Diabetic Symptoms in Canines

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dr. Bob Pane with South Kendall Animal Clinic. Let's talk a little bit about diabetic syndromes or symptoms. We see a lot of diabetic dogs now. The obesity problem in humans has gone over to the dogs and we start seeing dogs with diabetes that are five, six, and seven years of age. Usually the most common complaint is urinating indiscriminately and drinking a lot of water. Unfortunately that also could indicate Cystic Calculus Bladder Stones. It could also indicate infection of the bladder so you have to bring a urine sample in to your veterinarian or do a blood sample and confirm the dog has diabetic or high levels of glucose in the urine and in the blood. Diabetic syndromes also could indicate and be shown you could see these by the weight loss in your dog as they lose glucose, they become very weak, they become a little bit incoherent if they are at the end stage of diabetes so it is really important to catch it early if you start seeing these signs. Sometimes people will confuse drinking a lot of water with the potential of diabetes and it is usually it could be from the heat, panting, so be careful. If they are drinking a lot of water there could be kidney problems. There could be overheat or exhaustion problems so it can be mixed up with other things that may look like diabetes but not really be diabetic so drink a lot of water, urinating a lot, blood in the urine could also be an indicator because sometimes you'll get an infection secondary to diabetes so sometimes you need to get rid of the infection as well as put them on Insulin for this. Sometimes by losing weight you can reduce the need of Insulin completely and make the dog feel better as well. So in short watch for any increase in water consumption or urination and if that's the case at least bring a urine, a fresh urine sample to your veterinarian."