Pup's white blood cell count high?

Question

We have a 4 month old spayed lab mix who is having a little
trouble. About a month ago she finished up antibiotics for a UTI. I
brought a urine sample back into the vet's for a follow-up test, and her white blood cells were high, so the vet decided to culture it for 72 hours. Her culture came back negative, and I have to wait until Wednesday to speak to the vet about next steps. She's a smart dog who knows her commands and is pretty much house-trained, but still has at least one accident (urine only) in the house
a day. The vet thinks this is linked to whatever is going on. I was hoping that the culture would find something so that we could try antibiotics again.

Have you had anything like this happen to your dog? Is it common?
for pups?

I don't know if the pup checked for crystals...not sure what that is?

Answer 1

While not common for pups I wouldn't panic. Did the vet check for crystals in the urine?

Answer 2

Well it could be a problem in the sample. How fresh was it? Sometimes if the sample is too old it gives the wrong results. A typical urinalysis consists of three parts: Physical, Chemical, and Sediment. The physical is just describing the look of the urine : yellow/red, clear/cloudy, etc. The Chemical is when we place the urine on test strips and it tells if their urine has chemical problems: too much glucose, blood in urine, etc. Then finally there is the sediment where we take some of the urine and spin it down and take any sediment that remains and look at it under a microscope to see if there is any crystals. Did they put her on any prescription diets like s/d or c/d? The accidents in the house could be that she cant hold it long enough to wait. The kind of rule for pups is that for every month old they are is how many hours they can hold their urine so for you pup she can only go about 4 hours before having to go outside. Did the antibiotics help? UTI's can be common sometimes. Did they do bloodwork of any sort since the WBC's are high? If you let me know the answers I can give you better answers. If you have any other questions or info email me. Good luck and I hope this helps some.

Answer 3

Did she have high white blood cells (WBC) in her urine or her blood? There is a difference. High WBC in urine usually indicate a urinary tract infection, but not always. If there is an infection of just the urinary bladder wall, and not actually the urine, a culture may come back negative, even though there are WBC in the urine. High WBC in blood can indicate infection somewhere, or just inflammation.

I would wait to speak with your vet on Wednesday regarding their next recommendations.

Answer 4

If the white cell count is high it means it is fighting off an infection, that's all. crystals mean your dog may have kidney stones