Okay I know there's several threads about pee problems but I feel as if none of them quite fit my issue. I'm looking to see if this sounds familiar to anyone before I shell out tons of money for a bunch of tests. (Though my vet's pretty good about trying to save me unnecessary bills).

So ever since I brought Callie home, her pee was oddly light in color. Pooka (the chihuahua) has always been on puppy pads. When I brought Callie home, I started her on puppy pads, just until I learned her routine. I noticed that on the white pee pads, her pee was a very very pale yellow as opposed to pooka's which was always a much darker yellow. Not orange, just a deep yellow. I thought it was something wrong with Pooka but sort of ignored it because his pee had always been that color.

Then I've noticed in the past couple weeks that when I'm going to fill her water bowl, Callie acts as if she hasn't had water in days. I'm talking scaling the cabinets, ignoring my commands and all together flipping out. I strongly enforced the NILIF because it works great with the lab and I wanted to do the same with her. Her food gets put down first and she all but ignores it. Sniffs it and then walks away. Then I fill up her water bowl and she does the whole act I stated before. I make her sit before I put the water bowl down and every time I go to put it down, she lunges, and I pull it back. After like 10 minutes of this, I usually physically hold her in her sit while I place the bowl before releasing her. She drinks so rapidly, I'm afraid she's going to end up throwing it back up.

For the past week or so, I've been noticing she's peeing a lot more than normal. I'm talking 3 times in an hour's time. She gets let out at 7:15 am and goes to the bathroom. I leave for work around 8:15. This morning, she went at 7:15, then peed in the bathroom around 7:30 and then again on my bed at 8:00. She is not one to pee on my bed. She sleeps with me so she knows it as her bed too. She always gets down before she goes potty. One second she's playing with her nylabone, then she just stops and pees.

I've ruled out UTI because she's still on her post-spay anti-biotic. Wouldn't that take care of a UTI as well?

The only other thing I can think of is diabetes. Does this sound like it fits that description? Or is there anything else that could be causing her to pee this much? She gets a bowl of water a day with each meal, then maybe half a bowl if she's been running around outside for a long time, and she loves ice cubes so she gets them a lot too.

As always, I wrote a novel. I'll work on that.

calliegirl08 wrote:

I've ruled out UTI because she's still on her post-spay anti-biotic. Wouldn't that take care of a UTI as well?

In theory it COULD be diabetes, but I wouldn't rule out UTI. Just like with humans, different antibiotics do different things. The spay antibiotics could be ineffective on a UTI.

I would take her to the vet and get a urine culture done. That doesn't cost much and it's the most likely cause. If you think the antibiotics should be working, you could always call the vet and ask his/her opinion. So many people forget that a phone call is free

Read through my thread that I am currently working on with Storm:

https://www.itsahuskything.com/t4989-updated-title-diabetes-insipidous-drinking-and-peeing-excessively

Behavior is different, by some of the symptoms are similar.
I've done a lot of tests to rule out a lot, and there's some info for you to have to take to your vet to talk about. I hope my thread helps you.

I definitely plan on calling the vet during my lunch today. I'll see what they think. Thanks Tori. I just thought I'd run it by everyone to see if I'm just a paranoid parent or if this is really something to look into. I didn't think that her antibiotics wouldn't be effective, mostly because I listened to my mom, but I'm glad I know that's still a possibility.

It also just occurred to me that post-spay inconsistency is pretty common. I completely forgot about that.

Thanks Claudia, I'll read through that one and see if it fits.

So after doing some digging, I've found a general rule of thumb is dogs should be getting 1 oz of water a day per pound. So a 50 lb dog needs 50 oz a day (~6 cups).
There was also something about puppies needing 1/2 every two hours but no one really defines what they consider a "puppy." Callie's awake for about 15 hours a day so that does equal out to about 4 cups of water daily, which she gets anyway, just not at two hour intervals! She gets water with breakfast and dinner and sometimes more if she's getting a lot of exercise or its a warmer day.

This being said, I've started to log how much water Callie's getting vs. how much she's peeing. I'll keep track of this for a few days before deciding if I should be concerned.

I just thought I'd share what I found in case anyone else isn't sure if their dog is overdrinking/underdrinking.

I think I would be concerned if their drinking patterns change and their urine is so diluted that it's pretty clear which is an indication that they are unable to concentrate their urine. That would then mean they are not hydrating themselves even if they are drinking. This would mean something is wrong with their liver (or was it kidney) or pituitary gland.

Storm doesn't drink as much as your calculation but he isn't concentrating his urine properly.

I haven't checked concentration but I probably will start doing that as well. Right before her spay, she had blood work done so I just have to ask the vet if that checked anything to do with liver and kidney. Right now I'm just concerned with the frequency. I know it's normal for a lot of puppies to go several times an hour, but for her, it's strange. In the two months I've had her she's never been going this often. Maybe once every hour or two, so three times in an hour is making me a little nervous. I went over to my grandparents yesterday to kind of get a second opinion. I didn't mention my concerns to them but when they gave her water, they commented on how she was acting like I don't give her any. She also peed twice in fifteen minutes while we were there.

Do you only let her drink water at meals?

No, she gets some water when she comes inside from playing outside. I just don't give her as much at those times. And she loves ice cubes so she gets those quite a few times a day too. She got a lot more water when it was warmer out but now that it's cooling down, she gets a little less.

May I ask why water is not left down at all times?

It was for a while. But it was making housebreaking difficult. I plan on giving her free access again once she's better at asking to go out. She only gives signs sometimes. Other times she literally stops mid-run, squats, and gets back to playing. I keep an eye on her and when I know she's really energetic, she gets more water. But some nights she's really lazy and just lounges around for hours. Usually with dinner she only drinks some of her water, and then has the rest of her bowl to come back to. I take it away at night so she doesn't have accidents and a lot of the time when I pick up the bowl for the night, it still has water in it.

SHe is still young, correct? I mean this is going to happen. Cato didn't get the potty training mentality underway until about 6 months - at least, he still had accidents at that point.

Perhaps her excessive drinking and then expelling is due to restriction of water through out the day. Just my observation.

No, I understand that and it's very possible it is just behavioral, that's why I'm starting to keep an eye on it. I was only alarmed because it was such a sudden switch. This is the same routine she's always had and now it seems like we're going backwards. It could just be a phase she's going through so I was just hoping to get thoughts on it. I thought to run it past you guys in case you thought it was something I should be concerned about before I wrote it off as being a puppy and then it turned out it was something medical. Like I said, she used to go once every hour or two and now that has turned into two to four times an hour. She's just begun to let us know she has to go out so it's been like she asks to go out the first time and then the other times she just goes where she is without so much as a sniff.

Well, when Cato was between 4 - 6 months, he went stupid and had a similar issue - I would chalk it up to the terrible two's phase..

I would also put the water back down and see if the drinking continues to be excessive. At that age, I wouldn't restrict water. But, thats just my opinion.

I would still check to see if her urine is diluted. That would be my concern. If she peed alot but she as concentrating her urine, I'd be less concerned. With diluted urine, there could be something wrong.