What does blood in dog urine mean?

Few things set off the alarm bells in our heads like the sight of blood. Finding blood anywhere on your dog is disconcerting, and finding it in your dog's urine is downright terrifying, whether you notice it yourself or your veterinarian discovers it during your dog's appointment.

There are many different diseases and conditions that can cause blood in dog urine, including urinary tract infections, trauma, toxins like rat poison, and in rare cases, even cancer. Here is what you need to know about this symptom, and what it could mean for your dog.

What Is Hematuria in Dogs?

The technical term for blood in urine is hematuria. The presence of these red blood cells in your dog's urine can be detected either visually or by using diagnostic testing.

Oftentimes, we don't notice bloody urine right away. After all, it's not like we really want to be staring at our dogs while they pee. Sometimes, though, bloody urine is obvious, especially if your dog urinates on a light colored surface, like snow, carpet, or the floor. This discoloration can present as almost normal, amber, orange, red, or brown.

Other times, blood in the urine is not this obvious, and it takes a diagnostic test to discover red blood cells. Your dog's urine may appear normal and still contain blood.

There are other conditions that can lead to discolored urine, so the first thing you should do if you notice your dog's urine is a funny color is contact your veterinarian.

Causes of haematuria in Dogs

Blood in excrement is one amongst those symptoms, like reflex and diarrhoea, that square measure gift during a wide selection of conditions. Here square measure simply many of the conditions that may result in blood in your dog's excrement to administer you an inspiration of the extent of attainable causes.

• Clotting disorders
• Toxins, like bound sorts of rat poison
• Thrombocytopenia
• Kidney diseases like excretory organ stones, cystic uropathy, structural unwellness, and familial uropathy
• Trauma
• Nephritis (inflammation of the kidney)
• Inflammatory unwellness
• Infections like tract infections
• Anatomical malformations within the excretory organ or tract
• Infectious diseases
• Chemotherapy
• Estrus
• Tumors
• Cancer

This list will feel a bit overwhelming, that is wherever your doc steps in to assist along with her diagnostic differentials.

Diagnosing haematuria in Dogs

Diagnosing the cause behind your dog's haematuria will be difficult, as you'll be able to guess by watching the intensive list of attainable causes, however most veterinarians square measure well equipped with the data and tools necessary to pinpoint the underlying condition.

You can facilitate, too, by seeing for yourself if your dog's excrement is discoloured. The Chief Veterinary Officer for the AKC, Dr. Krauthead Klein, recommends inserting a bit of written report or textile below your dog as they urinate. this may show you if the excrement is discoloured, and he additionally recommends trying to gather a excrement sample during a instrumentality for your doc. If you cannot get the sample to your doc like a shot, he suggests inserting it within the white goods till you'll be able to take it to your vet.

Your doc could begin this method with a physical examination. within the examination, she could visually examine your dog's reproductive organ areas; feel your dog's abdomen, bladder, kidneys, and prostate; and check your dog for the other symptoms that seem out of the normal, like bruising.

Once the physical examination is complete, there square measure many completely different diagnostic tests that your doc could perform, counting on the findings of the physical examination and the other symptoms your dog could gift with.

Some of these take a look ats might embrace a gage quantitative analysis test, urinalysis, ultrasound, radiograph, pressure activity, catheterization, a blood chemistry workup, clotting profile, cystourethroscopy, endoscopy, biopsies, and in some cases, explorative surgery.

These tests, ultimately, can give your doc with the data she must slim down the potential causes of the blood in your dog's body waste.

Hematuria as an indication of Cancer

Anytime cancer seems during a list of attainable causes, it makes USA feel a bit panic-struck. Luckily, cancer of the kidneys and tract is rare in dogs. However, it will occur, particularly in breeds of dogs which will be susceptible to theses cancers, like West Highland White Terriers, Scottish Terriers, and Shetland Sheepdogs. the foremost common sort of tract cancer could be a sort of cancer known as shift cell malignant neoplastic disease (TCC).

So however does one grasp if the blood in your dog's body waste could be a symptom of cancer or another condition?

Aside from blood within the body waste, there ar another symptoms of cancer of the kidneys and tract, which has the bladder, ureters, and channel. Weight loss, loss of appetence, depression, and fever ar all symptoms of urinary organ cancer. issue urinating, painful voiding, frequent voiding that solely produces little amounts of body waste, and refractory secondary microorganism tract infections, on the opposite hand, may well be an indication of a cancer of the tract, like TCC. the simplest thanks to determine if the blood in your dog's body waste could be a sign of cancer or another illness, however, is to bring your dog in to your doc for additional testing.

TCC wont to have a awfully poor prognosis. Recent developments within the veterinary field, however, ar up this prognosis with a mixture of medicines just like the therapy drug mitoxantrone and therefore the anti-inflammatory drug drug (NSAID) nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, and surgery.

Best of all, designation is currently easier with the free-catch body waste analysis test: CADET℠ BRAF Mutation Detection Assay. The CADET℠ BRAF Mutation Detection Assay could be a non-invasive, free-catch body waste analysis take a look at which will find canine bladder cancer (TCC/UC) months before symptoms gift, giving the earliest therapeutic intervention.

Treating haematuria in Dogs

Treatment choices for haematuria rely entirely on the cause. Your doc can return up with a treatment set up crafted to your dog's wants, overall health, and any pre-existing conditions.

For a lot of info concerning haematuria, or if you think that your dog might need blood in his body waste, contact your doc.