E. Coli
 

My dog has just been diagnosed with a high load of E. Coli present in a bladder culture that was done last week. (She has no symptoms of any infection, but a serial urinalysis showed that the specific gravity of her urine was out of the normal range for all but 1 out of the 6 samples), so the DVM performed the bladder culture, fearing the start of kidney malfunction. (My dog is a 7 year old Chocolate Lab mix.)

My questions are:

1. How could she have contracted this infection?
2. Is it normal for her to not present any symptoms at all (my reading on this suggests that diarrhea would be common)?
3. Are my other dog, myself, and my family at risk of infection?
4. The doctor is recommending a long-term course of antibiotics - is this the best treatment?

Any information you could provide on the subject would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Gigi Kolt

Hello, on the ecoli part of your question... i was talking to a guy that works with dogs yesterday when i was on a walk with my pup, and there is this creek that runs through the whole path, anyway the guy advised me NOT to let my pup ever go into that creek seeing there was something like 500 times more ecoli than the city limit in that creek.. and so many carsenogenics in the water.. just thought since your dog is part lab and they love water, is it possible that your dog has been going into a lake or something that may not be very healthy.. seeing they usually consume some water that they are swimming in.. and maybe the dog picked something up from the water?

Hello,

Thank you for your message. It's funny you should mention it, but we have a creek on our property and the dogs love to go in, especially during all this hot weather.

I talked to our vet some more and he says that we all (people and dogs alike) have e.coli in our systems. But in a case where one part of the body is weakening (like my dog's kidneys), the e.coli will get more aggressive and an infection will result.

You have a good point though - that might be one source of where she got it in the first place.

Thanks for your message!

no problem :) good luck