This is an email I received regarding a 12 month old. I have never come across this before and wondered if anyone had any thoughts or ideas.....None of the littermates have any issues what so ever.....

"Quite a while back it seemed that pup regressed in his potty habits, as a younger pup he very rarely would potty in his crate. A few months ago he started having occasional accidents, this has progressed to almost every night and day time not always perfect even while we have been home. We have had him to the vet a couple of times for fecal's and urinalys but both have been negative. We took him in again today in hope of getting a sterile urine collection but was unable due to him peeing in his crate ahead of time. He is spending the night in hopes of getting a sample first thing in the am. This is to test for ecoli. We are concerned about his lack of weight gain as well. Depending on the ecoli test we are wondering about malabsorbtion problems and wondering if any of the litter mates have had any similar issues?? His stools vary from normal to abnormal from one minute to the next, he does/will eat dog feces if given the chance (I blamed this on a learned behavior from a bullmastiff rescue but has far passed that kind of behavior). After eliminating the normal aspects, food, treats, etc we are at the point of concerned for the pups health. Any thoughts or suggestions you may have would be greatly appreciated! My wife did start him on some digestive enzymes a couple weeks ago but those may take another month to show any positive signs"


My only thought is a possible tick disease...Any idea's??

Sounds very much like a male we had years ago with a corn allergy. All his issues stopped with food change.

My vet collects urine samples with a syringe directly into the bladder. It is quick and easy. I have seen her do it twice.

We have one with a fish allergy here. Every time she eats fish she has huge stools and accidents in the house. She is 16 months old. It took me ages to figure that one out!

If they don't find anything medically wrong,(and even if they do) my suggestion would be to go back to square one with potty training and start from there. Lots of times "puppies" regress for one reason or another and need to be reprogrammed. It could be as simple as he tanked up on water and nobody noticed and if everyone went off to work, he was stuck having to go in his crate. And we all know that once they get comfortable going in their crate, tough to break that habit.
It might be that they will need to hire someone to come in during the day for a while or that someone needs to come home at lunch.
Hope their situation improves.
Merry Christmas, all!!