July 18, 2023 • 13 mins
This episode, Robb Lust, The Dog Professor from the Edgefield Animal Care Center, explains Urinary Tract Infections. How to spot it, diagnose it and treat it in your pets. He also takes a look at things your pets can and shouldn't eat from your garden. Learn more at EdgefieldAnimalCare.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In studing with me today is thedog professor Rob Luss from the edge Field
to Animal Care Center, and Rob, how you doing, brother? Good
good. We are embarking on thesecond half of twenty twenty three, and
with that being said, we've gotan episode today where we're going to talk
about something that I think you've encounteredin your animals, your pets more than
(00:21):
a few times. It's kind ofcommon. It's a urinary tract infection.
Yeah, it's very much. It'sbasically the same thing in the human world,
right, Okay, it's pretty commonin pets and a lot of times
it occurs. The biggest thing thatcauses the problem is pets not getting enough
water, you know, and youget you get dogs that are staying in
(00:42):
their kennel all day while you're atwork and this and that, and they're
not getting enough water when they getthat chance to get out and get that
water. So urinary tract infections arein pets are very much the same as
they are in humans. It's basicallycaused by a bacteria that gets in the
urethra of the animal um. UsuallyE. Coli is the bacteria that causes
(01:03):
that, and it's usually due toum unsanitary conditions or just not flushing that
enough and that means they're not drinkingenough water. UM. It is common
in certain breeds of dogs, okay, and it can lead to other issues
like urinary track stones and that typeof thing. Sheet sus be shawns Uh
(01:27):
Yorky's small dogs usually have hair inthe plumbing area, you know, that
can hold the bacteria and all that. UM. They're they're pretty susceptible to
that issue. Female dogs are waymore susceptible to it than um. Male
dogs. UM. Obviously with plumbingissues again also UM. But it's a
(01:51):
it's it's a pretty common thing.So the key to battling it is one
um, finding out if your doghas it. And sometimes it's hard to
see that, okay. Some ofthe common symptoms of a dog that possibly
has a urinary tract infection is whatwe call spotting. And spotting is where
they'll go out and they'll pee alittle bit in this spot, or they'll
(02:14):
be there for a long time andthey'll just pee a little bit, and
then they'll go to another spot andthey'll pee there, and they'll be there
and rather than emptying their entire tank, which is normal for most dogs to
do. When they urinated in theyard, they spot in spot and spot,
or you'll see possibly in the houseyou'll see droplets here or there of
urine or even blood tinged urine.And when you see droplets of blood tinged
(02:38):
urine and you have a female dogin the house, there's only one of
two reasons that that's occurring. Onethe dogs in heat, or two the
dog has a urinary tract infection.So it's important to make sure you get
to the veterinarian and it's it's treatmentspretty easy with that, I mean,
it's usually a series of antibiotics.But the hard part is is figuring out
(03:00):
where they have it or not alot of people call us and say,
I think my dog's got a urinarytract infection. I need to find out.
How do I find out? Andwe say, well, we need
a urine sample, and then peopleare like, how do I do that?
Okay, I have a doxin.He's only like three inches off the
ground. You know, how amI getting a urinary sample of that?
So here's the trick. Frisbees paperplates or little saucers or something like that.
(03:25):
You take the dog out on aleash. Please don't just say well,
I gotta go get the urine andyou let the dog out in the
yard and he's in the back ofthe yard pen and then you're running out
there trying to catch it with aplate. It's not gonna work, okay.
So usually what works best in caseslike that are something flat, like
a small pie pan or a dishor something like that that you can just
(03:46):
get a little bit of urine inthere, and it's not usually a huge
sampling of urine that you need.You know, it's kind of like when
humans go to the doctor and theyhand you the cup. It's the same
same idea. But that's the easiestway to get it. And we understand
it's hard with female dogs and stuffto do that. So a lot of
times we can actually get that doneat the clinic. But the best way
(04:11):
to diagnose to a urinary tract infectionis to have a sample of the dog's
urine. And that's usually over theyears of doing this, that's the best
way we've found out about doing it, so right, So with that being
said, it is a fairly commonthing. You've got to figure it out.
Once again, it goes back topaying attention. But you said one
of the big things is not drinkingenough water. What do you need to
(04:33):
do to your dog to get themto drink the right amount of water well
during the summertime, you just haveto provide the water, basically, and
the majority of dogs don't have aproblem with that. If you feel like
your dog is just one of thosedogs it's not really into drinking water and
everything else, ice cubes tend tohelp with that quite a bit. I
(04:55):
don't know one dog that doesn't likechewing up an ice cube, or if
you even need to flavor it withsomething, you can put a couple drops
of chicken broth in the ice cubesor whatever and get them to hydrate that
way also, But there are somedogs that just aren't interested in drinking water,
and this time of year, withthe heat and everything else, they
(05:15):
need a larger intake of water.So if your dog's drinking about the same
amount of water but they're outside playingin the heat longer during the day,
you're probably going to have an issue. So it's important to make sure we're
providing that water at all times.Obviously, it's hard for some people.
They put their dog in a cratewhile they go to work for eight hours.
It's hard for some people to providethe water in that crate because it
(05:40):
gets knocked over and so forth andso on. There are a number of
cups out there, products that youknow, attached to the walls of your
crate, or things that are madeso you can put that water in there.
But there are some dogs that youknow, if I have one Whiskey,
my lab, he'll love. He'lldrink every bowl of water that we
put down for him. Now,he will never get a urine a tract
(06:02):
infection because he's peen all the time. He always right, yeah yeah.
But but my other dog, shecould have a tendency to have that issue,
my large dog because she does heart, hardly drink any water, and
and she holds her urine. Holdingyour the urine is another thing that causes
um uties more than anything else.So giving your dog the opportunities to pee,
(06:26):
giving your dog the opportunities to drinkenough water will help keep utiyes away
and keeping them clean in the environment. Clean. That's that's Those are the
top three that are going to keepthe ut eyes away. And this type
of year, you got to watchwhat they're drinking too, because you're going
to be out taking a walk andthey're gonna be dipping their tongue into whatever,
and that could be a problem.Oh yeah, our dogs have water
(06:48):
inside the house at all times,so as soon as they go outside and
they see a puddle of something yuckyon the ground or whatever, that's the
first thing they want to go drink. And you know, when you're dealing
with puddles, if you're not goingto drink it, your dogs should not
drink it because you they're dealing withgiardia and blue green algae and all that
stuff is out there, especially thistime of year, so it's important make
(07:10):
sure you're monitoring your dog's water.You're giving them plenty of opportunities to deal
with their water and clean water insidecold water because cold water helps to keep
them cool since they don't sweat andit's hot, you can cool the insides
if the water's cool. If they'redrinking water that you would make your tea
out of, that's not that's notgonna help anything. So um ice cubes.
(07:32):
You can make flavored ice cubes.You can freeze, make it,
get a plastic bowl, freeze abig hunk of ice, in there,
and let's toss that to your dogwhile they're outside playing around and let them
chew on that. And um,that keeps them cool, that keeps them
hydrated and keeps them busy. Orthe ice cube is good for their teeth.
I hear they are. I don'tknow. I mean, they're just
as good as anything else. Right, Chewing something hard is always good for
(07:55):
the tea and a dog, soum, you know it doesn't last out.
I mean, they're perfectly fine asfar as that. Some dogs love
them, and most dogs love them. Some dogs don't. There are some
out there that would rather pass rightgood stuff man anything else on uties,
not on uties. But I didI did make a list today because this
(08:16):
experience happened to me this week.Our gardens blooming, you know, and
our vegetables are blooming and everything.And my wife goes out there and there's
a certain variety of tomatoes that wereally like. They're little sweet tomatoes.
And she picked about six or eightof them and had them in her basket.
She said, to basket down,and she started working on the flowers.
(08:37):
Turned back around, and the basket'sgone, and my French bull are
the tomatoes were gone? From thebasket and my French bulldogs standing there with
a raspberry in her mouth. SoI think we know exactly who share the
tomatoes, right, The smallest dogthat I have ate all the tomatoes.
So I said, I better makea list of things that are in your
(08:58):
garden that are fine for you yourdog, and that are not so good
for your dog. And guess what'snot so good for your dogs? Tomato?
Yes, yes, there's there's achemical in there. I think it's
called solanine. Um. They'd haveto eat a lot. Yeah, okay,
But unfortunately I may have we mayhave inadvertently trained my dog now to
(09:20):
do that. So now when shegoes out, if I'm not monitoring,
that happens a lot with people intheir dogs in their gardens and everything else.
Um, once a dog finds out, you know, that's kind of
tasty, they're gonna go out justlike a rabbit and chew the stuff out
of your garden just like anything else. Um had a dog years ago who
would pick apples off the tree,you know, and do that. So
it's important to know that what's good, what's bad, what's uh, what's
(09:45):
okay, what's not okay? Andreally in the garden um. The list
is not super long for things thatyou probably should not let your dog have.
Uh and and most all of theseare in great amounts. Obviously,
avocados, we know avocado pit ispoisonous. Yeah, and your dog does
not know that. So if theychoose something up they chew to eat it,
(10:09):
they're going to eat that. Therind is a little bit rough on
them too. Cherries, cherry pitshave cyanide in them, so it's important
not to let your dog go aroundeating cherries. And if you're feeding your
dog grapes, grapes are bad,you know. If you're feeding them some
other types of berries that are verysimilar to cherries, you're actually and you
have cherry trees or something, crabapple trees, something of that sort.
(10:35):
I'm sorry. Apples are fine,apple seeds not so fine. But if
you think if you give your dogssimilar things, then you're teaching them that
cherries are okay too. And ifI got six cherry trees in the backyard
with the cherries falling off, Idon't want them going to eat things and
everything else, So cherries not sogood. Grapes, no tomatoes, no
(10:56):
asparagus, no mushroom rooms obviously no, okay. Um and onions, those
are the those are the biggies thatare knows um okay is apple, apples,
bananas, blueberries, um, cantlope, cranberries, cucumbers. You know,
a lot of cucumbers are a goodum hydration type vegetable too, you
(11:20):
know, so you can freeze freezethese things. You know, you can
have a bag of these frozen andyou can give them out as treats,
but obviously not in great amounts,you know. Yeah, um, oranges,
peaches, those are all safe aslong as they're not getting a bunch
of the seeds and pits and everythingelse. Yeah. I have a friend
that I saw him not too longago, and he had frozen sliced cucumbers,
(11:41):
throw them up in the air andthe dog is sky up and grab
and eat him up. And I'mlike, that is so cool. Yeah,
yeah, that's a good way.It's a good way to do it.
But remember each thing you're giving them, you're teaching to look at that
classification of things to eat. Sodon't be surprised if your dog likes slices
of cucumbers. And then you goout and all the cucumbers are gone off
your vines. And once again it'sa moderation thing. But most most dogs
(12:05):
are opportunity the eaters, so they'lleat. They'll eat as many as they
can. For sure, Yeah,for sure, not a good thing.
There's some good things to note,so thanks good stuff there. Tell everybody
what's going on at the Edgefield AnimalCare Center how they can hook up with
you right now. What's going onas a lot of boarding, grooming.
I'm sure a lot of people vacation, which is fine perfectly. Let us
take care of your pet while you'regone on those vacations. Edgefield Animal Care
(12:28):
Center here, we're here in centralOhio. We're a full service pet care
facility. We're a veterinary hospital,boarding, grooming, training, all of
those things that you need for yourpet. You can find out all about
us, all our information where we'relocated, everything about the dog Professor on
our website Edgefield Animalcare dot com.Some good stuff. And if you like
(12:50):
the dog Professor and you hear thingsthere that you haven't heard before you're interested
in, go ahead and hit followso you get a notification on your phone
and feel free to share this withpeople who you know might need this information.
We've got to it. One hundredand ten, one hundred and eleven
episodes that are all there and perfect, and most of them are evergreen,
and they'll help you out any timewith the pets in your household,
In studing with me today is thedog professor Rob Luss from the edge Field
to Animal Care Center, and Rob, how you doing, brother? Good
good. We are embarking on thesecond half of twenty twenty three, and
with that being said, we've gotan episode today where we're going to talk
about something that I think you've encounteredin your animals, your pets more than
(00:21):
a few times. It's kind ofcommon. It's a urinary tract infection.
Yeah, it's very much. It'sbasically the same thing in the human world,
right, Okay, it's pretty commonin pets and a lot of times
it occurs. The biggest thing thatcauses the problem is pets not getting enough
water, you know, and youget you get dogs that are staying in
(00:42):
their kennel all day while you're atwork and this and that, and they're
not getting enough water when they getthat chance to get out and get that
water. So urinary tract infections arein pets are very much the same as
they are in humans. It's basicallycaused by a bacteria that gets in the
urethra of the animal um. UsuallyE. Coli is the bacteria that causes
(01:03):
that, and it's usually due toum unsanitary conditions or just not flushing that
enough and that means they're not drinkingenough water. UM. It is common
in certain breeds of dogs, okay, and it can lead to other issues
like urinary track stones and that typeof thing. Sheet sus be shawns Uh
(01:27):
Yorky's small dogs usually have hair inthe plumbing area, you know, that
can hold the bacteria and all that. UM. They're they're pretty susceptible to
that issue. Female dogs are waymore susceptible to it than um. Male
dogs. UM. Obviously with plumbingissues again also UM. But it's a
(01:51):
it's it's a pretty common thing.So the key to battling it is one
um, finding out if your doghas it. And sometimes it's hard to
see that, okay. Some ofthe common symptoms of a dog that possibly
has a urinary tract infection is whatwe call spotting. And spotting is where
they'll go out and they'll pee alittle bit in this spot, or they'll
(02:14):
be there for a long time andthey'll just pee a little bit, and
then they'll go to another spot andthey'll pee there, and they'll be there
and rather than emptying their entire tank, which is normal for most dogs to
do. When they urinated in theyard, they spot in spot and spot,
or you'll see possibly in the houseyou'll see droplets here or there of
urine or even blood tinged urine.And when you see droplets of blood tinged
(02:38):
urine and you have a female dogin the house, there's only one of
two reasons that that's occurring. Onethe dogs in heat, or two the
dog has a urinary tract infection.So it's important to make sure you get
to the veterinarian and it's it's treatmentspretty easy with that, I mean,
it's usually a series of antibiotics.But the hard part is is figuring out
(03:00):
where they have it or not alot of people call us and say,
I think my dog's got a urinarytract infection. I need to find out.
How do I find out? Andwe say, well, we need
a urine sample, and then peopleare like, how do I do that?
Okay, I have a doxin.He's only like three inches off the
ground. You know, how amI getting a urinary sample of that?
So here's the trick. Frisbees paperplates or little saucers or something like that.
(03:25):
You take the dog out on aleash. Please don't just say well,
I gotta go get the urine andyou let the dog out in the
yard and he's in the back ofthe yard pen and then you're running out
there trying to catch it with aplate. It's not gonna work, okay.
So usually what works best in caseslike that are something flat, like
a small pie pan or a dishor something like that that you can just
(03:46):
get a little bit of urine inthere, and it's not usually a huge
sampling of urine that you need.You know, it's kind of like when
humans go to the doctor and theyhand you the cup. It's the same
same idea. But that's the easiestway to get it. And we understand
it's hard with female dogs and stuffto do that. So a lot of
times we can actually get that doneat the clinic. But the best way
(04:11):
to diagnose to a urinary tract infectionis to have a sample of the dog's
urine. And that's usually over theyears of doing this, that's the best
way we've found out about doing it, so right, So with that being
said, it is a fairly commonthing. You've got to figure it out.
Once again, it goes back topaying attention. But you said one
of the big things is not drinkingenough water. What do you need to
(04:33):
do to your dog to get themto drink the right amount of water well
during the summertime, you just haveto provide the water, basically, and
the majority of dogs don't have aproblem with that. If you feel like
your dog is just one of thosedogs it's not really into drinking water and
everything else, ice cubes tend tohelp with that quite a bit. I
(04:55):
don't know one dog that doesn't likechewing up an ice cube, or if
you even need to flavor it withsomething, you can put a couple drops
of chicken broth in the ice cubesor whatever and get them to hydrate that
way also, But there are somedogs that just aren't interested in drinking water,
and this time of year, withthe heat and everything else, they
(05:15):
need a larger intake of water.So if your dog's drinking about the same
amount of water but they're outside playingin the heat longer during the day,
you're probably going to have an issue. So it's important to make sure we're
providing that water at all times.Obviously, it's hard for some people.
They put their dog in a cratewhile they go to work for eight hours.
It's hard for some people to providethe water in that crate because it
(05:40):
gets knocked over and so forth andso on. There are a number of
cups out there, products that youknow, attached to the walls of your
crate, or things that are madeso you can put that water in there.
But there are some dogs that youknow, if I have one Whiskey,
my lab, he'll love. He'lldrink every bowl of water that we
put down for him. Now,he will never get a urine a tract
(06:02):
infection because he's peen all the time. He always right, yeah yeah.
But but my other dog, shecould have a tendency to have that issue,
my large dog because she does heart, hardly drink any water, and
and she holds her urine. Holdingyour the urine is another thing that causes
um uties more than anything else.So giving your dog the opportunities to pee,
(06:26):
giving your dog the opportunities to drinkenough water will help keep utiyes away
and keeping them clean in the environment. Clean. That's that's Those are the
top three that are going to keepthe ut eyes away. And this type
of year, you got to watchwhat they're drinking too, because you're going
to be out taking a walk andthey're gonna be dipping their tongue into whatever,
and that could be a problem.Oh yeah, our dogs have water
(06:48):
inside the house at all times,so as soon as they go outside and
they see a puddle of something yuckyon the ground or whatever, that's the
first thing they want to go drink. And you know, when you're dealing
with puddles, if you're not goingto drink it, your dogs should not
drink it because you they're dealing withgiardia and blue green algae and all that
stuff is out there, especially thistime of year, so it's important make
(07:10):
sure you're monitoring your dog's water.You're giving them plenty of opportunities to deal
with their water and clean water insidecold water because cold water helps to keep
them cool since they don't sweat andit's hot, you can cool the insides
if the water's cool. If they'redrinking water that you would make your tea
out of, that's not that's notgonna help anything. So um ice cubes.
(07:32):
You can make flavored ice cubes.You can freeze, make it,
get a plastic bowl, freeze abig hunk of ice, in there,
and let's toss that to your dogwhile they're outside playing around and let them
chew on that. And um,that keeps them cool, that keeps them
hydrated and keeps them busy. Orthe ice cube is good for their teeth.
I hear they are. I don'tknow. I mean, they're just
as good as anything else. Right, Chewing something hard is always good for
(07:55):
the tea and a dog, soum, you know it doesn't last out.
I mean, they're perfectly fine asfar as that. Some dogs love
them, and most dogs love them. Some dogs don't. There are some
out there that would rather pass rightgood stuff man anything else on uties,
not on uties. But I didI did make a list today because this
(08:16):
experience happened to me this week.Our gardens blooming, you know, and
our vegetables are blooming and everything.And my wife goes out there and there's
a certain variety of tomatoes that wereally like. They're little sweet tomatoes.
And she picked about six or eightof them and had them in her basket.
She said, to basket down,and she started working on the flowers.
(08:37):
Turned back around, and the basket'sgone, and my French bull are
the tomatoes were gone? From thebasket and my French bulldogs standing there with
a raspberry in her mouth. SoI think we know exactly who share the
tomatoes, right, The smallest dogthat I have ate all the tomatoes.
So I said, I better makea list of things that are in your
(08:58):
garden that are fine for you yourdog, and that are not so good
for your dog. And guess what'snot so good for your dogs? Tomato?
Yes, yes, there's there's achemical in there. I think it's
called solanine. Um. They'd haveto eat a lot. Yeah, okay,
But unfortunately I may have we mayhave inadvertently trained my dog now to
(09:20):
do that. So now when shegoes out, if I'm not monitoring,
that happens a lot with people intheir dogs in their gardens and everything else.
Um, once a dog finds out, you know, that's kind of
tasty, they're gonna go out justlike a rabbit and chew the stuff out
of your garden just like anything else. Um had a dog years ago who
would pick apples off the tree,you know, and do that. So
it's important to know that what's good, what's bad, what's uh, what's
(09:45):
okay, what's not okay? Andreally in the garden um. The list
is not super long for things thatyou probably should not let your dog have.
Uh and and most all of theseare in great amounts. Obviously,
avocados, we know avocado pit ispoisonous. Yeah, and your dog does
not know that. So if theychoose something up they chew to eat it,
(10:09):
they're going to eat that. Therind is a little bit rough on
them too. Cherries, cherry pitshave cyanide in them, so it's important
not to let your dog go aroundeating cherries. And if you're feeding your
dog grapes, grapes are bad,you know. If you're feeding them some
other types of berries that are verysimilar to cherries, you're actually and you
have cherry trees or something, crabapple trees, something of that sort.
(10:35):
I'm sorry. Apples are fine,apple seeds not so fine. But if
you think if you give your dogssimilar things, then you're teaching them that
cherries are okay too. And ifI got six cherry trees in the backyard
with the cherries falling off, Idon't want them going to eat things and
everything else, So cherries not sogood. Grapes, no tomatoes, no
(10:56):
asparagus, no mushroom rooms obviously no, okay. Um and onions, those
are the those are the biggies thatare knows um okay is apple, apples,
bananas, blueberries, um, cantlope, cranberries, cucumbers. You know,
a lot of cucumbers are a goodum hydration type vegetable too, you
(11:20):
know, so you can freeze freezethese things. You know, you can
have a bag of these frozen andyou can give them out as treats,
but obviously not in great amounts,you know. Yeah, um, oranges,
peaches, those are all safe aslong as they're not getting a bunch
of the seeds and pits and everythingelse. Yeah. I have a friend
that I saw him not too longago, and he had frozen sliced cucumbers,
(11:41):
throw them up in the air andthe dog is sky up and grab
and eat him up. And I'mlike, that is so cool. Yeah,
yeah, that's a good way.It's a good way to do it.
But remember each thing you're giving them, you're teaching to look at that
classification of things to eat. Sodon't be surprised if your dog likes slices
of cucumbers. And then you goout and all the cucumbers are gone off
your vines. And once again it'sa moderation thing. But most most dogs
(12:05):
are opportunity the eaters, so they'lleat. They'll eat as many as they
can. For sure, Yeah,for sure, not a good thing.
There's some good things to note,so thanks good stuff there. Tell everybody
what's going on at the Edgefield AnimalCare Center how they can hook up with
you right now. What's going onas a lot of boarding, grooming.
I'm sure a lot of people vacation, which is fine perfectly. Let us
take care of your pet while you'regone on those vacations. Edgefield Animal Care
(12:28):
Center here, we're here in centralOhio. We're a full service pet care
facility. We're a veterinary hospital,boarding, grooming, training, all of
those things that you need for yourpet. You can find out all about
us, all our information where we'relocated, everything about the dog Professor on
our website Edgefield Animalcare dot com.Some good stuff. And if you like
(12:50):
the dog Professor and you hear thingsthere that you haven't heard before you're interested
in, go ahead and hit followso you get a notification on your phone
and feel free to share this withpeople who you know might need this information.
We've got to it. One hundredand ten, one hundred and eleven
episodes that are all there and perfect, and most of them are evergreen,
and they'll help you out any timewith the pets in your household,
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