Success update – 5 month old puppy can’t hold pee (frequent urination and UTI)

Posted a couple times about urinary issues my pup was having, I had severe puppy blues (actual depression) because of it.

I struggled to find other experiences of this and want to share for anyone else going through it.

We got out working cocker spaniel at 8 weeks old. As puppies do, she was peeing alot and having accidents which was expected during potty training.

At 3 months old she had a UTI. Asking to pee every 10 minutes, trying to pee 5+ times in one go. It cleared up on its own and there was barely a trace of it left by the time we got a sample to the vet.

We continued potty training but still weren’t even lasting an hour, frequent accidents and just no improvement as she turned 4 months old. I thought she was maybe a late bloomer but then we got hit with another UTI. We tried to get her to drink as much as possible to flush it out, which did work. But only brought her back to barely holding an hour & still having accidents everyday.

But this point she was about to be 5 months. I was exhausted, depressed, sleep deprived, no social life and my relationship took a huge tole. I was at the point of giving up.

We switched her onto wet fresh food instead of kibble as I heard it kept them better hydrated. But it didn’t change anything.

I knew there should be more development at this age and it wasn’t typical puppy behaviour. I advocated for my dog at the vet, and despite there not being obvious evidence of a UTI on a urine test, the vet did notice ‘sparkles’ in her pee with the human eye. This was the presence of Struvite Crystals. Usually seen in abnormally high ph urine, her urine was a perfect low ph. This was enough for the vet to prescribe a week of antibiotics.

3 days in, and she’s holding her pee for 3 hours!!! She’s calmed slightly too as im sure she was constantly uncomfortable before.

This is a huge weight off my chest. It’s been a tremendously tough few months between this and training, but we made it.

TLTR -Puppy had unsuspecting underlying UTI causing lots of accidents. Vet didn’t want to give antibiotics but I advocated for my dog and more tests indicated an infection. Antibiotics helped tremendously and she can now hold as expected for her age.