Baby diapers for dogs?
When we rescued our first puppy mill rescue, boy, he peed everywhere! As soon as he had finished his bowl, he would lift his paw on it… Drapes, carpets, corners of furniture, bags left on the floor, you name it, everything was a target to his marking of his territory. He had been neutered shortly before, so I thought it was a matter of time for the remains of testosterone to completely disappear. Of course we started the potty training, but it was such a hassle that at one point, I thought I just had to suck it up and clean, try to prevent him from doing it inside as much as possible, bearing in mind he would probably never get rid of this bad habit he had forged for many years. He improved with time, but was never 100% housebroken.
Then we welcomed our first senior. She was better on the subject, but as she became senile and had more health issues (renal failure can trigger such increase of urination since they drink a lot more), she started to leak quite a bit. I tried doggy diapers, but very often, she managed to pee straight out of the whole left for the tail (she was a Poodle mix and her tail had been cut a little too short, leaving just a tiny pompom). It was only later that I realized baby diapers were the best fit.
One of our grandmas, rocking those diapers.
Sometimes they slip a little, but they make great cushions ;)!
It took incontinent dogs for me to come up with the right fit. He was disabled and couldn’t control his bladder, at all. I had to drain both his bladder and colon (nope, not glamorous at all), but leaving him inside the house without any protection was not an option. Leaving him outside was not either of course! I first tried designed belly bands with period pads, and it was fine during the day, but at night it was leaking way too much (I was devoted, but not to wake up in the middle of the night to press his bladder). Also, it could slip from his waist sometimes, when he would roll or crawl to play, or just when another one was resting on him and he wanted to get up! So I came up with an improved version: baby diapers, much more absorbent and better fitting with those elastic sides. At night, he had one for his weenie coupled with another for his behind, since he couldn’t control his poop either. A cute little white marshmallow ;). It was an even more life-saving solution since he would try to eat his poop when it was coming out and given the fact that he had a wrecked digestive tract, it prevented him from being sick. But he was a sly guy and did manage to dig into the diaper from time to time and, well, make quite a mess… His disability didn’t prevent him from being a little brat!
Our disabled and incontinent nugget, wearing a belly band.
But diapers were a better fit (no leak, no slip).
Anyway, still today, although we don’t have any incontient dog anymore, I always have packs of diapers at home, of different sizes. Although they all are more or less pretty good, some still have accidents here or there, especially at night and when I’m not home, as a protest I guess, even if I’m never gone for long… And well, as they age, it’s just like humans, they can be prone to leaking issues, it’s not their fault. But when you a prepared, I think it relieves everyone, because no foot or paw likes to step in a pudlle of pee…