I have a 4 year old male who has always been an excitable boy who I thought just didn't finish his job peeing. This, coupled with being excited and somewhat excessive water intake, is why I thought he sometimes couldn't hold his urine and would pee in his crate at a hunt test or show or sometimes at home if I was gone a while longer than normal.

Well, recently he has been having accidents in the house at night -he apparently doesn't do enough to wake me up- and sometimes during the day while I am home and have just let him out an hour or so before. His water intake is increasing as well.

Usually he comes to get me if he needs to go out, but either I am too involved in something to notice him or he isn't telling me he has to go, or the need is so sudden, he doesn't have time.

I have run numerous urinalysis over the past month. We have cultured three times now with nothing growing. We have done two water depravation UA's and the last one was sent in to Antech for the BUN and Creatinine. Everything is perfectly normal, not even close to off EXCEPT his urine concentration which has been VERY consistently 1.025 with or without water depravation.

There are really not other symptoms-no diarhea, constipation, nausea, vomiting, not off his food....the only thing maybe and this is really a maybe-is he may be a bit more laid back at times. I could really be reading into this though.

I am going to go ahead and do an ultrasound of his kidneys. In the meantime, does anyone have any ideas of things that can cause this that are not disease related? I'm bracing myself for Cushings or Addisons. But so far, he lacks any additonal symptoms for either aside from the PU/PD.

My vet, who is an optimist (and I am a pessimist ) has said that maybe this is just the way he is and this is how his tubules concentrate.

I am worried and really dreading the ultrasound. But I want to be prepared....like the good catastophizer that I am. Sometimes I worry to death and it turns out to be nothing, but....Any thoughts?

I'm sorry to hear about your worries but PLEASE wait until you know what you're dealing with before jumping to any conclusion & driving yourself farther into that craziness! Once you have a solid diagnosis, I'm sure there will be plenty of people who can offer solid ideas & assistance. In the meantime...HUGS from here!

Thanks for the kind words. I will try to be patient and not worry so much. He is a big part of my life.

I can imagine how worried you are. Try and take a deep breath until you can get the US

Has any bloodwork been done? I don't know about Cushings but elevated potassium can be a sign of Addisons disease.

The other thing I know about Addisons is that if a dog has it stress can cause "Addisonian Crisis" which can be fatal.

So if your vet suspects it do the test right away. Its a blood draw, than an injection, than an hour later another blood draw (if I remember correctly - its been years since I did the test).

Good luck and prayers everything is normal and this is just the way he is.

Just an after thought - I know he is young but any chance this is incontinence? Has he been on any medication lately for anything else that might cause incontinence?

Thanks,
Yes, I forgot to say that they did a blood panel and that was all very normal too. That is why my vet wants me to do the ultrasound first before any tests for addisons or cushings. If anyone knows if this would be a backwards way to do it, let me know.

He has not been on any recent meds....only cephalexin in the past.

The one thing that worries me is that the entire day after the water depravation he is really, really thirsty and seems really anxious about drinking....all day long. This last time he had a BIG accident in the house (a small lake) the next day after he had just been outside an hour or two before.

A friend of mine had a male(Not a Labrador) with similar symptoms and they determined he had high blood pressure, and that was causing him to want water more than usual.
Good luck with your ultrasound. It is never easy not knowing.
Julia

A friend had a male who was drinking & urinating excessively and he was finally diagnosed as having diabetes insepidus. I don't remember the treatment but he lived quite a few years after diagnosis and died of cancer as an eleven year old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_insipidus

~Adrienne

A friend of mine went thru something similar they ruled out the diabetes ... but a vet that was consulted suggested looking for a liver shunt. That is what it turned out to be. I think they actually found it on an ultrasound.

Are you sure he didn't get water from the toilet or from plant plates, kids, water ponds in the yard? Dogs that like to drink water obsessivly, would find water anyway possible. It is estrange his specific gravity is always 1.025, but he is concentrating urine, and that is good. It should go higher if the dog gets dehydrated.
Normal dog urine has a specific gravity of 1.020-1.040. IF blood work is normal, no abnormal BUN, Creatinine, Glucose, I would not worry too much. At least not yet.
Is he passing protein in the urine?
If you are going to do an ultrasound, you might want to do a biopsy of the kidneys as well.
Most metabolic deceases will cause PD/PU, but they will all give you some kind of abnormal values on the regular blood work.

At the end, it is definitely possible that he just likes to drink water.

Good luck. and let us know the outcome of his tests.

Drinking too much water can cause high blood pressure, I don't think the contrary is true.

Even with depravation he still can't concentrate beyond 1.025 That is with no water from 3:00 pm until the next morning. My vet said she would expect an intact male of his age to be concentrating well beyond that even without water depravation.

No prtotien in the urine, no. I did look up Diabetes Insipidus and that may be a possibility. Particularly since there seems to be no other abnormalities accompanying the PU/PD and low concentration.

I will talk to my vet tomorrow about that possibility. It is something we may be able to look into before the ultrasound, which hasn't been scheduled yet.

Thanks for your input everyone. I really do appreciate it.

Have been going through the same thing with my boy. Previous poster mentioned diabetes insipidus, which is different than diabetes mellitis - the blood sugar regulating disease. Your vet may be on the wrong track ordering an ultrsound of the kidneys at this stage of the game. Other less expensive tests can be done to rule out Cushings, Addisons, thyroid problems,etc. Please do more research on diabetes insipidus and take that info to your vet. Ask about having a blood osmoality test done. Also be aware that if it is diabebtes insipidus, a water deprivation test can be DANGEROUS! Send me a private email if you'd like more info. Good luck!

You could also try treating him for Lyme disease. My boy who had it was having trouble holding his pee in the crate right about when he got it.

Interestingly, I have just read something about excessive thirst in human kids. In the book "Super Immunity For Kids" it says that kids that are always thirsty are defficient in omega 3 fatty acids.