is a mutt, the shelter listed her as shepherd/chow mix...but she is only 53 pounds, not nearly as tall as a shepherd or chow. There is obviously something else mixed in, but we don't really care. She's short haired, soft and a pretty auburn color.

Saturday was a trying day...she didn't have any accidents in the house but she must have peed 20 times. I called the vet and made an appt. for today, (Monday) Yesterday she was totally normal, no accidents, no frequent peeing. The vet said again, no UTI. She's fine today as well. This dog is something else - LOL. Maybe she just has a crush on the vet? She did however need to have her anal glands drained, that wasn't too pleasant for her. Maybe that was causing her to be uncomfortable, and she got a little confused in her housetraining.

I'll cross my fingers that this was the problem, but in the meantime, any time she will be alone during the day for longer than a few hours she will go in the crate.
I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Hi gardenut, the 20 time peeing is reminding me of my old gal and the first two weeks I had her. Although she didn't have any accidents in the house, she did the go out 20 times a day. I just pulled a urine sample and took it over to the vet. Sure enough, she had an infection. Maybe if it occurs again (the excessive number of times she is going out to pee), you may want to just take a urine sample in to the vet to be run. There should be no need to take Belle into the office inasmuch as you have already from what I can see, spent a small fortune in a short period of time. I would even consider asking the vet to put her on a course of antiobiotics in the event that her infection isn't being picked up. Unless the vet catheterizes Belle for a "clean" sample, the samples we get when we use a top to a rubbermaid container are somewhat contaminated to begin with. Just trying to troubleshoot...

The anal sac expression is not fun to say the least, but better to have them expressed. The retriever breed have issues with the anal sacs. My guys are expressed as soon as I start to pick up a smell. You will know it. Just don't wait or it will leak onto their dog bed or worse, your carpet... I don't know if that affects the peeing, did the vet mention anything about that?

Please continue to keep us posted and hang in there. She will get the training thing down.

IF you have to do another urine test, ask for a urine glucose test. After years of being lethargic and fat and peeing in the house, my friend's dog was recently diagnosed with diabetes. Now she gets insulin shots twice a day and is more alive than since she was a very small pup. the frequent urination was a red flag for me in your post.

Thanks ladies. Nancy, funny you should mention that...because the vet said if this coninues much further he would recommend some tests in that direction. She is still doing fine today, no repeat of Saturday's behavior.

Labmomma, thanks for the heads-up on how to collect the urine sample. That's exactly what I did. However, OF COURSE she refused to go pee outside in the yard, we HAD to parade up to the park and have me carry the tupperware around behind her, practically diving down to catch her! Then of course, she jumps up and prances away, laughing at me. We finally got the sample. Sometimes I am wistful for the quiet good old days when it was just Panda and us....ONLY KIDDING! :)

One trick I like to use for potty training is take a rag that you used to clean up the pee in the house and stake it in the yard where you want the dog to go. Also whenever it goes use the same command of go "potty" or whatever word you like. My dogs "go hurry":) Good luck it can be hard to break an adult dog of this bad habit but it can be done with patience and love. If you scold when you catch her in the act do NOT raise your voice, even though it makes us want to scream, they only hear the tone then and not the words and just run around freaked out. Just calmly tell her NO outside and take her to the staked rag and tell her "potty". Hope this helps.
I'm a professional pet sitter and trainer.