My darling girl (video taken two days ago) has a UTI, which I had suspected for awhile due to frequent pee, housebreaking issue, little dribble after main pee… then yellow discharge two days ago. Okay, no crisis…until last night when she couldn’t pee and moaned continuously.
Vet today. She peed CLOTS on the vet floor! CLOTS!
So vet says so much blood in a puppy is likely not just a UTI, her concern is a congenital defect of her kidneys or bladder or uterus. Urine off to be tested, broad spectrum antibiotic and pain meds for now, lots of water. No fever, appetite alright. Some weight loss and a little vomiting last night.
Aside from my love and concern for Zusje’s health, money is a concern. I’m hoping that if we need more testing we can skip ultrasounds, etc. and instead while she’s being spayed the doc just takes a direct gander at the plumbing to see what’s what. Vet did seem to feel that if her kidneys were involved she would have registered pain when the doc was palpating them, so more likely bladder or urethra.
Anyway, looking for your experience, knowledge…anything you can contribute to help me understand and navigate our little crisis. (By the way, pee back to clear with streaks of blood instead of pure blood this afternoon… dunno what it means specifically but I’m taking it as a good thing.)
Did the vet say this about bloody urine in a puppy, knowing this has been going on for possibly weeks, and at the very least days? Waiting that long can do some serious damage, including infecting the kidneys and causing kidney failure from untreated infection.
An ultrasound vs. exploratory surgery - did you ask the doc about that or are you speculating? A normal spay scar on a puppy her size will be about 2 inches long, if not smaller, vs. an exploratory scar that could run all the way from her sternum and past her pelvis. Not a nice thing to do and unnecessarily risky. I doubt you could get a doctor to do it. An ultrasound can see internal abnormalities within the kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra, including stones, that cannot be seen during surgery. It would likely be a wash in cost, because exploratory surgery will be much more expensive than a simple spay. They should be able to get a pretty good to definitive idea of what’s going on between x-rays, ultrasound, bloodwork and urinalysis.
Antibiotics may do the trick, as long as they sent out a culture and susceptibility, that will tell whether a change in antibiotics is needed to clear the infection completely. Going step by step and starting there is fine, and approaching further diagnostics if/when infection recurs is not a wrong thing to do. That may give you time to save some cash, maybe apply for Care Credit in the meantime.
You suspected a urine infection and didn’t get her to the vet quickly? Every day that passes increases the chances of it moving from a bladder infection to a kidney infection. UTI’s typically start in the bladder and easily treated. Untreated they can spread to the kidneys and are more serious. They can still be treated. It just takes stronger meds and more time.
Next time, I’d advise a trip to the vet much quicker. Don’t wait for bloody urine.
The blood is from a UTI in and of itself. Happens but in people at least clots like that would be uncommon. Still, if so, meds take care of it end of story.
Unless the UTI is secondary to a structural defect. And so? Having a structural defect does not mean it should be surgically repaired. In humans (kids) we’ve learned that many of them are better off let alone and that extensive imaging after a UTI right off is not worth it. Minimally should be fine to wait and see with the main rule being having a low index of suspicion to get a urine checked in the future.
A viral bladder infection. Culture will be negative, symptoms resolve, end of story.
A stone. Pain before passing, blood as it passes, then better. Might be prone to more in the future but a quick test of the urine might tell if that is a high risk. Some dogs are prone to bladder stones, especialy females. They can be triggered by infections or cause them. If that was it and it passed then fine. A plain XR might be worthwhile to make sure there is no larger stone still in there. Or wait and see.
Cancer. If so by the time you are bleeding like that it is likely too late to do much.
So no urgency to do lots of tests. IANAV and just IMHO.
Well, she is only 16 weeks old. I highly doubt cancer. As for not rushing her to the vet, I did a lot of research online and discovered that Urinary tract infections are extremely common, and if the symptoms are mild, which hers definitely were until two days ago, they can often be treated with urine acidifying substances. Many people report having dogs that are highly susceptible to such infections and need to be managed in that way.
After all, the only reason I thought she might have such an infection was because she’s been so difficult to housebreak. The only other symptoms that she had was that she would do a couple of extra dribbly pees after her main pee, and she did that from the day she arrived.
Dseid, Thank you for your input: I think it might’ve involved a stone being passed, her urine is completely clear now. It seems unlikely that one broad-spectrum antibiotic pill would’ve had any effect in fewer than 12 hours, Particularly since, in addition to the puddles of clotty blood at the vet, I came home to discover that she had been peeing blood and dribbling blood virtually everywhere during the night. Puddles in the kitchen, the living room, outside. So I think the fact is actually that she was actively uncomfortable and bleeding from about 2 AM until about 5 PM, And that’s strongly suggests to me that the blood was the result of an event, rather than an ongoing problem.
The only way to know whether a urine acidifying substance will help is to have her urine pH tested - at the vet’s. It’s possible that acidifying her urine actually caused the problem to get worse.
Often, urine pH problems are a matter of diet. If the pet has too high or too low pH, either one causes different stone issues. Different stones can develop depending on whether the urine environment is too acidic or too alkaline. You can’t possibly know which is the problem without the urine pH being tested - at the vet’s. **IF **her urine pH is a problem, there are veterinary diets that can be fed to alleviate the issue. At her age, I kind of doubt that’s the problem, and I doubt she has stones, either, unless she does have something congenital going on. Though she will if you are just arbitrarily acidifying her urine. (Calcium Oxalate, since you like to look things up)
That amount of blood is absolutely possible from infection alone. I’ve seen plenty of dogs with nearly frank blood all over the floor from infection. It’s also difficult to get a good sample to test for issues other than bacteria when it’s that saturated with blood, so once things are better and they can get a clearer urine sample, she should have it tested again to make sure it’s within parameters (if her pH is possibly a problem). Also, if the bacterial infection she has is indeed susceptible to the antibiotic she was given, you will absolutely see an improvement in as little as 12 hours. The trick is whether the antibiotic will kill all the bacteria or leave some resistant ones behind to start the whole thing over again, hence, the need for a culture and susceptibility test.
I hadn’t actually done anything yet because the one instant option I read about she was NOT down with: citrus juice. I have an heirloom orange tree in my yard (I say heirloom because it dates back to when the Valley was groves. Probably 90+ years old and the oranges are far better than anything you can buy these days.) and a few weeks ago she was eating some of them, which surprised me, since dogs generally dislike citrus a great deal. So I thought that she would be okay with it. I was wrong: she looked at me like I was trying to poison her.Then I tried adding a little cider vinegar to water, same reaction.
So I was going to get some of this, and then I thought I’d get this. But before I got either one we had our adventure.
She perked up enormously by this evening, just her normal self. Fingers crossed!
That orange tree sounds like a wonderful thing to have!
Hopefully, your pup might just be a dog that’s prone to UTI’s, or she’s just a dumb pup right now who doesn’t clean herself very well. It could be a myriad of things. It could be a one-off with luck. She could end up being a dog that gets UTI’s more than others. She may need a diet adjustment. It’s probably too early to tell, but do get her in to see the doctor a little earlier now that you know her symptoms. Well, let’s hope the dribbling stops, anyway, and if it doesn’t it might just be a thing she does and isn’t part of the symptoms.
Glad she’s feeling better. Antibiotics are taken for granted these days, but they really are a miraculous invention.
For anyone wondering, she’s doing great, completely normal urine and behavior at this point.
I read online that some female puppies have sort of recessed vaginas that trap dirt and lead to UTI issues, and I took a good look at my girl’s va-jay-jay and sure enough, there’s a deep crease running about halfway around it where dirt traps. Supposedly it straightens out after first heat, but I’m not letting her have a first heat so I might have to be careful to keep her girlybits tidy forever…
We shall see.
(Test results next week… fingers crossed…but the more I think about it the more I think the large clot may have contained a stone.)
We have a girl (also pit bull!) who gets UTIs every once in a while. She is a deep squatter when doing her business; we have wondered if she’s squatting too low and getting herself dirty. So when we walk her we lift up on the harness while she’s going, to keep her from making contact with grass, etc.
YAY! (sort of…?) Looks like it was, in fact, a very serious UTI…boatloads of bacteria, white cells, blood… not a great thing, of course, but a thousand times better than a defect requiring surgery! She’s feeling great, doc wants to double the length of antibiotics because of the severity, but looking good. Got to get it cleared so she can be spayed!
Thanks! Now I just hope hope hope hope that the ongoing random in-the-house pees are UTI related and NOT totally broken hopes of housebreaking!
The night she got really ill and couldn’t pee she demonstrated to me that she WANTED to go outside, PREFERRED it…she was in my bedroom with access to the doggy door and she used it repeatedly to go out and squat and produce nothing (poor baby!) so I got my hopes up that she really was/is housebroken, it had just been the UTI that was creating the problem.
The first day or two on drugs I was afraid to confine her because I didn’t want her to soil her “den” and break that instinct, and I didn’t want to make her suffer trying to hold what she couldn’t hold, and I ended up with pee spots all over the house.
I mopped everywhere with almost pure vinegar, I’ve been keeping her confined or right underfoot. She’s managed to sneak in one or two accidents, but right now I’m still not sure to what extent she’s still having issues contorlling herself vs. just not housebroken. Won’t really know I guess until we know all traces of the infection are eradicated.
Hi. My experience has been very similar to yours with my dog and I was wondering how things ended up going with her. We had the UTI return after the first round of antibiotics, put her on a second round for 30 days and now it seems to be coming back again (early stages, squatting more after going, licking herself more, going more frequently, but not bleeding clots like she was the first time).
We could give her back to the breeder and wait for a new puppy but how? We love her too much of course. But the expense could get crazy and this problem started the day we got her. I could use some hope that this is not necessarily going to be a problem that requires surgical correction.
