Re: how much water does a dog drink per day?
- From: FurPaw <furrealpawdog@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:30:56 -0600
I just wanted to comment in this thread that it is a good idea to know about how much _your_ dogs normally drink in a day - and be aware if their behavior changes. (I know this is difficult with multiple dogs).
Oppie began increasing his water intake sometime last fall. At first we thought it was because he had just started on a thyroid supplement, and didn't give it too much thought. But pretty soon we noticed that we were filling his water bowl at least twice a day (as opposed to once with water left over). At that point we mentioned it to the vet, who asked for urine sample.
The specific gravity of his urine was extremely low (it was very dilute), so they did a bunch more tests, including complete blood and thyroid panels and abdominal ultrasound, which turned up nothing. And he kept on drinking 12-13 cups a day, when his norm had been about 5-7. He was even "leaking" in his sleep.
Meanwhile, we decided to go ahead with LP surgery, which meant a change in diet, so in early March we took him off the Iams and Nutro kibble that he'd been eating (are you seeing what is coming?), to get him used to eating moist food before the surgery.
By the time we did the surgery, March 21, his water consumption was lower, though not back to normal. It normalized within a few weeks.
Oh - and he developed hypertension and went blind in one eye - something that was noticed in his presurgical testing.
His blood pressure has normalized; the eye won't ever recover. The vet. ophtalmologist thinks it was due to hypertension.
At the end of March we read about the melamine/etc. contamination; Iams and Nutro kibbles were affected, although we didn't have the bags so we couldn't check the lot numbers.
Can we prove that the excessive water consumption, hypertension and blindness was caused by melamine contamination? No. But our vets won't rule it out, either. And melamine has been recognized as a diuretic for more than 50 years.
So - it's always a good idea to know what your dogs' norms are. I think if we had been monitoring his water more closely, we would have noticed the problem sooner... in this case, we would not have had the necessary information to correct it (no one suggested changing his diet, and we didn't think of doing so), but in other folks' cases, it might make a difference.
FurPaw
BethInAK wrote:
so how much water per day does a dog drink, on average. Obviously it varies -so we will estimate on the high side. But how much?
--
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
To reply, unleash the dog.
.
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- From: BethInAK
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