Does anyone else out there have problems with their dog peeing like crazy after playing in (and eating) snow?
Background: Lenney does have spay-related incontinence which we are able to control quite nicely with a homeopathic remedy (about one dose every couple of months). When she is stressed (which usually amounts to: when she picks up on my own stress) or very excited, she does occasionally have accidents in the house. A little more background: Lenney Loves Snow. Winter is her favourite time of year, and one of her favourite things to do is hauling me around in a toboggan. So, the other day, we had our first snow of the season, so we dug out the sled and let Lenney pull me around a bit. Of course she got pretty excited, and she also couldn't resist scooping up a few mouthfuls of the white stuff. About 2 hours later we came back into the house to find pee... everywhere. Poor Lenney! We felt we had let her down -- we should have come to check on her earlier, to see if she had to go out. (These accidents have happened in the past, but not last winter as we barely had any snow. I guess time dimmed our memories). Has anyone else had a similar experience with their dog? We are wondering if we should invest in a muzzle to at least prevent her from eating snow? And if so, which muzzle would be appropriate? (she's a large dog, possibly husky/rottie mix) Any other suggestions (aside from the obvious one to not let her play in the snow... but that seems tantamount to cruelty -- she loves it so much!)

I'm wondering....does just eating snow, without pulling the toboggan, cause the increased urine leakage? I'm a little unclear from your post whether you're saying she just eats snow and it happens, or you've only noticed it when she's been pulling you and eating snow. Because what I'm thinking is that pulling you on the toboggan is an anatomically stressful activity. I don't mean stressful in a bad way, just that she's using a lot of muscle power to do it. So I wonder if the intense physical activity could be causing a subsequent, temporary weakening of the muscles that control her bladder.

To me, she would have to consume an awful lot of snow to amount to a large serving of water. After all, snow is mostly air. So it makes more sense to me that the physical exercise has something to do with it. Maybe the solution is just to make sure she gets several opportunities to relieve herself immediately after any exercise session?

All of this is just me thinking out loud. I'm not any kind of medical expert.

Usually eating too much snow...mostly with puppies, will cause very loose stool not excessive unination. Doen't seem to be as much of a problem with adult dogs....but a suspect may is some cases.

Maybe Dr. Betty will see this tomorrow & comment.

Cheri, I think you might be right -- that it's probably more stress-related than snow-eating related... since when she has accidents, it's generally after a "stressful" event (eg. a really intense off-leash romp, or when I have had a really stressful day and she picks up on the vibe)... but then it's usually just a small puddle -- or even just a "wet bum spot" on the floor... not the "pee everywhere" scenario as we had the other day. I guess I'm just wondering if eating snow (admittedly not huge quantities of it) might somehow intensify the bladder control weakness? I'm kind of hoping to hear that someone on the forum has had a similar experience... it's always a bit of a relief to know you aren't the only one dealing with a certain problem!! And you are most definitely right: we have to be more on the ball about giving her several opportunities to relieve herself after intensive exercise.