It was very easy! The lead up was what was difficult. Once he FINALLY peed blood, a classic straightforward UTI symptom, I called my vet and she asked me to bring in a sample. They read it very quickly and told me he had a severe UTI and started him on antibiotics immediately. He is currently on them and improving, but the infection is still present (just lessened) so it may be a while. Or he may need another kind of antibiotics after this one. We have to see.
So my advice is to ask them to both read it AND send out/start a culture from that sample if he does have an infection. The reason being if he does have an infection, the culture tells you exactly what bacteria it is. That needs to be done when the dog is not already on antibiotics. In my case, if we cannot get this infection under control, we will need to stop his meds for a week in order to culture, something I am worried about doing. Could have been avoided with a culture in the first place.
Either way, the test is vey simple and they should be agreeable to doing one even if just to rule out the UTI. If they don’t want to, I’d find another vet.
