My dog drinks until she's ill

Hey all,

New here so go easy with me, Ill give you some back story to the problem. I have a 6 month old Staffy pup, Happy (my 4th Staff, love them ) I have had her since she was 7 weeks old. As she has grown up her housetraining has gone really well, she's crate trained and also is turning into a little fusspot, win win.

HOWEVER

From when she was very little she's always loved a drink, frequently drinking a full puppy bowl in one sitting at 8 weeks with no ill effects, but lately its becoming utterly mad. She always has fresh water available to her and never goes without but will drink and drink and drink until she vomits, and this is every day. Amonth ago I went to the vets for a check up and asked about this, the vet asked how many bowls she drinks a day, which is about 10! The vet actually put a big bowl down full of water and watched her drink about 2/3 of it before she violently vomited. Then she went straight back to it and drank again until she did the same thing. This bowl held 1L of water so that says a lot.

The vet did a full healthcheck and told me she's totally healthy and there is no physical issue at all, and to try fluid restriction. They said to put her bowl down and let her drink about half then withdraw it, wait for 30 mins and do this again, so she doesn't overload her belly and if she vomits to withdraw water for a few hours. Issue is, now she's constantly scratching at any water source and whining until I give her more water immediately, the other night she whined and barked and jumped up at me for 3 hours non stop because she wanted more water after drinking 800ml of it in one sitting!

Its as if I never give her any at all which makes me feel awful when she is clearly distressed waiting for it. Any advice in how to deal with it, I hoped it would be something she would adapt to but I have been doing the restriction for 4 weeks and all day and all night she's begging for water. Her behaviour is perfect in every other sense but without constant fluid she seems to become manic.

Any advice?

I wouldn't restrict fluids . What are you feeding her , that might have something to do with it ?

I would take her back to the vet and ask about diabetes testing, that's not a normal reaction to scratch and become distressed without water when she has already had a good drink, I would defo take her back to vets soon, Good Luck

I agree about taking her back to the vets and a test for diabetes, and diabetes insipidus. And to check kidney function. This is not normal behaviour or amounts to drink, especially this time of year

Diabetes is the obvious most likely cause of excessive thirst, but not the only potential illness that could be causing it. If your vet has already done a full blood glucose check, then my next question would be what are you feeding her? Dry food typically causes thirst, but if you are not feeding dry foods - are you feeding any regular treats that could be causing it? Renal problems (kidney failure, infections, etc) can also cause excessive thirst, but I suspect your vet has already done a full blood count check for this - ask him to be certain. Hepatic disease (liver) is also a possibility. As is a decrease in steroid production. All these possibilities need thorough investigation. If these are discounted by your vet, then I would return to asking about the diet you have her on ... and more specifically, the amount of protein she is getting. Low protein diets can cause severe thirst, water drinking and urination. When all physical ailments are discounted, then it could (unlikely but possible) be psychological. But as this is the least harmful of all the other possibilities, it can be left as a final diagnosis when all other more likely causes have been investigated. Tony