Urinary Health guides
Practical, veterinary-led guidance on Urinary Health, written by vets, free to read. View all guides
Water, Diet and Your Cat's Bladder: Increasing Intake and When a Urinary Diet Helps
Cats treat "get more water into them" with the contempt they reserve for most of our ideas. They drink when they feel like it, ignore the lovely new bowl, and leave you wondering whether this "drink more water" business...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
Managing FIC with MEMO: The Environment Changes That Actually Work
"Reduce your cat's stress" and "enrich the environment" are the two instructions vets hand out most often for feline idiopathic cystitis (FIC), and they're also the two that make the least sense at home. She's a house...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 12 min read
Feline Idiopathic Cystitis: Why Stress Gives Your Cat a Sore Bladder
A cat that keeps getting "urine infections" the antibiotics never quite fix is one of the odder problems we see, because the usual logic doesn't apply. There is no infection to treat. The vet starts talking about...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
Calming Aids, Pheromones and When Medication Has a Role
By the time most owners go looking for a calming product, they've already done the hard, unglamorous work. The litter trays are spread around the house, there's a water fountain, you've carved out hiding places, and...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
Breaking the Cycle: Stress, Multi-Cat Tension and Preventing the Next Flare
A calm spell with feline idiopathic cystitis (FIC) can end without warning. You've had the diagnosis, you've fixed the litter trays, you've got more water into your cat, and for weeks things hold steady. Then a flare...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
The FIC Flare: Pain Relief, the First 48 Hours, and Watching for a Block
A flare tends to look the same each time. Your cat is in and out of the litter tray, squatting and straining, maybe leaving a pink-tinged spot on the floor, maybe weeing just outside the tray, maybe crying. For a cat...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
Getting the Diagnosis: Why FIC Is What's Left When Everything Else Is Ruled Out
A lot of FIC stories share the same confusing moment. The vet runs the tests, comes back with "good news, nothing grew, no stones", and then in the same breath calls it idiopathic cystitis. If nothing showed up, how is...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
Will It Happen Again? Preventing a Re-block After Your Cat Comes Home
You've brought him home. He's a bit subdued, maybe shaved on one front leg from the drip, and you're watching the litter tray like it owes you money. That fear in your chest, the one that says "what if it happens again...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
The Blocked Cat: The Emergency Every Owner of a Male Cat Must Recognise
Of all the things that can go wrong with a male cat, one is worth keeping in your head ready, because it's the urinary emergency that actually kills, and it kills fast. The reason it's so dangerous is how easily it's...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
Can Dogs Get Blocked Too? Urethral Obstruction in Male Dogs
Most of this section is about cats, and for good reason: the blocked male cat is the classic urinary emergency, the one owners most often miss. But male dogs can block too, and if you've got one squatting over and over,...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
PU Surgery (Perineal Urethrostomy): When It's the Right Call, and Life After
If you're reading this, you're probably exhausted. Your cat has blocked more than once, you've done the late-night dash to the emergency vet more times than feels fair, and somewhere in the last conversation your vet...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
What Happens at the Vet: Unblocking, the Catheter and the Hospital Stay
The call is made, or about to be, and your blocked cat is going in. That's the hardest and most important step done, because a male cat who can't pass urine is in a true emergency, not constipation and not a simple...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Bladder Stones in Cats and Dogs: The Two Main Types, and Why the Difference Is Everything
Bladder stones nearly always raise the same first question: does this mean surgery? It's a fair worry, and the honest answer is that it depends almost entirely on one thing, the type of stone. That single fact runs...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
The Other Stones: Urate, Cystine and the Breed and Liver Links
Most bladder stones are one of two kinds. Across cats and dogs, struvite and calcium oxalate together make up the great majority of all uroliths, and they're the two we cover in detail elsewhere (see "Bladder stones in...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
Diet and Water for a Stone-Forming Pet: The Prevention Plan for Life
Once your pet has formed a bladder stone, your vet will almost certainly have said something that lands with a small thud: this isn't really a one-off. Whether the stone was dissolved away on a diet or lifted out at...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
When a Stone Causes a Blockage: The Bridge to the Emergency
Most bladder stones sit in the bladder and cause grumbling, annoying signs: blood in the urine, frequent squatting, a bit of straining. Uncomfortable, worth treating, but not an emergency. One situation changes that...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
Calcium Oxalate Stones: Prevention When You Can't Dissolve Them
When the lab report names a bladder stone as calcium oxalate, there's a conversation that catches almost everyone off guard: no special diet will melt this one away. Struvite stones can often be dissolved over a few...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Dissolving Struvite Stones with Diet, and When Surgery Is Needed Instead
Struvite is the one common bladder stone that you can often make disappear without surgery. On the right diet it melts away over a few weeks, with your pet at home eating their dinner the whole time. No anaesthetic, no...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 8 min read
My Spayed Dog Is Leaking Urine: Urethral Sphincter Incontinence Explained
A damp patch on her bed, a faint smell of urine in the mornings even though she's just been out, the odd wet spot on your own duvet: these are the signs that bring a lot of owners in to us. It's natural to wonder...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
Living With a Leaky Dog: Bedding, Skin Care and Night-Time Tips
A leaking dog leaves a tell-tale sign: a damp patch on her bed in the morning, or a cool wet ring on the sofa where she's been dozing. The leaking itself is one problem, and the day-to-day of it is another: the constant...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Is It Incontinence or Something Else? Ruling Out Infection, Stones and Behaviour
A damp patch on the bed, a leaking spayed dog, and a tidy explanation that it's a weak bladder-neck muscle. That fits most cases, and it's reassuring. But before you settle on it, it's worth being sure, because a...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
Treating Incontinence: The Medicines That Work, and What to Try When They Don't
So the leaking now has a name (urethral sphincter mechanism incompetence, USMI, the weak bladder-neck muscle we explain in my spayed dog is leaking urine), and there's a tablet or a small bottle of syrup waiting on the...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
"Is It a UTI?" Why Your Cat Probably Hasn't Got One (and Your Dog Might)
Frequent dashes to the litter tray, a spot of blood, and one word lands in your head straight away: "UTI". It's the obvious guess. It's what we get as humans, it's what the search box suggests, and it's what a lot of...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
Is This an Emergency? The Blocked-Cat Signs You Must Not Wait On
A male cat going in and out of the litter tray, straining, crying and passing little or no urine is the one scenario on this page that can't wait. If that's your cat right now, don't read to the end first. Ring your vet...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
My Cat Is Straining in the Litter Tray: What's Going On, and What to Do
A cat who goes to the tray, crouches, strains, and walks away with little or nothing to show for it, then heads back ten minutes later to repeat the whole thing, is one of the commonest reasons owners ring us. Sometimes...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
Bladder or Kidneys? When Urinary Signs Point Higher Up
Trips to the tray, wet patches on the floor, a pet that won't leave the tap alone: most urinary worries are a bladder story, and most of this Urinary Health home is about the bladder and the urethra. Cystitis, stones,...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
Weeing in the House: Telling a Medical Problem from Marking and Behaviour
A wet patch by the back door, a puddle on the bath mat, that unmistakable smell off the side of the sofa. When a previously spotless cat or dog starts going in the house, most owners land on the same question underneath...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
Urinary Tract Infections in Dogs: When Antibiotics Are, and Aren't, the Answer
A dog squatting every few minutes, leaving little puddles where she never used to, with maybe a pink tinge in her wee, is the classic picture of a urinary tract infection, and a UTI is a fair first guess. It's often the...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 10 min read
Why Getting More Water in Is the Best Thing You Can Do for Your Pet's Bladder
"Get more water into" your cat or dog is one of the first things a vet says after a urinary scare, and it's one of the easiest to dismiss. Cats in particular are famously hopeless drinkers, so it's tempting to file...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
How to Describe Urinary Signs to Your Vet, and How to Collect a Urine Sample
Two things move your pet towards the right treatment faster than almost anything else you can do at home: a clear description of what you've seen, and, if your vet has asked for it, a fresh urine sample to bring along....
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 11 min read
Blood in Your Pet's Urine: What It Means and How Worried to Be
A pink puddle on the floor, a red-tinged clump in the litter tray, a drip that's clearly not the right colour: any of these makes your stomach drop. The word "blood" does a lot of frightening work in your head, so let's...
Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 9 min read
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