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
- Clean containers for collecting urine.
- Urine dipsticks provided by or recommended by your veterinary surgeon.
- A place to record results.
Collecting urine
- 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.
- Take your dog out for a walk on a lead.
- Have a clean container ready to catch urine when your dog urinates.
Testing urine using urine dipsticks

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