Not Just Fun and Games
When you acquire your first canine friend you see only the fun times ahead and pay no attention to all the more unpleasant tasks that you may have to perform.
What if your vet suddenly requests a sample of urine from your dog? How do you obtain this? From personal experience with my own dogs I found the tools required were an old tin plate, a plastic funnel and a lotion container!
I would follow my female dog around the garden until she went to squat down then gently slide the tin plate underneath her whilst she was urinating. Then when I had collected enough I would pop the funnel into the lotion container and pour the urine through the plastic funnel into the container.
Obviously you would wear gloves throughout this operation. Your vet will need as fresher urine sample as possible so if you need to obtain the sample the day before it is needed to ensure that you have one, simply wrap it up well and keep it in the fridge overnight.
Now with a male dog the task is a bit trickier. It is not an impossible job but it is more awkward than with the female dog. The same tools are required as for the female dog. It is just a case of using the tin plate to collect the urine again but obviously the male dog does not squat in such a neat way!
It can be a bit of luck rather than judgement when it comes to positioning the tin plate to collect the urine sample. You do not need to have an awful lot as it is generally only 1 or 2 drops of the urine that is actually tested.
When you have collected the urine sample in the lotion bottle the next job is to pop a label on it. Then if the surgery were to come across the bottle later they will know instantly which dog it belongs to.
Another rather unpleasant task that is often asked of dog owners is to provide a stool sample. Although not very nice it is easier to obtain a stool sample than it is a urine sample, simply pick the stool up as you would clear up after your dog anyway. Then the best thing to do is to place it into a container that seals well and that obviously you will discard after using it.
The vet will only require a small amount as they place this onto a slide and then observe it through a microscope. They could be looking for signs of eggs laid by the several types of internal parasites that can affect dogs. Common ones are whipworm, tapeworm and roundworm.
It is imperative that dog owners are aware that sometimes tasks need performing that are not so pleasant. Owning a dog is not just about going for long walks and throwing a ball, it is about caring for your dog’s health too.
