Monitoring glucose and ketones in the urine

You may be asked by your veterinary surgeon to monitor your diabetic dog by regularly testing samples of its urine.

What you need

1. Clean containers for collecting urine.
2. Urine dipsticks provided by or recommended by your veterinary surgeon.
3. A place to record results.

Collecting urine

1. Collect urine samples from your dog a few times a week at different times of day. The best times to collect urine are in the morning and afternoon before feeding and at night just before bedtime.
2. Take your dog out for a walk on a lead.
3. Have a clean container ready to catch urine when your dog urinates.

Testing urine using urine dipsticks

1. Follow the instructions for the dipsticks you are using, particularly for the time to read the results.
2. Place the dipstick in the container with the urine and soak the test pads.
3. Remove the dipstick and tap dry.
4. Read the result after the time specified on the stick bottle (usually 1 minute).
5. Hold the stick against the chart on the dipstick container to compare colours.
6. Record the results including time of collection and times of insulin injections given for that day.

See video on testing urine.

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