You began to notice that your dog drinks a lot of water, and do not know what it is connected with? Then you need to quickly find out the causes of this anomaly, as they can serve as the first bells of an unpleasant illness. But before you lead a pet to a veterinary clinic you need to accurately calculate the amount of liquid consumed by it. Normally, a dog should drink 100 ml per kilogram of its weight. That is, an animal weighing 10 kg can consume no more than 1 liter per day, and weighing 25 kg - 2.5 liters of water. Now, knowing how much water the dog needs to drink, you can measure the volume of the liquid that has been drunk by it for several days. At the same time if her diet contains natural food, then you need to consider all kinds of liquids: broth, kefir, yogurt.
Possible causes of severe thirst
The most common reason that a dog has become a lot of drinking water is a transfer from a home-made meal (porridge, broth) to dry food. When feeding with domestic products, the animal receives some of the liquid from the food, but when dry food is transferred (by the way, the moisture content in them is only 10-15%), the body does not receive the right amount of liquid and the animal experiences increased thirst (polydipsia). In addition, serious illnesses can cause this, which do not appear physically in any way, for example:
- poisoning ;
- diabetes mellitus ;
- problems with liver / kidney;
- purulent inflammation of the uterus (thirst + a sharp decrease in appetite);
- hypercalcemia;
- oncological processes.
Increased thirst can cause certain medications (diuretics, corticosteroid hormones, anticonvulsant drugs), a diet low in protein or an increased intake of salt into the body.
Polydipsia can be observed in bitches with false pregnancy, as well as during lactation.
What to do with polydipsia?
To begin with, try to exclude salt from the ration of the animal and increase the number of foods high in protein. If thirst arises after switching to dry food, then just make sure that there is always a bowl of clean water in the room. If all this does not help, then you should immediately contact a qualified doctor.
Examination of an animal
To reliably find out the reason why a dog drinks a lot of water you need to contact a veterinary clinic. There your pet will make a general urine test and a biochemical blood test. This will give an overall picture of the health of the animal. If necessary, you will be assigned an ultrasound of the abdominal cavity and will test a small dexamethasone test.