Tales from the Pet Clinic

This week has been about pee. The AMC’s front desk has been busy receiving tubes, Tupperware and tinfoil full of it. Seems all of my patients were having a urinary tract issue and all of their owners were struggling to collect and deliver it to The AMC.

Hill Street Studios/Workbook Stock

Some of the pet owners were very creative in their solution to my challenge to obtain urine from their pets and deliver it to the hospital. I am going to share their solutions with you, since someday you might find yourself in their shoes. Your pet’s veterinarian will love you if you bring a urine sample in at the time of your pet’s annual visit… and don’t forget that fecal sample either.

[Do you have a clever solution to the urine collection problem? Share it here.]

Smokey, the Persian’s owner used plastic wrap. He placed the plastic wrap over the clean litter in the litter box. Smokey seemed not to notice, scratched a bit at the plastic, which caught the urine in its folds. Smokey’s owner then used syringes to collect the urine off the plastic and delivered the urine to me.

Nathan is a Maltese who has had his share of bladder problems – stones and a small tumor successfully removed by The AMC surgeons. Like many small, city dogs, Nathan uses wee-wee pads for urinations. By flipping the pad upside down (blue plastic side up), the urine could not be absorbed by the pad. The owner folded the pad to create a spout and poured the urine into a clean container for transport.

Amelia, the Labrador presented a different challenge in collecting urine. Many owners of female dogs slip one of those tinfoil pie pans under their dog when they urinate. For Amelia, the noise of the pan sliding under her was startling and the pan tended to fold as it was pushed. The shape was right, but the material was not. So Amelia’s owner switched to one of those environmentally unsound, but very sturdy plastic disposable plates with an elevated rim. Once she caught the urine, she poured off the plate and into a clean container with a screw-on lid.

Collecting urine from your pet is not just busy work for the pet owner. It provides critical medical information. The results from the urine test helped me confirm Smokey did not have kidney disease, showed Nathan’s tumor had not recurred and proved that Amelia was not drinking too much water. And that is why this week was all about pee.