He Walks Again After Disc Surgery but Still Wets the Bed: Will His Continence Come Back, and What Is Normal Now?

Usually it gets better, but not on the same timetable as his legs, and a wet bed in a dog who walks is not one problem. In the largest follow-up we found, 709 dogs who recovered after disc surgery were checked more than a year later: long-term urinary incontinence was recorded in about 1 in 20 of the dogs who had still been walking before surgery, 1 in 6 of the paralyzed dogs who kept deep pain sensation, and nearly 2 in 5 of those who had lost it.^[5][1] Before you read the wet patch as a verdict, though, know that it can mean four different things: a bladder that is not emptying and overflows, a sphincter that holds less than it did, a urinary infection, or a cause unrelated to his spine. The first is the one that matters most this week, because from the outside it can look like the others. A wet bed tells you urine got out. It does not tell you whether the bladder emptied. Ask the clinic to check his bladder right after he has urinated, and keep expressing it until they say otherwise.

Walking came back. Why didn't the bladder come back with it?#

It usually comes back first, which is why the order matters.

In a series of 252 operations for thoracolumbar disc extrusion published in the Journal of the South African Veterinary Association, the mean time to normal urination was shorter than the mean time to walking at every grade of severity, and the authors counted urination as normal only once the dog had urinated and a hand on the bladder or an ultrasound scan confirmed it had emptied.^[4] A second series, of 54 dogs under 20 kg, found the same pattern: a mean of 4.1 days to regaining urination against 13.8 days to walking.^[3]

Elliott 2020, means by grade. These are averages from one published series, not deadlines for your dog.

So a dog who is walking but has never once been seen to urinate on his own is out of the usual order, and that is worth a phone call. The spinal cord injury consortium puts it plainly for dogs with a compressive injury in the middle of the back (the T3 to L3 segments) who kept deep pain sensation: "recovery of urination usually occurs concomitantly with return of motor function and the prognosis for recovery of urinary continence is good."^[2]

A dog who urinates but still leaks is behind the averages in that table, not outside what has been published. In Elliott's series the check after urinating was how normal urination was declared, and it is the check to ask for now. The slower dogs are the ones the ACVIM consensus panel on thoracolumbar disc extrusion says that "as voiding recovers, it is commonly incomplete for a period of weeks post-injury, resulting in urine retention," and that ultrasound and bladder-pressure studies show "recovery of normal bladder function lags behind the initial appearance of voiding and still can be suboptimal 6 weeks after motor recovery."^[1] In one of the small ultrasound studies behind that statement, 15 dogs were scanned before and after urinating for up to 25 days after surgery, and the share of urine left behind depended on how severe the injury had been.^[12]

That is the gap the household falls into. Everyone was waiting for him to walk, and much of the research is scored the same way: discussing the studies on when to operate, the ACVIM panel notes that a positive outcome "usually is defined dichotomously and simply as the ability to ambulate without support."^[1] The consortium observes that owners focus on walking, and that incontinence tends to be "forgotten or 'managed'" as something that will either pass or have to be accepted.^[2] Walking is the finish line everyone counts. The bladder recovers on its own clock, and nobody hands you a date for it.

A wet bed is four different problems#

The MSD Veterinary Manual draws the line that matters. A dog whose bladder stores urine poorly, through a weak sphincter, has "a normal residual urine volume in the bladder after voiding." A dog whose bladder fails to empty has an increased one, and "urinary incontinence can result from persistent overfilling of the bladder (overflow incontinence) and can be mistaken for a storage disorder."^[8] Veterinary Partner says the same thing for owners: "It is important not to assume that an animal can empty its own bladder simply because there is urine in the bedding. The full bladder may simply be overflowing."^[9]

The first row is the one to rule out first, because it is the one that needs a change in care rather than patience. A bladder that never fully empties is the setting the ACVIM panel links to infection: it says incomplete voiding "places dogs at higher risk than usual for development of UTI."^[1]

The third row has a study behind it. In a prospective study, 20 dogs having surgery for thoracolumbar disc herniation were followed, and bacteria found in the urine without symptoms were deliberately left untreated. Four of 18 dogs developed bacteria in their urine between four days and six weeks after surgery. In all four, it went on to cause lower urinary signs 13 to 26 weeks after the operation, and in three of them "new-onset incontinence was the only clinical sign." None became systemically ill, and all four improved on antibiotics.^[7] So a dog who was dry in the spring and is wetting his bed in the summer is a dog to have his urine tested, as well as watched for any change in his walking. Our page on infection signs in a dog who cannot get up covers the rest of that list.

The fourth row is a reminder that the surgery is not the only thing that can happen to a bladder. The MSD manual names urethral sphincter mechanism incompetence as "the most common cause of urinary incontinence secondary to failure of urine storage in dogs," usually attributed to a deficiency of sex hormones in neutered animals, "particularly female dogs," and says incontinent dogs "may leave a pool of urine where they have been lying."^[8] We found no source that says how often that condition is mistaken for the after-effect of disc surgery. It is still worth saying out loud at the recheck if she is spayed, because the two have different answers.

dogorthopedic.com

How do I tell whether he is emptying?#

You cannot measure it at home, and no source we found claims you can. What you can do is bring the observations that make the clinic's check worth doing, and ask for the check by name.

The ACVIM panel's recommendation is direct: "As voluntary urination returns, the bladder should be palpated, or ultrasonography performed, to ensure adequate emptying has been achieved." For dogs whose bladder is hard to express, it also says that drugs given to relax the urethra "should be continued until voluntary urination has been re-established," a recommendation it rates as supported by low-level evidence.^[1] Read together, that is the answer to the question most households are actually asking, which is when they can stop expressing him. Not the first day he lifts a leg on the lawn. The day the clinic has felt or scanned his bladder after he urinated and found it adequately empty. Do not stop the expressing, or a medicine, on your own judgement before then.

What to bring, so the check has context:

• A video of one pee outside. Twenty seconds on a phone: whether he squats or lifts his leg the way he used to, whether it is a steady stream or drops, and whether he tries again a minute later. The MSD manual describes a bladder that fails to empty as frequent attempts that pass only small amounts.
• Where and when the wet patches appear. Asleep or awake, lying down or standing, at night or straight after you come home. A patch where he has been lying can fit overflow or a weak sphincter, which is exactly why the patch alone cannot separate them; leaks with excitement or after a long wait are the pattern owners of the most severely affected dogs described once those dogs had recovered.
• The size of the patch. A palm, a dinner plate, or the whole pad. Written down with the date, this is the only trend line anyone will have.
• Anything new: licking, smell, drinking more, a dog who was dry and is not any more.

Ask the clinic whether to bring him in with a full bladder, so they can watch him urinate and then check what is left. That suggestion is ours, not from a published protocol; it is simply the order in which the measurement makes sense.

“Because your dog can't tell you how much pain he or she is in.”

What the numbers say about continence coming back#

The best long-term figures come from a series of 831 dogs operated on by the same surgeon, followed for more than 12 months. The ACVIM panel reproduced its incontinence rates in the 709 dogs judged to have recovered, by grade before surgery.^[5][1]

Aikawa 2012, as tabulated in the ACVIM consensus statement, Table 8. One surgeon, one hospital, a retrospective record review.

Two smaller studies describe what the remaining incontinence is like. In a 2003 follow-up by Olby and colleagues of dogs that had been paralyzed with no deep pain, 37 regained deep pain and walked; of those, 12 (32%) had intermittent urinary incontinence and 15 (41%) intermittent fecal incontinence more than six months on. The dogs who walked without ever regaining deep pain "remained incontinent."^[6] The consortium describes what those owners report: they "cannot leave their pet without access to somewhere to urinate for as long as they could before the injury and find that the excitement of their return to the house will trigger involuntary urination." For dogs who spinal-walk, it says, none of the studies found a full recovery of urinary or fecal continence.^[2]

Where the injury was matters too, and it is a fact the surgeon already knows. Veterinary Partner explains that injuries "at the level of the waist or higher" leave the bladder with too much tone, while injuries of the lower back produce a bladder that "simply leaks and never has enough tone to fill."^[9] In a study of 61 dogs who could not walk after an acute injury to the lower segments (L4 to S3), from disc disease and other causes, matched against dogs with mid-back injuries, fewer had regained continence at three weeks, 64% against 85%, while walking did not differ significantly.^[10] The other kind of disc injury, the non-compressive extrusion that hits the cord and does not stay there, is a different injury from the one decompressive surgery treats, since nothing is left pressing on the cord, so read its figures as a neighbouring condition rather than your dog's: in 187 dogs, 9.1% had urinary and 23.5% fecal incontinence, and dogs that had been paralyzed were about three and four times as likely to have each.^[11]

So the two questions to put to the surgeon are short. Which spinal segments were involved? And did he have deep pain sensation before surgery? Between them, they tell you which of these studies is closest to your dog.

And the accidents with stool#

These are common enough to name. About 40% of owners of dogs who recovered from paralysis without deep pain report that bowel control "is not as good as it was prior to their injury." The consortium describes two kinds: a sudden urge, where "the dog becomes acutely aware of the need to defecate, makes a dash for a suitable location and is unable to prevent the defecation reflex," and stool dropped "without apparently being aware of it." Both can happen in a dog who is also able to defecate voluntarily the rest of the time.^[2]

The consortium's first suggestion is not a product. It calls a low-residue diet "the most practical and effective management technique," one that reduces stool volume "sometimes dramatically," then a routine: out first thing in the morning, and learning whether a meal or exercise is what triggers him. A diet change is a conversation with your vet, especially for a dog on medication or a weight-loss plan.

Is this permanent?#

Nobody can tell you yet, and the reason is worth knowing. We found no study that followed continence week by week after walking returned. The published numbers are snapshots: at about a month (in one study, 92% of dogs were urinating by then),^[1] at 42 days (bladder pressure measurements still abnormal), and then at more than six or twelve months. What happens in between has not been charted.

Our own reading of that, labelled as ours: do not treat the pattern at six weeks as the final answer, because the bladder measurements in these studies had not finished changing by then. And do not let the leaking run on to the next routine recheck without a urine test and a check after he urinates, because an untreated overflow or infection is not something to wait out.

What helps at home, cheapest first#

Shorter gaps. If he cannot hold as long as he used to, the cheapest fix is to stop asking him to. Take him out more often, and last thing before you leave and before bed.

Out before the greeting. If coming home is when it happens, take him straight outside and say hello there. The consortium's owners named the homecoming as a trigger; this is just the obvious response to that, not a tested technique.

Keep him dry. Urine left on skin causes scald; our page on pressure sores and urine scald covers barrier creams and drying.

Keep the reading. A diaper or belly band can make sense for a car trip or a night on the sofa, but on a dog whose continence is still changing it hides the one thing you are trying to watch. Our page on diapers and belly bands sets out when they help.

Protect the bed. A dog who walks again sleeps on his own bed again, and urine that soaks through a cover reaches the foam, which is the part of the bed that cost the money. If you still have the pads or towels from the weeks he was down, move them onto his bed and buy nothing. If you do not, a washable pad on top of the bed catches the leak before it reaches the cover. It is not a liner: urine that runs off a bunched or soaked pad reaches whatever is beneath it, so if his bed has a waterproof liner under the cover, keep it there, and if it does not, the pad is the first layer, not the only one.

These are human incontinence underpads, 34 by 36 inches, cotton over a PVC backing, sold in fours by the maker. They were $27.99 on 14 October 2026.^[13] On a 48 by 30 inch bed (Big Barker's Large size), one pad laid lengthways covers the full width and the 36 inches under his hips and back legs, which is where the patch will be; on a 52 by 36 inch bed it is two inches narrower than the bed. Lay it absorbent side up on top of the cover, not underneath, so the patch stays where you can see it and date it. Its weaknesses are real: the maker publishes no absorbency figure and no wash count, and reviewers are split on whether it is truly leak-proof, so on an expensive bed we would put a towel under it for the first week and look. It catches the leak. It does not tell you why he is leaking; only the clinic's checks do that.

dogorthopedic.com

What we could not find#

• A week-by-week curve for continence after walking returns. The studies report snapshots at about a month, at 42 days, and at six to twelve months or more.
• A residual-volume number an owner can use. The sources describe residual urine as increased or normal; none gives a household threshold, and none suggests a way to measure it at home.
• How often spay-related incontinence is mistaken for the after-effect of disc surgery, or how to tell them apart without the clinic.
• Whether drugs that relax the urethra change long-term continence. One retrospective study of 71 dogs found no association between these drugs and continence scores at discharge;^[14] the ACVIM panel says the literature on their efficacy is "extremely limited." Whether he takes them is your vet's decision.

What to do this week#

He is walking. That was the hard part, and it is worth a moment before the next thing. The next thing is to stop reading the wet patch as a verdict and start reading it as a measurement.

Start a page today: date, time, asleep or awake, size of the patch. Take one video of him urinating outside. Then ring the clinic and ask three questions. Has anyone checked how much urine is left in his bladder after he urinates, and can they? Which spinal segments were involved, and did he have deep pain before surgery? And if he was dry and is not any more, can they culture his urine?

Six weeks was the date the crate opened, and walking was the outcome everyone was watching. His bladder kept its own calendar the whole time, and he cannot tell you whether it is empty. A hand on his belly at the clinic, or an ultrasound scan, can. The delay is the injury, and here the delay is the weeks a household waits for a leak to stop on its own when the first check that would narrow it down takes one appointment.

For the earlier stages, our pages on the pen, the lift and the bladder after back surgery, the dog who cries at night and disc disease itself cover the ground before this one.

Sources#

1. Olby NJ, Moore SA, Brisson B, Fenn J, Flegel T, Kortz G, Lewis M, Tipold A. "ACVIM consensus statement on diagnosis and management of acute canine thoracolumbar intervertebral disc extrusion." Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2022;36(5):1570-1596. doi:10.1111/jvim.16480 — full text read via Europe PMC (PMC9511077) on 14 October 2026: §9.1 "As voiding recovers, it is commonly incomplete for a period of weeks post-injury, resulting in urine retention. This complication places dogs at higher risk than usual for development of UTI. Dogs with severe injury, even if they recover pain perception and motor function, might have suboptimal continence" (moderate-level evidence); "recovery of normal bladder function lags behind the initial appearance of voiding and still can be suboptimal 6 weeks after motor recovery"; §9.2 "As voluntary urination returns, the bladder should be palpated, or ultrasonography performed, to ensure adequate emptying has been achieved"; §9.3 literature on urethral-relaxing drugs "extremely limited"; recommended "in dogs in which the bladder cannot be manually expressed easily" and "should be continued until voluntary urination has been re-established" (low-level evidence); Table 8 rows: 92% urinating by 1 month (Olby 2010, n = 26), bladder pressure parameters abnormal at 42 d (Levine), and Aikawa 2012's long-term incontinence by grade in 709 recovered dogs (columns UI, FI, Both); positive outcome "usually is defined dichotomously and simply as the ability to ambulate without support" (§5.1, on the evidence for timing of surgery).
2. Granger N, Olby NJ, Nout-Lomas YS, Canine Spinal Cord Injury Consortium (CANSORT-SCI). "Bladder and bowel management in dogs with spinal cord injury." Frontiers in Veterinary Science. 2020;7:583342. doi:10.3389/fvets.2020.583342 — full text read via Europe PMC (PMC7686579) on 14 October 2026: owners' focus on locomotion, incontinence "forgotten or 'managed'"; with deep pain present, "recovery of urination usually occurs concomitantly with return of motor function and the prognosis for recovery of urinary continence is good"; without it, ~50–60% eventually regain urination, ~30% of those owners report less than perfect continence, the time-and-excitement description; no spinal-walking dog fully recovers continence; ~40% of owners report worse fecal continence, the two types; low-residue diet "the most practical and effective management technique", morning routine; the prazosin/diazepam retrospective found no effect on incontinence or hospital stay; owner sign list including "a change in level of continence"; recovery of urination concomitant with motor function stated for compressive T3–L3 injuries with deep pain intact; the owner reports on time and excitement come from dogs that had lost deep pain and recovered (citing Olby 2003).
3. Skytte D, Schmökel H. "Relationship of preoperative neurologic score with intervals to regaining micturition and ambulation following surgical treatment of thoracolumbar disk herniation in dogs." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2018;253(2):196-200. doi:10.2460/javma.253.2.196 — abstract read via Europe PMC on 14 October 2026: 54 dogs under 20 kg; mean 4.1 ± 4.4 days to regaining micturition, 13.8 ± 25.1 days to ambulation, significantly different.
4. Elliott RC, Moon C, Zeiler G, Lobetti R. "Short-term clinical outcomes of 220 dogs with thoraco-lumbar disc disease treated by mini-hemilaminectomy." Journal of the South African Veterinary Association. 2020;91:e1-e8. doi:10.4102/jsava.v91i0.2008 — full text read via Europe PMC (PMC7756518) on 14 October 2026: 252 surgeries; mean days to micturition and to ambulation by modified Frankel score 5 to 0 as tabulated above; "Normal micturition was determined by active urination by the dog after which the size of the bladder was palpated or abdominal ultrasound was performed to ensure complete emptying of the bladder"; grade definitions from the paper's Table 1.
5. Aikawa T, Fujita H, Kanazono S, Shibata M, Yoshigae Y. "Long-term neurologic outcome of hemilaminectomy and disk fenestration for treatment of dogs with thoracolumbar intervertebral disk herniation: 831 cases (2000-2007)." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2012;241(12):1617-1626. doi:10.2460/javma.241.12.1617 — abstract read via Europe PMC on 14 October 2026 (709 successful outcomes, follow-up over 12 months, paraplegic dogs had more incontinence); the per-grade figures are as reproduced in source 1, Table 8, because the full text was not open.
6. Olby N, Levine J, Harris T, Muñana K, Skeen T, Sharp N. "Long-term functional outcome of dogs with severe injuries of the thoracolumbar spinal cord: 87 cases (1996-2001)." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2003;222(6):762-769. doi:10.2460/javma.2003.222.762 — abstract read via Europe PMC on 14 October 2026: 37 dogs regained deep pain and walking; 15 (41%) and 12 (32%) had intermittent fecal and urinary incontinence; persistent loss of deep pain "did not preclude recovery of motor function, but such dogs remained incontinent."
7. Siu K, Rylander H, Obernberger CA, Pfaff N, Hartmann FA, Wood MW, Viviano K. "No adverse consequences associated with targeting clinical signs to initiate antimicrobial treatment of postoperative subclinical bacteriuria in dogs following surgical decompression of Hansen type I thoracolumbar disk herniation." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2022;261(1):1-9. doi:10.2460/javma.22.07.0320 — abstract read via Europe PMC on 14 October 2026: 20 dogs enrolled; 4 of 18 developed bacteriuria 4 days to 4–6 weeks after surgery, lower urinary signs 13 to 26 weeks after surgery in all 4, new-onset incontinence the only sign in 3; no systemic illness; resolved with beta-lactam antimicrobials.
8. Van Vertloo L (peer reviewed by Carnevale J). "Disorders of micturition in dogs and cats." MSD Veterinary Manual, professional version; full review March 2025. msdvetmanual.com — read 14 October 2026 (the UK edition of the Merck Veterinary Manual; the US page returned HTTP 403): storage disorders have a normal residual urine volume; failure of voiding is "frequent attempts to urinate with stranguria and passage of only small amounts of urine" with increased residual volume; overflow "can be mistaken for a storage disorder"; USMI the most common storage cause, "particularly female dogs"; "may leave a pool of urine where they have been lying."
9. Brooks W. "Paralyzed dogs: how to care for them." Veterinary Partner, Veterinary Information Network; published 25 August 2003, revised 18 August 2026. vin.com — read 14 October 2026: "It is important not to assume that an animal can empty its own bladder simply because there is urine in the bedding"; "The full bladder may simply be overflowing"; an over-filled bladder "will stretch out and become flaccid"; squeezing a full bladder can rupture it.
10. Shaw TA, De Risio L, Laws EJ, Rose JH, Harcourt-Brown TR, Granger N. "Prognostic factors associated with recovery of ambulation and urinary continence in dogs with acute lumbosacral spinal cord injury." Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2017;31(3):825-831. doi:10.1111/jvim.14702 — abstract read via Europe PMC on 14 October 2026: 61 dogs with L4–S3 injury matched to T3–L3 dogs, compared 3 weeks after onset; continence 64% vs 85% (P = .0033); ambulation 66% vs 75% (P = .1306).
11. Mari L, Behr S, Shea A, Dominguez E, Ricco C, Alcoverro E, Ekiri A, Sanchez-Masian D, De Risio L. "Predictors of urinary or fecal incontinence in dogs with thoracolumbar acute non-compressive nucleus pulposus extrusion." Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. 2019;33(6):2693-2700. doi:10.1111/jvim.15626 — abstract read via Europe PMC on 14 October 2026: 187 dogs; urinary 17 (9.1%), fecal 44 (23.5%); paraplegic dogs 3 times as likely to develop urinary and 4 times as likely to develop fecal incontinence.
12. Atalan G, Parkinson TJ, Barr FJ, Innes JF, Holt PE. "Urine volume estimations in dogs recovering from intervertebral disc prolapse surgery." Berliner und Münchener Tierärztliche Wochenschrift. 2002;115(7-8):303-305. PubMed 12174729 — abstract read via Europe PMC on 14 October 2026: 15 dogs scanned before and up to 25 days after surgery; percentage residual urine influenced by grade.
13. Amazon listing B0881XD6J9, Green Lifestyle Washable Underpads, 34 x 36 in, pack of 4. amazon.com — price and seller read via the Amazon Creators API on 14 October 2026: $27.99, In Stock, buy box held by the maker.
14. Barnes KH, Aulakh KS, Liu C. "Retrospective evaluation of prazosin and diazepam after thoracolumbar hemilaminectomy in dogs." The Veterinary Journal. 2019;253:105377. doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2019.105377 — abstract read via Europe PMC on 14 October 2026: 71 dogs; no significant association between prazosin and/or diazepam and length of hospitalisation or urinary continence scores at discharge.

This article is educational and does not replace veterinary advice. Whether to keep expressing his bladder, test his urine, or start or stop any medication is your veterinarian's decision.