The past few weeks Leila has been peeing in the hallway upstairs, outside of our bedroom.  She is doing this sometime during the night instead of going all the way downstairs and out the doggy door.  I had started becoming very frusturated because she had made such great accomplishments with consistently going outside for potty and had not had any accidents in awhile.  I had to bring her into the vet because I thought she might have a foreign body (she was vomiting up plastic) and decided I would run a urinalysis on her just in case.  The results came back that she had a bacterial infection.  I felt so bad for getting upset at poor little Leila when she was unable to hold it probably because she was in pain and had an infection.

This just shows that puppies can also get these infections and it can be hard for an owner to differentiate between an infection and accidetns in the house.  Yes if your dog is urinating blood or straining to go it can be easy to notice but if a puppy is having accidents around the house it may be more difficult.  It all comes down to knowing your dog and being able to notice when things seem off and different about them.  I have learned through my own expereince and clients coming into the clinic, that you can never be overly concerned about issues your pet may be having.  Animals are unable to tell us blantaly when something hurts or is not right and as owners we must be able to pick up on the small ways our pets communciate with us.

Symptoms of Urinary Tract Infections are:

• Frequent urination
• Increased water intake
• Straining to urinate
• cloudy or foul smelly urine
• Urinating only a few drops
• Blood in urine
• Vaginal discharge
• Licking of the vulva
• Loss of appetite
• Depression
• Lethargy