Introduction
I have a female german shepherd that is eleven years old, she has been neutered last year due to pyometra. She has exostosis on her hind legs that sometimes cause her minor pain and discomfort. To those wondering, it wasn't common in my country to neuter dogs back when she was young, now it is.
The problem
A few months after the operation, she started having issues with holding her bladder. The tricky part is that she is fully able to hold it as long as she is in the apartment, but as soon as we go out for a walk, she usually pees on the stairs.
Provided that we live in an apartment complex with other families that means cleaning pretty much every time we go out for a walk, as she doesn't hold to the park that is two minutes away and just pees in front of people's apartments as we descend the stairs.
It's not about the frequency either, she have done it a few hours after a main walk when I walk her out again, minimum quantities of urine but still.
On the good days she will not pee the stairs but rather in the middle of the road after a few steps outside which is still not pleasant because it's an urban area and people frown upon the sight of my dog peeing in the middle of the small streets - which I completely understand.
Then she stopped out of the sudden for half a year.
And now she started again, we ruled out bladder infections but we found out some minor signs of calcium oxalate and very minimal traces of blood which our veterinary doctor wasn't worried about that much. He guessed that some crystal sand in the urine might have irritated the walls of the urinary tract.
Solution
Currently, none.
We have discussed hormonal therapy, because it is often than neutered old dogs have similar issues related to hormones. However, we ruled that out because she doesn't accidentally pees in the house or randomly leaks small quantities which is common for that cause of problems. She simply pees in the building stairs and she knows she doesn't have to because she is very guilty after.
My doctor suggested that her exostosis problems might be the primary cause, because it's causing her pain and it is irritating the nerves in the whole hind legs area, especially when she is descending the stairs which requires some physical load.
Question
We are trying a short course of some non-steroid pain killers to see if that will help but I would really like to hear more opinions or people that have had similar issues.
