poorly dog advice

itsallaboutme!!

hi everyone
i dont know if i should be posting a new thread or not so forgive me if im in the wrong. ive searched through other posta and cannot find what im after.

basically i have a 14 year old springer spaniel who is normally very active, she loves her tennis ball and will usually keep rolling it to you until you throw it for her. then she will bound after it and bound back for it to be thrown again.she would literally do this for hours on end!!

over the last few days she has become very listless and just does not seem interested in playing at all and when she does go after her ball its very half heartedly. i had her at the vet yesterday and after checking her out he could not find anything obviously wrong so he took blood tests. the results showed that there were slightly elevated levels of urea in the blood and i now have to try get a urine sample from her and bring her back down tomorrow morning. i guess im wondering does anybody have any idea what this result could mean?? we are also worried she may have ingested some sort of slug pellets from somewhere(obviously not my garden!) as we have had another springer spaniel die fromt the same thing and it just looks like the same kind of symptoms:(

so sorry for the long post but im really worried about her!!:(any advice would be greatly appreiciated!

Call me Socket

Sorry to hear your dog isn't herself...
The elevated urea could mean that she is having kidney problems, but try not to worry until you actually have a confirmed reason to!! It's quite possible, with the elevation only being slight, that a change in diet can sort this out.

Urea is like the waste product of protein use in the body, and the kidney is the organ that flushes urea out of the body. So when there's a kidney problem and it can't function to its full capacity, the urea can start to build up in the circulatory system (putting the dog on a drip can lower the urea levels in the blood) Long term...the vet might suggest a food with a more suitable protein content for her.

Your vet is the best person to get info from and tbh- he should have explained this to you in detail...did you not ask him what the relevance of elevated urea was? If you don't ask, you don't get!:)

jen_23

Sorry to hear about your Dog But like Socket said your best off to try not to worry too much untill your vet has all the facts.

Again what Socket said I would assume it's something to do with the kidneys. Though elevated urea can also be caused by dehydration, a urinary tract obstruction or high consumption of protein.

The best of luck I really hope it all works out.

itsallaboutme!!

hi socket
thanks for that appreciate it! its kind of what we had thought ourselves. tbh i didnt ask the vet about it as i was driving when she called with the results but ill defo ask more about it tomorrow morning when i go back!

i dont know how much you would know about this but she is also on a medication called propalin for incontenance do you think this condition might be contributing to the kidney problems? she has been on this for over a year now anyway?

itsallaboutme!!

jen_23 wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your Dog But like Socket said your best off to try not to worry too much untill your vet has all the facts.

Again what Socket said I would assume it's something to do with the kidneys. Though elevated urea can also be caused by dehydration, a urinary tract obstruction or high consumption of protein.

The best of luck I really hope it all works out.

thanks for that i really hope she will be ok shes such a lovely dog and too see her little sad face is heart breaking:( its like shes trying to tell me she sick and asking me to fix it!!

Call me Socket

itsallaboutme!! wrote: »

i dont know how much you would know about this but she is also on a medication called propalin for incontenance do you think this condition might be contributing to the kidney problems? she has been on this for over a year now anyway?

I don't know much about medication, sorry. But my opinion on the incontinence is that it's a result of weak muscular structure of the bladder, so I'd imagine that the Propalin would address the bladder and not have any effect on the kidney. That's just a guess though....write down every question that comes to your mind between now and tomorrow and bring the list with you and ask your vet everything.

itsallaboutme!!

Call me Socket wrote: »

I don't know much about medication, sorry. But my opinion on the incontinence is that it's a result of weak muscular structure of the bladder, so I'd imagine that the Propalin would address the bladder and not have any effect on the kidney. That's just a guess though....write down every question that comes to your mind between now and tomorrow and bring the list with you and ask your vet everything.

thanks!!thats a good idea i hadnt thought of that!