Prevalence and clinical outcome of subclinical bacteriuria in female dogs

Objective—To determine the prevalence of subclinical bacteriuria and its natural clinical course over a 3-month period in healthy female dogs. Design—Observational, prospective, cross-sectional study. Animals—101 healthy client-owned female dogs. Procedures—In all dogs, screening clinicopathologic tests and bacteriologic culture of urine were performed. In culture-positive dogs, subclinical bacteriuria was confirmed by 2 positive culture results within 2 weeks and dogs were reevaluated at 3 months. Results—The prevalence of subclinical bacteriuria in healthy female dogs was 9 of 101 (8.9%). Three-month follow-up data were available for 8 of 9 dogs with subclinical bacteriuria. Four dogs had persistent bacteriuria, and 4 had transient bacteriuria. No dogs with subclinical bacteriuria developed clinical signs during the 3-month observation period. Subclinical bacteriuria was diagnosed in 6 of 51 (12%) young and middle-aged dogs and 3 of 50 (6.0%) senior and geriatric dogs. No significant difference was foun...