Urine can be a great way to test many aspects of your pets health which is why we sometimes ask you to collect a sample and bring it in for us to test. With a few helpful tips this can be easy for both you and your pet.

Cats

This is easiest if your cat is already used to using a litter tray and you only have one cat!

  1. Ensure your cat is the only cat with access to the litter tray
  2. Put non-absorbent litter into your clean, dry litter tray (if you are on our health plan we will provide this free of charge for our 6 month health check). The key point here is non-absorbent litter, not your usual litter. If you don’t have any- don’t worry as many cats will use an empty litter tray or you can get some from us.
  3. Once the tray has been used, transfer the urine to a clean sealable container such as a jam jar. If you have used a non-absorbent litter kit from us, this will come with a pipette and pot.
  4. Label the jar with your pets name, surname, mobile number and the date and time of the sample.
  5. Fresh is best! Ideally the sample will be no more than four hours old by the time it reaches us.
  6. Keep the sample in the fridge until you can bring it in to us. 24h being the oldest sample we would be able to test.

Dogs

The first few times you try to catch a sample will likely be the hardest as your dog will wonder what you are doing! Once they are used to you bending and reaching under them they are usually fine and it becomes really quite easy.

  1. Using a clean, dry, shallow container such as a takeaway box, reach under your dog as they start to pee.
  2. transfer the urine to a clean, dry, sealable container such as a jam jar.
  3. Label the jar with your pets name, surname, mobile number and the date and time of the sample.
  4. Fresh is best! Ideally the sample will be no more than four hours old by the time it reaches us.
  5. Keep the sample in the fridge until you can bring it in to us. 24h being the oldest sample we would be able to test.

How much urine do we need?

Not much! 10-20ml is plenty. We can even manage a lot of tests with just a few drops.