Urine infection or prostate ? - Page 1

When cleaning my kennels this am my 4 year old intact male had a small pool of blood under his bed and I watched him as he urinated outside and saw a blood smear on the gravel. He has a vet appointment in a few hours as the vet is currently out doing large animal work, I will collect a urine sample soon to take with me. He is well and only drinking the usual amount of water and not staining to urinate.

His sire died 2 weeks before this litter was born from unclear circumstances but I do know that he had a couple of  bleeds from the penis he was castrated and died 2 days post op, so it does seem to me that it must have been prostate at the time he was only 6 years old.
I am hoping that Cuba only has a urinal infection but I am very worried.

I hope it is bacterial, but if not, and he is an outdoor dog he could have surgery to remove the prostate.  The complication is that it usually leads to incontinence, so vets typically recommend castration, which only slows the progression of the cancer.  Instead of castration, you could also blockade all testosterone and adrogen chemically and that also arrests progression.  But if you can cope with incontinence, and can afford the surgery, you could try that.

If the sire died two days after castration, he died from a bad surgery and not cancer.  That would be quite a coincidence.

It doesn't have to be cancer. My male had a severe case of prostatitis a few years ago. The symptoms are similar to what you describe. He was leaking bloody urine, and urinating blood. He was given antibiotics for the infection, and castrated. It took awhile for things to get back to normal, but he's fine now.

Unfortunately, castration is the best remedy for prostate problems, both for cancer and prostatitis/benign enlargement.

Adding probiotics (whether in yogurt or capsule form) could also help him recover from having bladder/ UTIs.  I tend to get those about once a year, so I can only imagine what your dog must be feeling!   

Best of luck, hope it's just an infection :D

Cranberry capsules are also very helpful with urinary tract infections. Unlikely he'd drink cranberry juice for you, although one of my bitches did when she had a UA.  There is an enzyme in the cranberry that attaches to bacteria and prevents it from adhering to the bladder wall.

Dogshome, the fact you didn't have a sterile jar would only matter when they culture the urine for bacteria, and that takes several days for results. What they would have done in the hospital was examined it under a microscope for the presence of blood cells and pus, both of which would indicate an infection.

So, is the vet thinking it's a UTI, or an inflamed prostate, or possibly both? (An enlarged prostate can prevent the urine from draining from the bladder properly, resulting in a bladder infection.)