Bladder Training Puns

We picked up our 10 week old pup about a week ago.

This is our 2nd dog and we know that at this age, supposedly he can "hold it" for twoish hours or so, tops. Just to be safe, we've ensured that he has had an outside trip at this schedule (every 2 hours) plus immediately after waking and meals, y'know, as you do. Except that this dog can take SEVERAL trips outside to enjoy the snow... frolic in nature... but won't pee... but doesn't pee in the house either??

He is drinking plenty of water. He is also healthy and vet-checked. BUT HE GOES 4 TO 6 HOURS WITHOUT PEEING. But he does eventually pee. Outside. No inside potty accidents whatsoever. A model peeing citizen. 10/10.

HOW DO I POTTY TRAIN A PUPPY THAT'S ALREADY POTTY TRAINED ITSELF AND DIDN'T SEND ME A MEMO??

Like, we go out 8 to 12 times a day and he'll go maybe 2 to 3 times but it's not on a time schedule like after breakfast or after nap or any discernable period of time. It's like ah, the urine gods have blessed me suddenly, blessed be thy wee.

Am I supposed to test his seemingly limitless bladder capacity with an imposed schedule, or stick to the puppy principles, or...?? Our other dog was a 20-a-day piddle nightmare as a puppy, so I'm just lost with this one TBH.

Guys I started to measure volume of urine everytime I go. I woke up at 11:00 am and pee 300 ml. Then I pee at 4:00 pm 200 ml this time. Then I go to pee at 6:30 pm 100 ml this time. In between I felt feeling of not emptying my bladder and constant urge. I think I have tight pelvic floor. Pls tell how can I my increase my output to 300-400 ml each time(normal) . I know some of you guys achieved that. Pls guide me.

Oops, meant to keep up on this but then I got a bad cold and forgot about it. Nevertheless, just finished week four of bladder training. I’m going three hours now without peeing. There were some times last week and the week before were I felt like I was going pee too often still (especially after drinking a trigger drink) but now I feel like I’m making progress again. I still occasionally wake up at night to pay (once or twice maybe?) but I didn’t wake up at all last night so I hope that’s something that continues. I still feel urges to go during the day but it has lessened. I hope it continues to do so. For now I’ll keep sticking to three hours and go from there!

So I’ve just finished week one of bladder training. Initially it was hard to go two hours without really needing to go but now it’s fairly easy. I still feel an urge to pee, though. I hope that lessens as the weeks go on. I think I’m going to stretch to going every 2.5 hours for the next week.

Had a slip up this weekend where I drank some soda and that massively irritated my bladder and made me go every 20 minutes. But I’m back on track drinking water only. I also still struggle with peeing right before bed. It always takes me a while to fall asleep and then I start to hyper focus on whether or not I feel like peeing and I can’t go to bed if I feel like my bladder is the least bit full. So I end up breaking the schedule before bed. I also wake up twice at night to pee. Any tips on how to not go too often before bed?

I'm a woman in my mid-30s. For over a year I have urinary incontinence of small leaks, usually several times a day. (Oddly, though, I don't think my bladder is overactive, as in I pee a normal amount of times for how much I drink.)

The advice I've read for how to deal with this is to try not to go to the bathroom whenever you get the urge; this trains your bladder to gradually hold more. I follow this but it often results in a leak. Other than the leaks it works well for me: After I suppress the urge it vanishes for a while -- anywhere from a few minutes to nearly an hour before it reoccurs.

But I wonder if these reoccurring leaks are causing more harm than whatever good is done by not responding to my first, second, or third urges. Perhaps it's getting my bladder / unconscious mind in the habit of thinking leaks are an acceptable response to voiding urges.

This leaves me wondering, would it be better if I respond to my first urge, in order to avoid leaks?

(Btw, in the past I tried timed voiding bladder training but it didn't work well for me so I switched to bladder training that involves just trying to suppress my initial urges, at whatever time they occur. But even if I go back to timed voiding, this question still applies.)

Thanks in advance.

So I'm 18 M,new to the sub, and I started bladder training around 7 weeks ago.

There was a period of time this year where I had to pee almost every 1 hour and it caused a lot of anxiety. I went to a doctor, and based on ultrasound and urine flow tests, I was told that I have OAB, and bladder training was the best solution. Since then, I've been practicing holding up to a minimum of 2 hours. A lot of the times I can hold up to 2.5 hours, and some days when I'm distracted or out with friends I can hold up to 4 hours. I should add that there's no leakage of urine.I aim to comfortably hold it for 4 hrs eventually.

The issue is that about 30 min after I've peed, I start getting this 'tingling' feeling which worsens over time, but I can ignore it after a while. Did anyone else go through the same experience and how long did it take for you to feel normal again? Any other bladder training advice would help.

Hi, my 13 week old border collie/Kelpie is doing pretty well in her crate. I’m the day she naps well and will voluntarily wander in / out of crate happily. At night she cries for a minute or two but then settles pretty well. I’m at the point now of trying to lengthen the time she can hold her bladder over night, and work up to holding over night. At the moment it’s every 4 hours no matter what, so we wake up around 1:30am for toilet breaks, and then around 5am. At 5am there is no going back to bed, she is awake and ready to go, which I’m fine with, but want to train and work on increasing her bladder control! Thanks in advance for advice!

I feel dumb even saying this, but it feels so empowering when your bladder is no longer in control of your life! For a while I’ve been doing the whole “better pee now because I’m not sure when I’ll have another chance” thing and I think I shrunk my bladder. I was usually having to pee every hour during the day and multiple times in the night. It felt awful going out, always worrying about if there would be a bathroom. I recently started bladder training, so waiting 10-15 minutes after I got the urge to go. The other day, I felt the urge but realized I could wait a while longer if I needed to and it felt so empowering! I didn’t realize how much my shrunken bladder had been ruling my life and causing me anxiety. I’m not sure why I’m sharing this, but I guess I’m just excited at the progress (although I still have a ways to go) and hoping to encourage anyone who has a similar issue.

31 M. Hi everyone, first of all please remember this isn't medical advice. Just my own experience. I don't think I had any underlying medical conditions.

Before I started bladder re-training, my bathroom interval was often 15-20 minutes, sometimes less. I didn't know that it was safe to hold the interval out longer so I always just went when I felt I needed to. But it was inconvenient in a lot of ways.

Then one morning a few months ago I decided to check into it again. It turned out it was actually safe to hold it in longer because I was going too soon.

It was somewhat uncomfortable to hold it in longer, but it got easier. Now, I can easily do 2-3 hour intervals in the afternoon. Sometimes I am like, "Seriously? I don't need the bathroom yet?" I don't do the same exact interval all day. The morning intervals, when I drink the most water, are closer together, but then the afternoon and night intervals are further apart.

One of the nice things is I can go for a long walk now. Used to be I couldn't make it past a few blocks without needing the bathroom. Now I can go for a long walk and not even need the bathroom immediately when I get home.

I think I made my last grocery shopping trip all the way there and back again without needing to use the bathroom.

Probably the best part is I can stay in bed longer without needing the bathroom. Instead of being up 3-5 times through the night to pee, it's usually only once now.

So I am very grateful for bladder re-training. It is really nice to not have to go so much. And I drink a lot of water, I think a gallon a day. And still can get most of my morning intervals at least an hour, 2-3 hours starting in the afternoon. It has improved my life so much.

What I did was always get the most out of every interval. I always tried to get a good period of time feeling that discomfort of needing to pee, but not going yet. It is hard in the beginning because I spent most of the time in that discomfort! But what happened was I started to get more time without needing to go at all. I tracked when I went, when I subjectively ""started needing to go"" and then when I ""really, really needed to go"". Then I could see that the time between ""going"" and ""starting to need to go"" would expand. I think there are some limits on how much discomfort you should try to endure, just for safety reasons.

Hi everyone I’m pretty new here. I love finally having somewhere to share my thoughts and my experiences. This is quite a lonely and painful time. My symptoms started when I turned 18, I feel like I always have the urge to pee and I have a lot of abdominal pain too. The cramps feel like I’m always on my period or something. I’m 21 now and I’ve seen multiple doctors over the years and think i’ve finally found a good one. Anyways my doctor hasn’t confirmed that I have IC yet, but she says she wants to start treating me like it’s IC. I never noticed any flares with the food I was eating, but more with what I’m drinking. So i just started taking amitriptyline i’m now on a dose of 50 mg and it’s been about a month now. I’m just starting to notice a difference, I don’t have that strong of an urge and if i do feel like I have to pee it’s not as intense or painful as it usually would be. So now I’m starting to take the time to “bladder train”, i’ve always been skeptical of this term because some doctors would tell you that holding your pee would cause kidney failure or give you a UTI. But other sites I’ve read about IC say that retraining your bladder will help it be able to not give you that urge every time it has even a low amount of urine. I wanna know if anyone has tried this before or if they believe it will make a difference?

For those who don't know, going #2 is a euphemism for pooping. I have been bladder retraining for 1-2 months now and I've had great results. I used to need to go 3-4 times when I went to the grocery store, could barely make the 15 minute drive, now I only need to go one time for a whole grocery store trip.

But sometimes I need to go #2 between peeing intervals. And for me when I go poop I have to go pee. So usually I just go as needed, then reset my peeing interval. Actually as a result, my urgency to pee in the next 5-10 minutes after pooping is reducing.

Also when I go poop, I don't just pee once, I usually let out a little bit with each bit of bowel movement, over a 5 to 20 minute period.

So basically when I go to poop, I end up peeing before my usual pee interval. It seems to be okay, I'm still gaining on my intervals as a whole, but just wondering how others have handled this. Do you hold in the poop until your pee interval is up? Thanks!

First time posting here! I’ve had IC for almost 3 years, after an endometriosis surgery disrupted my bladder lining. I hadn’t had a flare up in 6 months, but was peeing quite frequently.

I started a study for IC where they had me start bladder training. First week was 5 minutes of waiting and that was fine, but I started 10 minutes of waiting yesterday and today I’m having my first bladder flare up in MONTHS. It’s awful.

Has anyone had a similar experience? I thought I was peeing so much out of habit and maybe I was healed, but now it seems like my frequent peeing has protected me from this. I’m wondering if bladder training might be worse for me.

Would appreciate any advice or input!

Hi everyone,

I'm a 22F who has always urinated a lot but around four months ago it became unbearable. I was basically peeing every 15 minutes. Went to the urologist, got prescribed mysteriq, saw some improvement but a few weeks ago all of my symptoms came back. I just started taking pumkin seed oil and have been bladder training for the past three days. I am currently holding my urine for 45 minutes which sometimes feels fine and sometimes feels horrible.

I was hoping to hear about other people's experiences with bladder training and how they went about it. When did you increase the amount of time between urinating? When should i move up to an hour? I'm thinking of doing increasing my peeing by 15 minutes and would love to hear if other people have done something similar.

Thanks!

Hi everyone. I'm trying to do bladder training but am running into a problem.

BACKGROUND

I did my three days of bladder diary and the instructions are to "urinate as often as your shortest voiding interval (the length of time between trips to the bathroom) based on your voiding diary."

My shortest voiding interval is 45 minutes. I'm supposed to go to the bathroom every 45 minutes, whether I feel the urge to go or not (except for while sleeping). If I make it one day with no leakage, increase the interval by 15 minutes, and keep that up until I can go four hours between trips to the bathroom without leakage.

PROBLEM

I like to drink a lot of water with meals (about 750ml) and when I first wake up (about 1L). Consuming so much water I feel the urge to go within an hour. I can't imagine ever making it four hours after that much water.

On the flip side, in between that I don't drink much so I can easily go much longer without urinating. So starting with 45 minutes or even an hour interval seems like I will just weaken my bladder by getting in the habit of having such short interval times. At best it seems unnecessary.

WHAT TO DO?

So I'm not sure how to proceed. Should I just do it as instructed and hope for the best? Or should I try a modified version? I was thinking of trying the following:

• After consuming a large amount of water, allow myself to go as soon as I feel a strong urge, without concern for time

• Aside from this exception, stick to a schedule

• Start with a significantly longer interval than 45 minutes (perhaps 1 hour 30 minutes)

This modified version makes sense to me. But I'm not an expert and don't know the research behind the protocol so maybe I shouldn't mess with something that's likely been created based on research findings.

Thoughts? Any experiences of your own to share?

I’m currently trying to train my bladder to help with OAB. i is anted to know if other people training their bladders also feel the constant urge to pee whilst waiting for their allotted time slot for weeing? (For me, the urge to wee never goes away. I wee and then I need a wee straight away)

Basically, I can hold it in, but for the whole 2+ hours I feel like I’m going to wee myself. Will this ever go away? It’s making me so suicidal. I’m only 20:(

New nurse.

Hearing different things from different nurses and can’t find anything in my text books. Do you clamp the tubing down at the catheter bag tubing or up on the foley itself?

I have some questions for those of you familiar with pelvic floor exercises and bladder training. My IC is very severe, I have urgency, frequency, pressure, burning and pain all the time to the point I can't sleep or live a normal life and while I was never diagnosed with pelvic floor dysfunction I can tell there's something wrong in that area. I looked up some exercises to relax your pelvic floor on youtube and I have been doing them for a couple of minutes each day, I have heard pelvic exercises to strenghten the pelvic area might do more harm than good to IC patients, is that true? I'm not worsening my condition by doing these exercises with the intention of relaxing my pelvic floor, am I? Now, bladder training! I have heard of bladder training but I have always been too afraid to try it because I always heard that holding your urine causes uti's and I'm terrified of getting them because they make my IC symptoms even more unbearable and I take a long time recovering from said uti. Also, can you do bladder training if you have burning in your bladder and pain or is it just when your only symptoms are urgency and frequency? Can you do it during a flare? I'm going through the worst flare of my life right now, I think it's related to the severe constipation and anxiety I have been dealing with, I have done a urine test for infection that came back clear amd I'm doing a new one in a few days because I keep getting worse. One last question, any tips on how to calm an anxiety related flare if that's what this is? I' apologize for all these questions but after years of dealing with IC through diet only I want to try a different approach (I have gone to several urologists and tried most medications out there). If anyone has any links on pelvic floor exercises for IC and bladder training people leave them bellow, I would be really thankful.

is bladder training valuable? I mean it is drinking a lot of water and gradually stretching your bladder by suppressing urination? but if you have a constant and painful urge to urinate then bladder training does not help? you experience a constant urge to urinate or peaks? the cessation results in pelvic floor pain and so the circle is complete.

I myself have a small bladder capacity and sensitive bladder, so I have a constant urge to urinate and can hold my urine for 1-2 hours?

and bladder training hurts a lot and takes 6-12 months to get results, the question is is it worth it?

So a while ago a pt told me not to rush to the bathroom each time i need to pee, but to wait as long as I could. Cut to almost a year later of this and no improvement at all, and honestly im sick of getting up to pee. I want to sit down to study without getting up every 40 min or alternatively trying to concentrate while i feel like im about to wet myself.

Not much point here other than trying to let go of some anger

I hope that makes sense. Like is it a matter of [bladder] muscle memory, or muscle strengthening?

By bladder training I mean delaying urination (going every 1 hour, then 1 hour 15min, etc.) and holding it in despite some urgency. Has anyone on this sub tried this, and had noticeable results in reducing overall urgency?

When I went to pick up my dog, I could immediately tell that something was wrong aside from the fact that she looked considerably skinnier. This establishment told me that they did not notice anything wrong until they went to get her the day of pickup - which is total BS because she literally had mucus dripping from her nose, was wheezing terribly and SHE LOST 20 LBS!!! - oh, and I paid extra for one-on-one playtime, and any person who sees dogs on a daily basis like these people would be able to tell that something was wrong with her (which makes me think that maybe they didn't honor this part of what I paid for. It's almost as if they put her in a cage for two weeks and forgot about her).

Anyways, my once extremely healthy and spirited 95 lb 4 year old GSD is now an unhealthy, lethargic 77 lb GSD with zero appetite (hasn't eaten since she's been home, and who knows how long she went w/out eating while with them) who's urinating about every half hour on the half hour and won't lay down for what I can only assume is because it's more difficult for her to breathe in that position. The people at the school said they'd cover any veterinary fees, but they still charged me full price for the boarding.

I took her to the vet at their earliest opening (this morning) and they ran all kinds of tests and took chest x-rays, etc. and provided me with a couple different medications to be given daily until they are exhausted. Obviously, I am very, very upset and extremely disappointed with how this GSD training school "cared" for my girl while I was gone. And she is by no means out of the woods yet...she is seriously ill right now.

I didn't know just how bad she was until going to the vet, but now that I do, should I pursue any legal action? Do you think their covering the vet costs (which amounted to just over $500) is enough?

EDIT: Grammar

EDIT 2: Thanks for all the replies you guys. My dog is still hanging in there, but hasn't responded to the medication yet. Put some in a little dollop of peanut butter, but she's still not ready to eat anything. Had to hold her mouth open and administer the medication that way, and I just hope she pulls out of this! As for everyone's advice, I'm not going to take any legal action, but i am going to seek a full refund as well as post reviews of this experience on yelp and the like. Thanks again everyone.

EDIT 3: some before/after pics I put together on imgur: http://imgur.com/a/8Yj8F

EDIT 4 & UPDATE: Because s

I read a bunch of the other PT posts and couldn't find an exact corrilitation to this so thats why I'm starting a new discussion.

He has always shown an interest in our bathroom use and lately he's been standing and urinitating into the bath during bathtime. He watches himself and is very purposeful in completely emptying his bladder. We have one of those overlay potty seats which I seat him on right before bathtime, but I'm not sure he 'gets it' exactly.

Thanks in advance!

As the title states I'm wondering if I can train the muscles related to my bladder to urinate a an accelerated rate. Or does the bladder not work that way?

Hi. I'm planning on scheduling how often I should go to the toilet, and gradually increasing the time by 15-minutes until my bladder becomes stronger. However, I'm not sure how often I should schedule the toilet visits. Should I start by going every hour? Every two hours? Should I find the time that I generally feel a strong urge to go, and start from there? Thanks.

Hello there,

I welcomed 2 shelties this summer. One male and one female, they were 2,5 months.

They are now both 7 months, almost 8 months old.

I live in a flat at the sixth floor. I have one stair between the fifth and the sixth floor, then an elevator.

Usually in the morning (can be during other walks but more rarely), the male pees in front of the elevator or on the stairs.

At first, I thought it was a bladder issue, I thought that - maybe - he could not hold himself. He was young.

It has been a month now that the female is potty-trained but he continues to pee there. At almost 8 months he normally can hold himself for a long period.

We tried many ideas:

- the famous 'no'

- to rise him above the ground while peeing

- to avoid the stairs by picking him up in our arms

- to change his behaviour by diverting him with another command - we ask a 'sit' in front of the elevator and congratulate him

- to verify with the vet no particular health issue

- to help him not be scary with this environment by doing walks in the building and let him smell all these neighbour scents

The best result: diverting him with another command.

But he still continues doing it and I am short on new ideas

Do you have any tips to help us?

Thanks in advance,

Our 4 month old (almost 5) whippet, Nova, has been showing problems with her bladder. When we take her out to potty, nearly every time she will pee twice. Once to unload the majority of her bladder, and a second or third time to empty the rest (or so it seems). This has been happening ever since we adopted her at 8 weeks.

At first we thought she was just really excited to be outside and she's trying to hurry up and pee, so she speeds it up not realizing she's not done. This seemed like a really plausible thing to do considering her personality (super outgoing and very independent/headstrong/and disobedient at times).

Lately, she's been finishing her pee session indoors. We'll take her out to potty, she'll do her thing, we'll encourage her to go again, she generally goes again, then we'll go back inside where she'll pee a little again.

Or, she'll ask to go outside to potty many many times per day. We work from home, so we sometimes end up taking her out even though it's not the designated potty time. This is becoming tedious and annoying and we are trying to curb this behavior.

Unfortunately, everywhere I look online about this, the writer (blogger, whatever) is always referring to 8-week old puppies and how they can't control their bladders as well since they're so young. Nova is almost 5 MONTHS OLD!

We have another puppy who just turned 12 months old and she ALWAYS empties her bladder fully at every opportunity to potty. We haven't had an accident with her since she was around 6 months old.

So this makes us wonder if there's something wrong with her bladder or her brain-to-bladder pathways. Since she's a whippet, we thought we'd ask here since whippets are not like other breeds and their anatomy is a little different.

Has anyone experienced this with their whippet puppy? Should we take her to the vet to get her bladder checked out? Or is this just a training issue (she's trained enough to know she's not supposed to go inside, and that potty = outside)?

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks in advance!

So I recently moved and have been having some trouble retraining my shiba on relieving himself outside. Here's my situation:

Where I previously lived, I always walked him. No problems relieving himself. I didn't have a fenced yard and we lived in a townhouse complex, so lots of other dogs and interesting things to smell, which I think is the reason for current difficulties.

Where we live now, we have a fenced yard that's HUGE. However, he will only relieve himself in our yard if he simply cannot hold it anymore. I'm talking 12-16 hrs at a time. If i let him out into our fenced yard, he'll just run around or lay down but not relieve himself unless he absolutely 100% cannot hold it anymore.

Here's what I've done so far:

When he finally does relieve himself, lots of praise and a piece of cheese immediately after he's done (I don't even wait to get back into the house to give it to him. Literally he gets it when he's done.

If he doesn't go within 5 minutes, we come back inside for 20. This can go on for hours.

I think he really just wants to go for walks because he usually runs right to the gate. Sometimes after he does pee I do walk him but not all the time. And I refuse to walk him unless he does pee. What I've tried to do is walk him inside the yard on his leash but that doesn't seem to be working.

This is super frustrating in the morning before I have to leave for work (I've been late because of him) or before I go to bed and I'm kind of at my wits end. I'm not sure what else I can do anymore. Does anyone have any training tips?

I started running with CamelBak's Recon system. It holds 1.5L of water and has multiple pockets for Sat phone, bear spray, etc. However, I never see anyone running with this sort of system and was curious as to why. I have a variety of packs/ vests from Black Diamond, Ultimate Direction, and USWE. They all have thier uses but for training runs where there are 2-3 hours stretches with no water this thing just works. I was thinking maybe it would be hard to fill at a race on the fly but not sure. Thoughts?

Guys I started to measure volume of urine everytime I go. I woke up at 11:00 am and pee 300 ml. Then I pee at 4:00 pm 200 ml this time. Then I go to pee at 6:30 pm 100 ml this time. In between I felt feeling of not emptying my bladder and constant urge. I think I have tight pelvic floor. Pls tell how can I my increase my output to 300-400 ml each time(normal) . I know some of you guys achieved that. Pls guide me.I know my bladder is not emptying fully.

I'm a woman in my mid-30s. For over a year I have urinary incontinence of small leaks, usually several times a day. (Oddly, though, I don't think my bladder is overactive, as in I pee a normal amount of times for how much I drink.)

The advice I've read for how to deal with this is to try not to go to the bathroom whenever you get the urge; this trains your bladder to gradually hold more. I follow this but it often results in a leak. Other than the leaks it works well for me: After I suppress the urge it vanishes for a while -- anywhere from a few minutes to nearly an hour before it reoccurs.

But I wonder if these reoccurring leaks are causing more harm than whatever good is done by not responding to my first, second, or third urges. Perhaps it's getting my bladder / unconscious mind in the habit of thinking leaks are an acceptable response to voiding urges.

This leaves me wondering, would it be better if I respond to my first urge, in order to avoid leaks?

(Btw, in the past I tried timed voiding bladder training but it didn't work well for me so I switched to bladder training that involves just trying to suppress my initial urges, at whatever time they occur. But even if I go back to timed voiding, this question still applies.)

Thanks in advance.

I'm a woman in my mid-30s. For over a year I have urinary incontinence of small leaks, usually several times a day. (Oddly, though, I don't think my bladder is overactive, as in I pee a normal amount of times for how much I drink.)

The advice I've read for how to deal with this is to try not to go to the bathroom whenever you get the urge; this trains your bladder to gradually hold more. I follow this but it often results in a leak. Other than the leaks it works well for me: After I suppress the urge it vanishes for a while -- anywhere from a few minutes to nearly an hour before it reoccurs.

But I wonder if these reoccurring leaks are causing more harm than whatever good is done by not responding to my first, second, or third urges. Perhaps it's getting my bladder / unconscious mind in the habit of thinking leaks are an acceptable response to voiding urges.

This leaves me wondering, would it be better if I respond to my first urge, in order to avoid leaks?

(Btw, in the past I tried timed voiding bladder training but it didn't work well for me so I switched to bladder training that involves just trying to suppress my initial urges, at whatever time they occur. But even if I go back to timed voiding, this question still applies.)

Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone. I'm trying to do bladder training but am running into a problem.

BACKGROUND

I did my three days of bladder diary and the instructions are to "urinate as often as your shortest voiding interval (the length of time between trips to the bathroom) based on your voiding diary."

My shortest voiding interval is 45 minutes. I'm supposed to go to the bathroom every 45 minutes, whether I feel the urge to go or not (except for while sleeping). If I make it one day with no leakage, increase the interval by 15 minutes, and keep that up until I can go four hours between trips to the bathroom without leakage.

PROBLEM

I like to drink a lot of water with meals (about 750ml) and when I first wake up (about 1L). Consuming so much water I feel the urge to go within an hour. I can't imagine ever making it four hours after that much water.

On the flip side, in between that I don't drink much so I can easily go much longer without urinating. So starting with 45 minutes or even an hour interval seems like I will just weaken my bladder by getting in the habit of having such short interval times. At best it seems unnecessary.

WHAT TO DO?

So I'm not sure how to proceed. Should I just do it as instructed and hope for the best? Or should I try a modified version? I was thinking of trying the following:

• After consuming a large amount of water, allow myself to go as soon as I feel a strong urge, without concern for time

• Aside from this exception, stick to a schedule

• Start with a significantly longer interval than 45 minutes (perhaps 1 hour 30 minutes)

This modified version makes sense to me. But I'm not an expert and don't know the research behind the protocol so maybe I shouldn't mess with something that's likely been created based on research findings.

Thoughts? Any experiences of your own to share?

When I went to pick up my dog, I could immediately tell that something was wrong aside from the fact that she looked considerably skinnier. This establishment told me that they did not notice anything wrong until they went to get her the day of pickup - which is total BS because she literally had mucus dripping from her nose, was wheezing terribly and SHE LOST 20 LBS!!! - oh, and I paid extra for one-on-one playtime, and any person who sees dogs on a daily basis like these people would be able to tell that something was wrong with her (which makes me think that maybe they didn't honor this part of what I paid for. It's almost as if they put her in a cage for two weeks and forgot about her).

Anyways, my once extremely healthy and spirited 95 lb 4 year old GSD is now an unhealthy, lethargic 77 lb GSD with zero appetite (hasn't eaten since she's been home, and who knows how long she went w/out eating while with them) who's urinating about every half hour on the half hour and won't lay down for what I can only assume is because it's more difficult for her to breathe in that position. The people at the school said they'd cover any veterinary fees, but they still charged me full price for the boarding.

I took her to the vet at their earliest opening (this morning) and they ran all kinds of tests and took chest x-rays, etc. and provided me with a couple different medications to be given daily until they are exhausted. Obviously, I am very, very upset and extremely disappointed with how this GSD training school "cared" for my girl while I was gone. And she is by no means out of the woods yet...she is seriously ill right now.

I didn't know just how bad she was until going to the vet, but now that I do, should I pursue any legal action? Do you think their covering the vet costs (which amounted to just over $500) is enough?