I have a 9 month old female Bullmastiff who has been having incontinence in her sleep, she does not leak any other time, exercise hanging out, etc.  For some history, she has had a few urinary trac infections and been on antibiotics.  Our vet put her on a incontinence drug, I can't remember the name, that immediatley turned her skitish, depressed, and she lost her appetite. We took her off that and now are on an estrogen supplement, DES. Since she has been on that, less than a week, she has had the sleep incontinence. The poor thing doesn't mean to and seems to feel bad about it. Our vet is researching the medication but I am trying to find out if anyone knows if this is common to the breed. She is spayed, I have read that sometimes dogs can get incontinence from that but she is only 9 months. Any information is greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately this kind of incontinence seems to be very common in the heavy breeds when spayed, especially when spayed before maturity.  A 9 month old Bullmastiff will now where near have reached physical maturity whereas some smaller breds will be furtehr on in their development.  Sadly very few vets point out the negatives of spaying :(  I do hope they can find the right medication for her.  It can be very distressing to a clean dog to be having this problem, as well as inconvenient to the owner.

Thanks, my vet incouraged me to get her spayed before maturity because of mammary cancer. I thought we were doing what was best for her.  Hazel, bullmastiff, does seem a little depressed and she hasn't been eating well. I just feel so bad for her becasue she is such a great dog and just so sweet.

I think the risks of Mammary Cancer are greatly exagerated, especially as it would seem that around half of Spayed Rotties and Boxers end up with incontinence.

Most breeders obviously keep their bitches intact until at least middle age, and don't have too many with Mammary tumours.

I have five bitches between 15 months and 13 years of age, and only the oldest had a Mammary tumour at 5 years old, when she was spayed.  she had it reoccur at 8 years, and after having a partial mastectomy has been clear since.  the other 3 bitches 5 years to 10 years have been trouble free, and the older two were not spayed until they were around 7 years of age (the 5 year old is still entire).

Now if the statistics based on a small smaple many years ago are to be beleived then half of the girls should have had tumours, and of those half should have been malignant.  Maybe it varies from breed to breed, but having spoken to breeders of 20 plus years in the breed, they have expereinced very few mammary cancers.

A freind in Welsh Springers did have a couple of ehrs with this trouble, but again after having mastectomy they lived to ripe old ages of 13 to 15 years.

I think the health benefits are often oversetimated in order to persuade people to neuter, when the real drive for it is to prevent breeding.

Hi i had a one of my girls spayed at 18mths and she never suffered incontinence, until her last six weeks with us sadly she died of lymph node cancer, but my vet put her on some drops to try and kick start her hormones i cant remember the name of the drops but if you ask your vet about drops either in the eyes or for uP the nose he may know what im talking about, its a relativly new drug and cost me £48 for a 2ml bottle well worth a try. good luck with your girl