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Dog unable to urinate
A 15 year old male small Schnauzer cross dog was brought to our surgery because he had difficulty urinating and was also passing urine more often than usual. The owner also noticed that the dog was drinking more water then usual and that he was quiet. The symptoms had been present for 2 days.
Clinical examination revealed that the dog had a slightly raised body temperature and a very firm, tense abdomen. It was not possible to palpate the abdomen fully because palpation was painful for the dog.
Since the pain on palpation precluded us from making a diagnosis we decided to perform further tests.
We took a blood sample from the dog for haematology and biochemistry analysis. Because this dog was old, we wanted to have more information of his general health status and to check for any chronic disease.
The next step was an ultrasound examination. We paid special attention to the urinary system. We discovered a grossly enlarged urinary bladder and enlarged prostate gland. Further examination of the prostate revealed several smaller cysts filled with fluid. The rest of the abdominal organs were normal.
We passed a catheter to obtain a urine sample for analysis, we used a small diameter catheter and during its introduction we felt a few partial blockages of the urethra.
To confirm the blockade of the urethra and to find the cause of the blockade we perform an x-ray examination..
On the x-ray film we discovered 3 stones in the urethra.
With the diagnosis made it was necessary to help our patient urgently by removing the blockage. The surgical approach to this area is complicated and requires a prolonged recovery. Our patient was old and ideally we wanted to wait for the laboratory results to come back . On the other hand, it was also important to help our patient straight away because a partial blockage can be a life threatening condition.
We opted for a complicated but safe method of flushing the stones back into the urinary bladder. Those urinary stones can then be surgically removed when patient becomes more stable. We succeeded in flushing all three stones back into the bladder and the dog was ready, together with his owners, to wait the results from the laboratory.
The results of the blood and urine analysis showed a few important facts:The liver enzymes were slightly raised and urine sediment analysis confirmed that this type of urinary stone can not be dissolved by diet but must be surgically removed.
We prepared the patent preoperatively for two days with appropriate therapy.
Once the patient was stabilised we performed the surgery on the urinary bladder (known as a cystotomy) to remove the stones so that they will not cause any more problems in the future. We also castrated the dog at the same time. Castration will reduce the problems the dog has with his prostate gland.
After the successful surgery this old patient recovered well leaving both his owners and ourselves very happy.
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