Thirst: a symptom?

My dog has started drinking a lot of water recently. Should I be worried?

Generally, water intake will vary a little with diet. If dogs are fed wet food, they may drink less, while dogs that are fed dry food or salty treats must make up water intake and seem to drink more than expected. However, this water intake is still physiologically normal. If your dog is drinking excessively (polydipsia) it is possibly because he is losing excess amounts of water for any of a number of reasons. While a number of diseases result in excess water intake and urine output, the most common of these diseases include kidney failure, diabetes mellitus and Cushing's disease.

An uncommon cause of dogs drinking more is called psychogenic polydipsia. It is a behavioral condition with a physical manifestation of excess thirst. Primary polydipsia is used to describe excessive water drinking that is not due to illness or psychosis: bored puppies or water loving breeds may tank up on water occasionally or consistently. Sorting these out can be a real challenge for your veterinarian.

The first and most important step in addressing excessive drinking is to diagnose and confirm the underlying condition with your veterinarian. Many of the conditions associated with excess thirst are very serious and must be addressed as soon as possible.

Can stray dogs which have been sterilized, be relocated to any other place?

The only humane, legal and scientific way of dealing with street dogs is to get them vaccinated and sterilized under animal birth control programme (abc). Under this program, stray dogs are picked up, neutered, vaccinated against rabies and released in the respective areas from where they had been captured, which is in accordance with the animal birth control rules 2001 framed, under section 38 of the prevention of cruelty to animals act 1960 and as per the orders of honourable Supreme Court of India.

There is scientific thought behind restoring a sterilized dog to his original habitat. Dogs are territorial animals. They mark out their territories based on the food available and they do not let outsiders come in. When these local dogs are removed from their territory, other dogs move in to occupy them. These may not be sterilized so the problem continues for that locality. Dog fights increase as any new dog entering a territory is attacked by the dogs already in that area and non-sterilized dogs continue to mate and produce litters..

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