You Can Lead A Horse to Water…

One of my more memorable experiences as a fourth year veterinary student involved a 400lb stud pony and a mission. The pony was admitted to the clinic for a suspected pathologic condition involving the urinary system (i.e. condition involving the kidneys, ureters, bladder, urethra, or other associated structures). The pony had no historical report of failure to urinate; but was reported to seem as though he was straining to urinated on occasion and had a dark urine that was suspect for myoglobinuria (myoglobin in urine) or hemoglobinuria (hemoglobin in urine). The pony had blood work performed, a transabdominal ultrasound to attempt to look at the bladder, and a urinary catheter was passed in attempts to collect urine. Blood work was not supportive of a myoglobinuria at the time of admission. Also, no urine was able to be collected via the catheter. At the time it was unsure if this was because the catheter was unable to be passed to the point where it was in the bladder or if the bladder was empty or did not have enough urine to collect. The decision was made to try and collect a free-catch urine for basic urinalysis and go from there. However, as the saying goes “You can stand and watch a horse all day but you can’t make him urinate” (that’s my variation on the phrase for the purposes of this blog). That stud was determined to not be subjected to urinating in front of an audience. You could stand outside his stall for hours (or inside his stall, or around the corner), but no urine would be voided. The second you left to go to the bathroom or do rounds you would hear the sound of your sample hitting the floor. He was always done in the time it took you to run back and open the door, cup in hand. Long story short, this patient’s scenario led to the development of a new invention. The use of a rectal sleeve, a smooth round, thick wire (i.e. wire coat hanger) bent into a circle with no sharp edges, and brown gauze allowed us to successfully collect or sample in no time flat (envision a bucking strap with the open end of the rectal sleeve taped around the wire circle and placed over the prepuce so the horse urinates into the sleeve). So take home message, you may not be able to make the horse urinate, but if you have a horse that doesn’t mind a makeshift diaper around the prepuce (as I have found, most of them don’t) you can have your sample in the blink of an eye (without the horse being concerned with the audience).