A pet owner’s guide to canine lower urinary tract disease  

Author: Caroline Burke BSc RVN NCert(SAN)

The urinary system, which includes the bladder and kidneys, plays a key role in your dog’s body as it is responsible for processing and removing waste from their body. There are many conditions that can affect your dog’s urinary tract, a urinary tract infection or urinary stones for example, and they often cause discomfort and may also impact their overall health. Maintaining their urinary health is a great way to proactively care for you dog. But what happens if they do develop a urinary disorder? What signs do you need to look out for and what recommendations might your vet make to help you manage their condition? In this article we will share tips on how to help support your dog’s urinary tract health and explore the answers to those questions.

Maintaining urinary health

Encouraging your dog to drink water is an important step in maintaining their urinary health, as water intake influences urine production. Making sure your dog has access to clean, fresh water at all times is a simple way of supporting their water intake.

The diet you feed your dog can also help support water intake. Wet food has a higher moisture content than dry food and therefore provides a convenient way to support your dog’s water intake and hydration status. You may want to consider adding in wet food to your dog’s daily food regime. However, if you are looking at introducing mixed feeding then you need to ensure you are feeding dry and wet diets from not only the same manufacturer, but also from within the same range. This helps ensure that your pet receives the benefits of feeding both dry and wet foods and are also getting the right balance of nutrients from their diet.

Not only that, but many food manufacturers will also formulate their adult dog diets to help support urinary health. For instance, some of the ROYAL CANIN® diets for adult dogs offer specific support to help maintain urinary health. It is important to remember though, that these diets differ from the ones in the ROYAL CANIN® Urinary S/O range, which have been designed to help in the management of dogs with specific urinary nutritional needs.

Monitoring your dog’s toileting habits is also important. The more familiar you are with your dog’s normal toileting routine and behaviours, the easier it will be for you to spot any changes and allows for earlier intervention.  

Royal Canin dog urinary-ageing loaf | Animed Direct

What are the signs to look out for?

Some of the more common signs you may see if your dog has a condition affecting their lower urinary tract include:

  • Blood in the urine
  • Pain or difficulty when passing urine
  • Urinating in unusual places
  • Straining before, during or after urination
  • Increased frequency of urination
  • Passing small amounts of urine
  • Urine leakage
  • Inability to pass any urine (dogs may strain and try to pass urine but will be unable to do so. Whilst uncommon, this is an emergency, and you should take seek immediate veterinary attention for your dog).

Not all dogs will show all these signs and they will also vary in severity. If you notice any of these signs or have any concerns about your dog’s urinary health, you should book an appointment with a vet.

What are the main causes of urinary conditions in dogs?

Urinary conditions in dogs are relatively common and affect thousands of dogs.2,3,4 Similarly to cats, there are several conditions that might be causing your dog’s signs including:

  • Bacterial urinary tract infection:This is the most common urinary condition in dogs.5,6 Chronic urinary tract infections can alter the pH of urine, facilitating the formation of certain types of stones.1,7,8
  • Urolithiasis: This refers to urinary stones that develop in a dog’s bladder, that are formed from minerals in their urine. Whilst there are different stone types, struvite and calcium oxalate are the two most common types of stone in dogs.9 Urate stones are another type, but these are most commonly seen in Dalmatians.9
  • Urethral plugs: A urethral plug is an accumulation of proteins, cells, crystals and debris in the urine that combine to form a plug that cannot be passed and prevents urine from being passed. Not being able to pass urine is very dangerous, so if you suspect your dog is not able to pass urine you need to seek veterinary attention immediately.

How would your vet identify what the underline cause is?

If you have any concerns about your dog’s urinary health or they are showing any of the signs discussed previously, it is essential that you take your dog to the vet.

Your vet will start by performing a physical examination and take a thorough history to establish more about the signs your dog is showing. They may ask you questions around the timing of the onset of signs, any progression and if you have noticed any changes to your dog’s toileting habits.

Depending upon the information they gather from the history and the findings of the clinical examination, they may recommend further investigations and may include one or more of the following: urinalysis (collecting a urine sample to analyse), x-rays (some urinary stones can be seen on x-ray) and ultrasound (to assess any thickening of the bladder wall and look for the presence of urinary stones or a tumour of the bladder). The results of the investigations will help your vet identify the underlying cause and from this they will be able to recommend the most appropriate management plan for your pet. 

Management

The management plan your vet recommends will depend upon the underlying cause of your dog’s urinary signs. For instance, if your dog has a urinary stone, they may recommend surgery to remove it, whereas if your dog has a UTI they may provide a long course of antibiotics. In addition, they may also look at addressing two other key areas: water intake and nutritional management.  

Water intake

If your dog is affected by a urinary condition, such as a UTI or urinary stone, your vet may recommend looking at ways to increase your dog’s water intake. Increasing water intake supports a larger urinary volume, decreases mineral concentration and supports more frequent flushing out of the bladder.1

There are several strategies your vet may recommend to help increase your dog’s voluntary water intake, including;

  • Changing the type of water offered i.e. room temperature tap water, rainwater etc.
  • Using different methods to offer water i.e. changing the type of bowl used or using a water fountain
  • Increasing the number of water bowls available and placing them in multiple areas around the house

Alongside encouraging water intake, you also need to ensure you are providing regular and frequent opportunities for your dog to urinate.

Nutritional management

If your dog has a struvite stone, your vet may recommend a specialist diet, such as a product from within the ROYAL CANIN® Urinary S/O range. This range has been specifically formulated to promote urine dilution and the diets contain an adapted mineral content. Diets within this range help in the dissolution of struvite stones and the management of their recurrence.

As wet food has a higher moisture content than dry food, and increasing water intake is a key component of the management of these cases, your vet may recommend feeding your dog a wet based diet. The ROYAL CANIN® Urinary S/O range offers wet food in a gravy format as well as a loaf format. However, all the diets within the range offer the same benefits in terms of urine dilution, mineral content and dissolution of struvite stones and management of recurrence, so if your dog will only eat dry food, you can rest assured that their diet will still offer the same support as a wet diet.

If your dog is overweight or prone to weight gain, your vet may recommend ROYAL CANIN® Canine Urinary S/O Moderate Calorie, which offers the same benefits as the standard diet, but with fewer calories, and is also available in a wet format.

The range also offers a Small Dog diet (specifically formulated for small breed dogs, with an ideal weight less than 10kg), as well as an Ageing diet (formulated for dogs over 7 years of age).

All the diets within the ROYAL CANIN® Urinary S/O range are complete and balanced and mixed feeding guidelines are available to support your dog’s individual preferences.

If your dog has a urate stone, then your vet may recommend the ROYAL CANIN® Urinary U/C diet, which contains a specific selection of proteins that have a low purine content. ROYAL CANIN® Urinary U/C also contains nutrients to support your dog’s skin and coat health and antioxidants to neutralise free radicals.  

All these diets are part of the ROYAL CANIN® Veterinary Health Nutrition range and it is important that these diets are only fed when recommended by a veterinary professional.

On-going monitoring

Your dog may need on-going monitoring and your vet is best placed to make recommendations about the type and frequency of health checks and what additional care may be required.

Summary

Supporting your dog’s urinary health is an important part of supporting their overall health and it’s therefore important that you speak to your vet if you have any concerns about their urinary health. Your vet will be able to identify the underlying cause of your dog’s signs and build a management plan that is tailored to meet their specific needs. The management plan may include medical or surgical treatment as well as a nutritional recommendation and strategies to increase your dog’s water intake. By working with your vet, you can not only help your dog in the short-term but also help reduce the risk of recurrence in the long-term.

References:

  1. Koehler LA, Osborne CA, Buettner MT, Lulich JP, Behnke R. Canine uroliths: frequently asked questions and their answers. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract. 2009 Jan;39(1):161-81.
  2. O’Neill, Dan G., et al. “Prevalence of commonly diagnosed disorders in UK dogs under primary veterinary care: results and applications.” BMC Veterinary Research 17 (2021): 1-14.
  3. Top 10 Most Common Medical Conditions for Dogs and Cats, PR Newswire, 15th April 2015.
  4. UK Pet Food Pet Population Data 2024: UK Pet Population | UK Pet Food
  5. Lulich JP, Osborne CA, Bartges JW et al. Canine lower urinary tract disorders. In Ettinger SJ, Feldman EC, (eds). Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine Diseases of the Dog and Cat. 5th edition. Philadelphia: WB Saunders Co, 2000: 1747-1781.
  6. Mendóza-López, Claudia Iveth, et al. “Analysis of lower urinary tract disease of dogs.” Pesquisa Veterinária Brasileira 37.11 (2017): 1275-1280.
  7. Houston DM, Moore AE, Favrin MG, Hoff B. Canine urolithiasis: a look at over 16 000 urolith submissions to the Canadian Veterinary Urolith Centre from February 1998 to April 2003. Can Vet J. 2004 Mar;45(3):225-30.
  8. Queau Y. Nutritional Management of Urolithiasis. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract. 2019 Mar;49(2):175-186. 
  9. Houston DM, Weese HE, Vanstone NP, Moore AE, Weese JS. Analysis of canine urolith submissions to the Canadian Veterinary Urolith Centre, 1998-2014. Can Vet J. 2017 Jan;58(1):45-50.