Dark Urine

I have a pup who has had some loose stools off and on for about 2 weeks now. I took a fecal sample in for it to be tested. There were no worms, coccidia, or giardia found in the stool. The vet gave me metronidazole to give to my pup twice a day for five days. I have been keeping him in a crate at night and have noticed that in the mornings he has dark urine. It is brown in color. After he has plenty of water it turns to yellow or white in color. I have also noticed that he will urinate a lot and then walk about ten steps and then urinate a small amount again. Any ideas as to what this could be? I was thinking a UTI, but would like to have an idea before I pay my vet to figure out something that I can treat myself. Let me know your thoughts or if anymore information is needed. His loose stools have also not cleared up completely. It is a soft serve ice cream consistency. He only has to take the medication for two more days. Let me know.

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Originally Posted by poolplayer33

I have a pup who has had some loose stools off and on for about 2 weeks now. I took a fecal sample in for it to be tested. There were no worms, coccidia, or giardia found in the stool. The vet gave me metronidazole to give to my pup twice a day for five days. I have been keeping him in a crate at night and have noticed that in the mornings he has dark urine. It is brown in color. After he has plenty of water it turns to yellow or white in color. I have also noticed that he will urinate a lot and then walk about ten steps and then urinate a small amount again. Any ideas as to what this could be? I was thinking a UTI, but would like to have an idea before I pay my vet to figure out something that I can treat myself. Let me know your thoughts or if anymore information is needed. His loose stools have also not cleared up completely. It is a soft serve ice cream consistency. He only has to take the medication for two more days. Let me know.

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Dark urine could be a sign of dehydration; yellow urine means lots of vitamins are passing; light urine can just be the result of drinking a lot.

Soft stool can be a sign of a problem, but it could also be a sign you're simply feeding him too much (especially if it's kibble).

I do agree repeated attempts to urinate could be a UTI (urinary tract infection, for those who don't know), in which case cephalexin or TMZ would be better choices than metronidazole.

Is the pup sick-acting, or does he just have loose stools? Could you possibly be over-feeding him, and what exactly are you feeding him?

Jack

I just got home from work and got the pup out. He fired up as usual. He has been acting a little lazy lately, but nothing lethargic or anything. I do not believe he is over eating as I monitor how many cups of food he gets a day. I think I am def going to get him on a raw diet here very soon.

As for the potential UTI: Should I get a urine analysis done or could I simply treat him for a UTI?

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Originally Posted by poolplayer33

I just got home from work and got the pup out. He fired up as usual. He has been acting a little lazy lately, but nothing lethargic or anything. I do not believe he is over eating as I monitor how many cups of food he gets a day. I think I am def going to get him on a raw diet here very soon.

As for the potential UTI: Should I get a urine analysis done or could I simply treat him for a UTI?

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It won't hurt to run a 10-day course of cephalexin through him.

Urine showed the bacteria to indicate that he has a UTI. I also noticed that after a week of metronidazole he still has some loos stools. I have him on amoxicillin. I am going to see if this helps and if not I will then try the cephalexin. I had the amoxicillin on hand so I figured why not give it a try. Let me know your thoughts. Also a question for Jack: Why is it you would recommend cephalexin and not amoxicillin? They both seem to treat the same bacterial infections. Amoxicillin is even used to treat UTIs.

Thanks in advance?

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Originally Posted by poolplayer33

Urine showed the bacteria to indicate that he has a UTI.

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What bacteria was found, exactly? This makes a difference in what antibiotics are best to use.

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Originally Posted by poolplayer33

Also a question for Jack: Why is it you would recommend cephalexin and not amoxicillin? They both seem to treat the same bacterial infections.

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My thoughts are your general understanding of antibiotics needs serious revision.

Cephalexin and and amoxicillin do have some crossover application, true, but they also differ greatly as well. Cephalexin has a much broader coverage of than amoxicillin, especially over staph infections, E. coli, P. mirabilis and Klebsiella sp. The only real advantage of amoxicillin is coverage over Enterococcus sp. Therefore, again, what antibiotics you should be using is dependent upon exactly what kind of "bacteria" you're talking about.

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Originally Posted by poolplayer33

Amoxicillin is even used to treat UTIs.
Thanks in advance?

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In this case, you're right. Amoxicillin is generally considered as good, in some cases better than cephalexin for the specific problem of UTIs.

However, TMZ is actually considered better than both of them for both UTIs and mastitis, as I mentioned in my first post. I only mentioned cephalexin because more people have it onhand than TMZ.

If you do not see an improvement w/in 3 days, you should discontinue amoxicillin and go with TMZ (or even Baytril/Orbax), because by now you will have run 3 different antibiotics in your pup, which kind of random drug use without actually knowing what bacteria you're dealing with is the recipe to cause a super-infection. So at this point, I would strongly recommend you get a specific answer as to what kind of "bacteria" you're actually dealing with here.

Good luck,

Jack

If you feeding your pup a high protein kibble that could be a reason your pup has a soft stool