Diabetes in Dogs and Cats: Early Signs

Diabetes is common, it is manageable, and it is very often caught late, because the early signs look like nothing much at all. The animal is eating, it is behaving normally, and it is drinking a little more than it used to.

That combination is the whole warning. It is also easy to live alongside for months without it ever quite becoming the sort of thing you ring a vet about.

The four signs

1. Drinking noticeably more, emptying bowls that used to last
2. Urinating more: larger volumes, more often, sometimes accidents in a house-trained animal or a cat suddenly using the tray far more
3. Eating well or ravenously
4. Losing weight anyway

Together those four are close to diagnostic. Individually they are easy to explain away, which is why the diagnosis is so often delayed.

Later signs

• Lethargy and weakness
• A poor, dull coat
• Cloudy eyes in dogs, from cataracts, which can develop rapidly and cause sudden blindness
• A plantigrade stance in cats, walking on the hocks rather than up on the toes, from nerve damage
• Sweet-smelling breath
• Vomiting, appetite loss and collapse in a crisis

How to measure the drinking

"He seems to be drinking more" is hard to act on. Measure it: fill the bowl with a measured amount, top up with measured amounts, and record the total over 24 hours. Do that for two or three days.

That number is genuinely useful to a vet and takes almost no effort. In multi-pet homes it is harder, but even noting how often you refill a bowl compared with a month ago is information.

Who gets it

Overweight animals, middle-aged and older animals, unspayed females in dogs, and cats more than dogs in some respects. Obesity is the single largest modifiable risk factor, particularly in cats.

Diagnosis

Blood glucose and urine testing, usually with a longer-term marker such as fructosamine, because a stressed cat can have a high blood glucose without being diabetic. This is a common trap and it is why cats are not diagnosed on a single reading.

Treatment

Usually insulin injections, once or twice daily, plus dietary change.

Owners are frequently alarmed by the idea of injecting their pet and then find it straightforward: the needles are very fine, the volumes tiny, and most animals barely notice. Within a fortnight most people describe it as routine.

Alongside insulin: a consistent diet fed at consistent times, weight management, and regular monitoring, initially frequent while the dose is established.

Cats can go into remission

An important difference. Cats diagnosed early, treated promptly and moved onto an appropriate diet can sometimes stop needing insulin altogether, particularly if excess weight comes off.

That window is greatest early on, which is one more reason a cat drinking more than usual should be tested rather than watched.

The emergency to know

Diabetic ketoacidosis is what happens when diabetes goes untreated or gets out of control: vomiting, weakness, dehydration, laboured breathing, collapse, and a sweet or acetone smell on the breath. It is life-threatening and needs intensive care.

Also know hypoglycaemia, blood sugar dropping too low, usually after too much insulin or a missed meal: weakness, trembling, disorientation, seizures. If a diabetic animal becomes wobbly or confused, rub a little honey or glucose syrup on the gums and go straight to a vet.

Anyone managing a diabetic pet should know both of those before they happen.

Living with it

It is a routine rather than a crisis: injections at the same times, meals at the same times, and periodic checks. Animals do well on it, often for years, and most owners settle into it faster than they expect.

What it needs is consistency, which is worth being honest with yourself about before starting, and worth planning for around travel and household changes.

Diabetes is a case where late diagnosis costs the most: found early it is insulin, a diet and a routine, and sometimes remission in cats. Found late it is ketoacidosis, hospitalisation, and occasionally an animal that does not survive the first crisis.

Consultations and diagnostics are covered on Skeepy Pet HMO plans at any vet clinic in Nigeria, so a pet that has started drinking more can be tested on the strength of a suspicion rather than after months of waiting for something clearer.