Urine specific gravity range
That is due to toxins released by bacteria that have infected their womb.Ī number of conditions can cause your pet’s blood calcium levels to be too high. Unspayed adult female dogs and cats with uterine infections ( pyometra) often exhibit increased thirst and abnormally dilute (low SpGr) urine. In older (≥ 9yrs) cats, lower-than-normal urine specific gravity results should be followed by a blood BUN and creatinine assay to screen the cats for possible kidney disease.
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Urine submitted to outside laboratories often registered slightly higher values than those run with a refractometer at your veterinarian’s clinic. That expected number decreased slightly as the cat’s aged, and it was slightly lower in female cats. One study concluded that healthy cats should have a urine specific gravity of 1.035 or greater. Due to the accumulation of toxic wastes in their blood stream, those pets are usually azotemic /uremic (= high BUN and creatinine) as well. It means that your pet’s kidneys can neither concentrate nor dilute urine once it has initially formed. That urine is more or less the same concentration (osmolality) as the pet’s blood plasma. Persistently low urine specific gravity is called isosthenuric urine (1.008-1.012). In older pets, it is often the first sign (along with increased water consumption = polydipsia) that the pet’s kidneys are failing.
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Persistently low urine specific gravity in your dog or cat is more common, and potentially more worrisome, than high specific gravity. Some Reasons Why Your Cat And Dog’s Urine Specific Gravity Reading Might Be Low: Other causes of dehydration that will elevate your pet’s urine specific gravity are vomiting, diarrhea, heatstroke and fever. Dehydration is also common in all diseases in which apathy, weakness or reduced mobility occur. In humans, signs of dehydration are also often nebulous (vague). The outward signs of chronic dehydration in cats are few. So, their need to drink additional water is minimal. In the wild, cats consume rodents that are about 75% water. Dehydrated pets are at greater risk of developing kidney and bladder stones because the mineral salts that form these stones fall out of solution ( precipitate) to form crystals (often oxalate or struvite) much faster in concentrated (high specific gravity) urine than in dilute urine. Cats rarely drink sufficient water to compensate for that, even when you keep bowels of water freely available to them. That can be a major side effect of maintaining pets (particularly cats) on dry kibble.
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When your pet’s urine specimens repeatedly have high specific gravity, it is often a sign that your cat or dog is not consuming enough fluids during the day. Specific gravity will also be high when urine contains substantial amounts of protein. Diabetes allows sugar to leak into the urine. But it can also be high if your pet has developed diabetes. Some Reasons Why Your Dog Or Cat’s Urine Specific Gravity Reading Might Be HighĪ normal or high urine specific gravity usually indicates that your pet’s kidneys are working well. It will tend to be the highest just after it gets up in the morning. That number will go up when your pet is dehydrated and go down after it drinks water.
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If your pet’s kidneys are healthy, its urine specific gravity will be constantly changing – but its kidneys will do their best to keep the SpGr of urine between 1.015 and 1.060. Pure water has a specific gravity of 1.0. The lower the number, the more dilute it is. The higher the SpGr number, the more concentrated your dog or cat’s urine is. That is an indication of kidney function. See How Tests Are Grouped The Specific Gravity Of Your Cat And Dog’s Urine = SpGr, USGĭetermining the specific gravity of your dog or cat’s urine is the way veterinarians determine how concentrated it is. Why Is My Dog or Cat’s Urine Specific Gravity Too High or Too Low? Ron Hines DVM PhDĬauses Of Most Abnormal Blood & Urine Tests