Expert: Charlotte Lurken Date: 7/15/2007 Subject: alot of water
Question QUESTION: I have a 5 month old Rotti. Name is Dexter. Since I got him at 7 weeks, he is a very heavy drinker of water. 1.5 litres. Vet said not to worry, likes water. Should I do blood work, to rule out anything wrong. 2 dogs in litter were put down at 3 months. They said hard time breathing.
ANSWER: Have the vet check him for diabetes and pituitary tumors. This isn't normal, if your vet insists that there is nothing wrong and wont do the tests, go to a different vet.
Cushings disease also causes dogs to drink water excessively.
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QUESTION: thanks for the reply. what kind of test do I take to see if he fine or not? With diabetes can he live a long life? Also he does pee allot, outside(he house trained). He does urinate allot with people or even myself sometimes when hes excited. why?
Answer I found this for you. Your vet will know what tests to do.
There are more than 20 disorders that can lead to increased drinking
and urinating. It can be frustrating to sort through them all but the only
thing that you can do is to start somewhere, as you have done, and
eliminate the disorders until you find the one that is causing the
problem.
The list of disorders I can think of that cause increased drinking
include:
1) kidney failure (chronic, acute, infectious (leptospirosis, esp.))
2) hyperadrenocorticism (Cushing's disease)
3) diabetes mellitus
4) liver failure
5) hypoadrenocorticism (Addison's disease)
6) pyometra (uterine infection, applies to females only, obviously)
7) intestinal obstruction (occurs after toxins begin to be absorbed
from the damaged intestine)
8) pyelonephritis (infection of the kidney)
9) hypercalcemia (most commonly from cancer)
10) diabetes insipidus -- can be central (brain related) or
nephrogenic (kidney related)
11) behavioral or psychogenic water drinking
12) acromegaly
13) polycythemia
14) hypokalemia
15) renal glycosuria (Fanconi's syndrome)
16) partial obstruction of the urinary tract
17) neurologic damage leading to urine retention or difficulty voiding
18) medications (diuretics, corticosteroids)
19) pheochromocytoma (a form of cancer)
20) pericardial effusion
21) hypothyroidism (dogs) or hyperthyroidism (cats) -- not too common
with these
22) paraneoplastic syndromes (usually this is hypercalcemia but
sometimes other substances linked to tumors cause increased drinking)
Most of the time a number of these conditions can be eliminated based
on the physical examination and initial blood chemistry panel, urinalysis
and complete blood cell count. That usually leaves the hormonal disorders
and psychogenic causes, plus some of the rare conditions like
pheochromocytomas.
The hormonal illnesses can be tested for individually. Determining the
right order to test for them is difficult and is often a judgement
call. We usually start with Cushing's disease if we have no idea which illness
seems most likely based on our initial findings and tests. We do this just
because it is a common cause of increased drinking and urinating (and
weight gain). Acromegaly is normally associated with diabetes so we may
skip testing for this one in the absence of diabetes unless we don't
find anything else. Hypoadrenocorticism is less common than Cushing's
disease so we usually test for it second and often only if the cortisol levels
were low on the samples taken for the Cushing's disease testing. Diabetes
insipidus is most easily tested for clinically by judging response to
treatment using desmopressin (DDAVP Rx).
It can take some time to sort through these possibilities but with
persistence it is usually possible to find a cause for the increased
drinking and urinating. It is sometimes necessary to test for
Cushing's disease several times in dogs with strong clinical signs but normal
test results -- there are false negative test results between 5% and 25% of
the time (percentage varies depending on which studies you read and which
tests are run).
The best treatment for excitement urination is to prevent your dog from becoming overly excited in the first place. You can do this by exposing your dog to the stimulus that excites him, over and over until it no longer excites him. Most likely, your dog gets excited and wets when you return home. If so, simply ignore him for several minutes. Don't even look at him.
Then leave again for a few minutes, return and ignore, leave, return and ignore. Keep doing this until you can see that your dog is not only unexcited, but is actually getting bored with the whole thing. If excitement urination is a problem when visitors arrive, have them do this too. When your dog has calmed down and is no longer excited when you come in, then very quietly and gently say hello. If any signs of excitement or urinating appear, quickly exit and repeat the coming-and-going routine. A rapid sequence of heel-sits will capture your dog's attention and channel his excitement to the game of heeling and sitting instead of urinating. Remember to ignore all excitement urination and never scold or get angry at your dog when it occurs.
