FallDownGoBump... I hear ya... Loud and clear... Sounds as if we're both in the same boat... Hubby has 3 sisters and 2 brothers left and not one of them even bothered to send a card or call on his birthday, let alone any other time. Even if I did ask for help not one of them would... But the real kicker is that hubby has helped EVERYONE in his family and everyone has screwed him in some way... Six of his nine siblings and his father has lived with us at one time or another... When we first married we took in his father and youngest sister with the stipulation that 4 of the other brothers and sisters chip in a lousy $7. a week... The first week we got $21. the next week we got $14. then not another cent or even a crust of bread... I could go on for hours about them but I won't... It only upsets me more... My story: Three years ago hubby broke his hip and two days after the surgery they sent him home with me with no additional help... Three days after that something happened and he didn't know who he was, where he was or who I was... After a two week stay in the hospital, so they could perform every test known to man, they told me he had 2 strokes and a little stiff from the partial hip replacement but otherwise he was in good health and they sent him to a rehab facility ( nursing home )... BTW, while he was there, recovering, his youngest sister got it in her head that since the nursing home offered hospice services that was all they did and turned around and told hubby that's why he was there! Sorry for getting off on another rant... Anyway, after two months the rehab facility sent him home... For about a month and a half the visiting nurse and a physical therapist came over twice a week... By then I had to find a doctor because hubby's meds were running out. After reviewing all his medical records the doctor says hubby had SEVERAL strokes and a heart attack!!!! Ok, sorry, that's yet another rant... Right now I have a 67 year old hubby who moves as if he's 100 and, at times, has the brain of a 2 year old... Hugs, Rita

A hearty, "Amen!" to what both asolo and agnespuffin said about finding caregivers to handle the problem. When my mom lived with us, she had daily accidents with bladder and bowel incontinence. One day I spent over six hours cleaning up from one of those accidents. I'm sure you can understand -- cleaning her up, dressing her in clean clothes, washing & treating the bedding, cleaning the bedroom rug, wiping down the entire bathroom and shower, deodorizing my mom's half of the house, etc. I was exhausted and my back was done in from lifting her and holding her up while I was cleaning. So, we hired caregivers to give me a break. We started with just three hours a day and eventually worked up to 8 hours a day. But it never failed that as soon as they went home, she'd have an episode. No matter what, I always ended up doing the cleaning. All that to say this: hiring a caregiver is not always a solution. Plus there is absolutely no guarantee that your loved one will be more cooperative with a stranger, even a nice and loving caregiver. I could tell you more tales, but you don't need to hear those now. Wearing incontinence protection like Depend actually preserves a loved ones dignity. It gives them enough time to get to a bathroom and take care of things privately (even if you're helping with the cleanup) without announcing to the world via leaks, dribbles, stains, hideous smells, etc. that there's been an ACCIDENT.

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He does have a pretty face! Off topic, but do you know if he is mixed breed? He looks so much like my Abby did, she was lab/rottie- people thought she was a purebred lab, but she had the very distinctive facial expressions of a rottie. I can't get over how much that picture of Arlo reminds me of Abby! Especially with the raised eyebrow... My old girl had some control problems as she got older. We just went with the flow (no pun intended) and tried to encourage her to stay in the hard floor areas if she was going to have a problem. If we suspected it wasn't going to be a good day, we'd put newspaper down and she understood what that was for- probably because we put it in the area where she would always go if she couldn't hold her bowel or bladder. We could never kennel Abby either, it just wasn't conducive to her personality type; she was never abused or mistreated, but she did not like being in a confined space like a kennel. If we needed to control her location, we had much more luck with gates and fences to confine her to a given location. Fortunately we've lived in a few houses with large expanses of hard floor- she was always OK with being confined to a single room of the house for limited periods of time, providing it was decently sized and she could see out (i.e. no closed doors). If that's an option, I'd go with that, making sure to keep the room comfortable for him with his bed and such- and put down paper while he's confined there in hopes that he gets the idea that it's for peeing on. Best of luck.