Collecting urine from the cat

How do you collect urine from the cat?

The veterinarian has recommended collecting urine from your cat for a urinalysis. Only how do you actually do this? Below is a step-by-step explanation of how to collect urine from your cat and bring it safely to the clinic.

1. Make sure the litter box is clean. Empty the litter box and clean it well with water. Preferably, do not use detergents. Dry the litter box.
2. Then fill the litter box with a filling that does not absorb urine. The easiest way is to use Katkor. These are special grains and come with a collection tube and a pipette. Katkor is available at our clinics. You can also shred a plastic bag and use it as filling.
3. Clean a small glass or plastic jar with boiling water. It is important that the jar is really completely clean. You can also pick up a urine jar at our practice.
4. Keep a close eye on when the cat goes to the litter box so you can collect urine as soon as possible. Do you have more cats in the house? Then you can separate the cat in a room with the litter box there for a while to make sure you are collecting the right urine.
5. Once your cat has urinated in the litter box, collect the urine with the pipette and empty it into the container. The urine should not be older than 2 hours at the time we perform the urinalysis, otherwise processes may already be occurring in the urine that could affect the result of the test. Therefore, bring the urine to our practice within 2 hours.

Does urine collection not work?

Urine collection from the cat can be tricky in some cases. It may happen that the cat normally only pees outside and thus refuses to pee on a litter box, or perhaps because of the symptoms, the cat only does small puddles in the house. If for some reason it is not possible to collect the urine itself, there are other options. For example, we can use a bladder puncture to extract the urine directly from the bladder itself (this sounds scarier than it is) or your cat can spend some time with us in the hospitalization so we can monitor when he or she pees. We always recommend trying to collect the urine on your own first, as this is the least stressful for your cat.

If you have any questions about this topic, please feel free to contact us!