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Rickie Is Drinking And Peeing Excessively


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Rickie, my 9-1/2 year old whippet, is drinking and peeing excessively - I have to clean up pee at least once per day, usually from overnight, sometimes from the day even though we have a noon time sitter and he gets lots of walks when we are home. Two days ago he peed right in front of me in the kitchen an hour and a half after he'd been out. It looked like water - no colour.

 

So we went to the vet, had a full blood panel and urine analysis done - nothing unusual. We are going to do a water deprivation test next and also, if I can figure out the logistics with 2 dogs in the house, try to measure how much Rickie is drinking in a 48h period. (Too bad this didn't come up before I took Arlie to Dewey - would have been the perfect time.)

 

The vet is still trying to rule out medical causes - he's mentioned Cushings, kidney, Diabetes Insipidus and a couple of other things, but nothing so far points to those things in the test results. He said some dogs have <forget the long name> which basically means they have an obsession with water. It's in their head. It seems odd to me that this would be developing now, but suppose it's possible.

 

He consulted with the vet at the lab, and she said in two cases this happened at the start of lepto, but thought while it was possible, it was unlikely. Rickie is vaccinated for lepto, though I know it's not 100% and certainly isn't showing any signs of illness other than the drinking-peeing cycle.

 

He does, but always has, gotten rawhides to chew, so nothing changed there. I am in the process of moving him from Canidae to Orijen Senior, but I can't see anything in the Orijen to cause this.

 

He is getting supplements in liverwurst, which may be salty, but I use as little as possible to coat the pills - we started the supplements in August after his surgery for hemangiopericytoma - vitamin C and mushroom extract.

 

Rickie has always had occasional accidents - used to refer to him as weakly house trained - but this recent situation is quite different. He stands at the water bowl and drinks, and drinks, and drinks. Hence all the peeing - the accidents are becoming a regular thing.

 

Any and all thoughts welcome.

Edited by Rickiesmom
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I don't know how long this has been going on, but I'll tell you about our first greyhound Jimmy. When the cold weather came and we first turned the heat on for the season, he would drink huge amounts of water and consequently have accidents. This happened every year for the last few years we had him. The air was too dry I suppose. As the cold weather continued he would acclimate, but every year in the fall this would happen several times before he adjusted. Just a thought......I think it's good you've had the other tests run. Hope you are able to get to the bottom of it soon.

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I have heard that restricting fat intake can cause this. I guess fat in food helps to maintain skin oil, which protects & holds in water in the dog's system. So when fat is restricted, more water is lost through skin pores. Sounds weird to me, but I'm just throwing it out there because you said you switched him to a sr. food & they are often lower in fat.

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Guest LittleGreys

Make sure your vets know exactly what they are doing with the water deprivation test. I had a sighthound expert tell me it was not safe to do a water deprivation test on a sighthound. We had done a "modified" one on my dog, but he told me we were lucky and not to do it again.

My Greyhound did this earlier this year. We ruled out everything, spent a fortune, tested for Cushings, Addison's, thyroid, urine, kidneys, etc etc etc. We knew she had back pain, and pain can make them drink more. I also changed her diet, even though she had been on the same diet for a long time before this started. The problem stopped shortly after, so not sure whether it resolved on its own, or maybe was the food. I'm just happy she got better!

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Guest Kpparker

Oh no, I hope it is nothing serious and is "all in his head" as they say. Tavi sometimes drinks a ton of water (we also just had a blood test and urinalysis done) but it seems to happen at particular periods (like when I just come home and he's all excited) and its not causing him to have any accidents so the vet thinks he's fine. Hopefully it will be the same case for Rickie.

:hope :hope :hope

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Rickie had a culture done at the U of Guelph around mid-October and it was clear.

 

The idea of antibiotics JIC sounds reasonable, will ask my vet.

 

Question - two people have advised against a water deprivation test. I can understand in principle, but it didn't seem that bad to me on a one-time basis to take water away at 8 and return it after collecting a sample in the AM, considering that Rickie seems otherwise happy and healthy. That said, I would never want to do any harm, what are the specific risks?

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Cole does the same thing on an annual basis (it tends to happen mid-February). He starts drinking incessantly and, as a consequence has accidents. All tests come back normal.

 

The first time it happened and Cole's tests were all negative Dr. Hall prescribed antibiotics. I can't remember what it was but I can look it up for you if you like. Anyways, the two week course of antibiotics did clear up the problem.

 

Dr. Hall seemed to think there was a possibility of an infection but it was "too high up" to detect it properly.

 

I know I'm not using the right terminology but I worked very late last night and have only had one cup of coffee. :lol

Jennifer

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Cullen did a LOT of water drinking and had the peeing to go with it. All was normal with the exception of Lyme Disease twice in 2 years and low thyroid. (I personally think the Lyme was sequestered between the two incidents because he drank the entire 2 years.)

 

We finally got rid of the Lyme. Not only did he quit drinking excessively but his terribly severe lipemia also disappeared. His seizures have also become very infrequent, having gone from every two weeks to 142 days as of today knock on wood. His thyroid is higher now thanks to Sloxine.

 

When every blood is test is normal but the dog is still sick I go right for the Protatek tick panel and a full thyroid panel.

 

Marcia in SC

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If this started (or significantly worsened) after you began the new food, stop it immediately.

 

Ask your vet the proper dosage for pepcid for a whippet, and try that. If his tummy doesn't feel good, he might be drinking to try to make it feel better.

 

Has anything changed in your household that might put him on edge a little? I've known a couple of pups who will drink drink drink when excited or nervous or anticipating something.

 

Good luck.

Star aka Starz Ovation (Ronco x Oneco Maggie*, litter #48538), Coco aka Low Key (Kiowa Mon Manny x Party Hardy, litter # 59881), and mom in Illinois
We miss Reko Batman (Trouper Zeke x Marque Louisiana), 11/15/95-6/29/06, Rocco the thistledown whippet, 04/29/93-10/14/08, Reko Zema (Mo Kick x Reko Princess), 8/16/98-4/18/10, the most beautiful girl in the whole USA, my good egg Joseph aka Won by a Nose (Oneco Cufflink x Buy Back), 09/22/2003-03/01/2013, and our gentle sweet Gidget (Digitizer, Dodgem by Design x Sobe Mulberry), 1/29/2006-11/22/2014, gone much too soon. Never forgetting CJC's Buckshot, 1/2/07-10/25/10.

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Guest Luvgreys

About a year ago we had a similar problem with our oldest hound Blitz (he was not quite 12 at the time). He seemed to be drinking an excessive amount and he started to have to be let out once and often twice during the night and had some accidents in the house during the day. We had a complete senior wellness work-up done, checked for TBD, Cushings, etc. and found everything was perfectly normal. The only thing that we could think off at that point was his food....we had just started to switch to Innova Senior. So, while there seemed to be no obvious reason for the Innova Senior to make any difference we decided to switch back to the regular adult formula. We still have no idea why this made a difference but the excessive drinking and peeing stopped right after we switched his food back.

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There are so many things that can cause increased drinking/peeing

 

Ryan's neurologist suggested withholding water for 24 hours when I told them he was drinking gallons of water. I was not depriving a dog that "needed" that much water for that long. I would only pick it up overnight. My normal vet agreed with this - he doesn't like to deprive a thirsty dog of water for more than overnight. If they are drinking that much, there is usually a reason.

 

 

 

Ryan started drinking gallons of water after his MRI last month. We are only now starting to figure his issue out and unfortunately, he doesn't have a very good prognosis. But since nobody has ever seen what is going on with him, I wouldn't even consider suggesting your Rickie is having the same issues.

 

But again, there are many many many reasons for a dog to start drinking tons of water. Good luck getting to the bottom of it.

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If this started (or significantly worsened) after you began the new food, stop it immediately.

 

Just a thought to add to this: isn't Orijen a very high-protein food? Could he have some trouble with the protein content?

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Guest LittleGreys
Question - two people have advised against a water deprivation test. I can understand in principle, but it didn't seem that bad to me on a one-time basis to take water away at 8 and return it after collecting a sample in the AM, considering that Rickie seems otherwise happy and healthy. That said, I would never want to do any harm, what are the specific risks?

 

A water deprivation test consists of more than taking water away at 8 (I am assuming you mean 8pm?) and getting a first morning urine. If that is what you are doing, that is not a water deprivation test. A deprivation test is just that, no water, sometimes for 24 hours or more to see if the lack of water will bring up their specific gravity. It can be VERY dangerous. They need to be closely monitored at all times and have IV fluids ready to go. I wouldn't even consider it. My vet didn't even want to do it with my dog. She said she was too scared. She said things can go very wrong very fast, especially if they do have DI.

 

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taking water away at 8 (I am assuming you mean 8pm?) and getting a first morning urine.

 

This should be plenty to test kidneys' ability to concentrate. It's what we have done. I don't normally keep a water bowl in the bedroom unless someone is ill or they've been out rousting around a lot on a very warm day.

Star aka Starz Ovation (Ronco x Oneco Maggie*, litter #48538), Coco aka Low Key (Kiowa Mon Manny x Party Hardy, litter # 59881), and mom in Illinois
We miss Reko Batman (Trouper Zeke x Marque Louisiana), 11/15/95-6/29/06, Rocco the thistledown whippet, 04/29/93-10/14/08, Reko Zema (Mo Kick x Reko Princess), 8/16/98-4/18/10, the most beautiful girl in the whole USA, my good egg Joseph aka Won by a Nose (Oneco Cufflink x Buy Back), 09/22/2003-03/01/2013, and our gentle sweet Gidget (Digitizer, Dodgem by Design x Sobe Mulberry), 1/29/2006-11/22/2014, gone much too soon. Never forgetting CJC's Buckshot, 1/2/07-10/25/10.

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I'd want my dog monitored properly by a specialist - preferably one who knows sighthounds - before I'd agree to a water deprivation test. If there was a serious medical condition, I'd want to know they'd get help PDQ if they did start to crash, and I don't mean me ringing around at midnight trying to get an appointment with a vet.

 

My own experience with this problem was with my old Jim. We did all the tests (except the water deprivation, which my vet didn't want to do either) and concluded that he had psychogenic polydipsia. In other words, as my vet put it, the problem was 'between his ears'. :P

 

Jim was chronically anxious. What I did was plug in a DAP, at my vet's somewhat guarded suggestion ('well, you could try this, but it probably won't work...') and it pretty much worked a miracle on him. He went from peeing every single night to two or three times a week, and then once in two or three weeks. Then we got him a companion and he stopped altogether until he was very old and presumably just couldn't hold it through the night. Interestingly, he wouldn't bark to be let out at night but Renie learned to do it for him. She'd bark, we'd get up, she'd go back to bed and Jim would rush outside.

 

 

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The plural of anecdote is not data

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Nevada's excessive drinking/peeing etc turned out to be Cushings disease. Does Rickie have any other symptoms? Is he becoming food obscessive? Is he becoming kind of aloof in personality? Body looking kind of stocky?

Fingers crossed that you don't have to be on the Cushings rollercoaster.............. :goodluck

Carol-Glendale, AZ

Trolley (Figsiza Trollyn)

Nevada 1992-2008...always in my heart

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Guest spider9174
Rickie had a culture done at the U of Guelph around mid-October and it was clear.

 

The idea of antibiotics JIC sounds reasonable, will ask my vet.

 

Question - two people have advised against a water deprivation test. I can understand in principle, but it didn't seem that bad to me on a one-time basis to take water away at 8 and return it after collecting a sample in the AM, considering that Rickie seems otherwise happy and healthy. That said, I would never want to do any harm, what are the specific risks?

 

I've recently been through exactly what you are talking about. I've had all the tests run (multiple blood tests, urine tests, etc), including a recent adrenal stimulation test to rule out cushings.

 

Basically, for us too the next step would be a water deprivation test. According to the literature, this is one of the only ways to see if the excessive drinking is "in his head" thus diagnosing "psychogenic polydipsia." The water deprivation test tests the dogs ability to concentrate urine. However, there are HUGE risks to this test if it isn't monitored and administered correctly. The specific risk would be causing your dog to be severly dehydrated. Severe dehydration can lead to salt imbalances in the blood. Salt imbalances can cause accute heart problems.

 

I'm currently watching his water intake. From what I have read, a dog can take in as much as 90 ml/kg/day and still be healthy. Usual intake is 60 m/kd/day. I converted that to cups and it is around 14 and 9 cups respectively for a 90 pound pup.

 

I have a pdf from a research symposium on veterinary endocrinology that discusses treatment and testing for addison's, cushings etc. PM me if you would like it.

 

Have they run any abdominal ultrasounds? This would give information on any abnormalities on liver size, adrenal size, kidney, etc.

 

**note...i'm not a vet, i've just been reading some of the current literature.**

Edited by spider9174
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Andrew was only a year old when I got him. I noticed right away that he drank a TON of water and had to pee all the time. It got so bad he would leak urine at night. He had every test imaginable. Nothing ever showed up. My vet put him on antibiotics for 2 whole months, it cleared up and now it's been over 3 years and no more problems. Also when he ate turkey or food that has turkey in it he seems to drink and pee a lot more. Even if his cultures show no infection I would still recommend antibiotics.

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In the strange way these things go, Rickie hasn't had an accident the last couple of days. Of course now that I say that, guaranteed cleanup duty will be required tomorrow AM.

 

To try and respond to a few thoughts:

 

- the water deprivation test here is to test for concentration, so a full 24h is not required - I would not be comfortable with that, whereas I am with what is essentially overnight given his general energy and attitude (he shows no symptoms of illness, other than this drinking-and-peeing cycle)

 

- Orijen is high protein, though the senior formula also has potatoes and other sources of carbs; the thought to move him to a low-carb diet came after he developed hemangiopericytoma - low carb is supposed to be a better cancer diet; previously he was on a combo of Canidae and Innova Evo; we have moved him over gradually, and his poop is fine; that said, if it doesn't agree with him, we need to change, good thought

 

- abdominal ultrasound resonates as I have been thinking along the same lines

 

 

 

 

 

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