ASK THE VET

Q: I have had my 16-year-old female rescue dog for the past 15 years.

She hs always been housetrained but recently is drinking as much water as she can get and urinating in her bed mostly at night.

I have reduced her water intake and take her dish away at 6.00 but she shows me she wants more and still the overnight incontinence continues.

She has no other problems for her age.

Any advice would be very grateful.

ROBERTA CALLA, Newcastle

A: The first important thing is NEVER withhold water from an animal.

There is likely to be a reason for the increase in thirst. If it is due to a problem with concentrating urine then withholding water can lead to dehydration and a lifethreatening state within a few hours, depending on the underlying cause.

Your vet needs to establish whether your dog is urinating excessively and so replacing that by drinking excessively or if the excessive drinking is causing the overflow incontinence.

There are two things you can do in advance of your veterinary appointment:

1. Quantify how much water the dog is drinking (without withholding access to water) over 24 hours.

Your vet will be able to use the body weight of your dog to calculate if this is excessive and how excessive the water intake is.

2. Get a urine sample. Your vet can test the urine to find out how concentrated it is and whether there are things present which should not be, such as protein or glucose.

Based on the information provided, clinical exam of your dog and urine results, the vet will have a good idea as to what is likely to be causing the problem.

A blood test may be needed to further identify what the problem may be and how to treat it safely.