Symptoms: Constantly straining to pass water even when indoors; urine high-coloured and often cloudy, strong smelling. Blood may be mixed with the water, or come in drops after the passing of water. These symptoms must not be confounded with those the result of a cystic calculus (stone), for in these latter cases the dog strains continuously, and if a small calculus happens to pass from the bladder into the passage (urethra), it generally becomes fixed in the canal just behind the bone in the penis, and the dog is unable to micturate at all, or only in drops. When a dog is seen to be frequently straining, he requires careful watching to see the kind of urine passed, or whether any is being passed at all.
Treatment: If there is much pain, give every three or four hours from two[1] to fifteen drops of tincture of hyoscyamus in water; if there is not much pain, a course of hyposulphite of soda is all that is required, and should be continued for some time.
Dose: From three grains to half a drachm[1] in water, and a careful diet of milk, with bread or Spratt’s biscuits, or Force, milk puddings, etc. Milk and barley water may be given to drink. When the irritation is due to calculus urgent surgical assistance is required.
Bladder, Paralysis of:
Symptoms: The dog at first is unable to pass water, later it dribbles from him. May be the result of general paralysis caused by injury to spine, or brain, or to the abdomen; it may also be the result of stone in the bladder.
It sometimes occurs in dogs of very clean habits as the result of being shut up for a long time, and the bladder becomes over distended, and can be felt in the back part of the abdomen as a large ball.
Treatment: Relieve the bladder. If there is no mechanical obstruction as from a stone in the canal, the bladder can be emptied by pressure on the walls of the abdomen over the seat of the bladder; if this fails, a catheter must be passed.
Speaking of catheters, for very small dogs 0.0 size is required. For terriers, No. 1 size in diameter, and about fourteen or sixteen inches long. For dogs size of collies, etc., No. 2 size, and about eighteen or twenty inches long, and for larger dogs one about four inches longer is necessary. If there is a small stone or gravel in the passage, there is sometimes difficulty in passing the catheter, but with care a passage may generally be made with a fine grooved silver probe.
When there is an absence of mechanical obstruction and inflammation in these cases, to improve the tone of the bladder give from one to seven[1] minims of tincture nux vomica three times a day, in water and after food. In chronic cases iron (ammoniated citrate) may be added to the medicine. Nux vomica must not be given when there are any signs of convulsions.