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My Yorkie drinks excessive water. Should I worry about kidney disease?

Updated on September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Dog | Yorkshire Terrier | Male | neutered | 2 years and 10 months old | 14 lbs

I adopted a 3 year old male, neutered Yorkie a couple weeks ago. Playful, good appetite (eats canned dog food), good weight, appears healthy. The problem is he drinks A LOT of water. Urinalysis showed no infection and blood work was normal. He's having a bile acid test next week to test for liver shunt. But besides that, what else could he have? Should I be worried about kidney disease?

1 Answer

Most Helpful Answer

Answered By Julie Settlage, DVM, DACVS-LA, CVA

Veterinarian, Board-Certified Veterinary Surgeon (large animal), Certified Veterinary Acupuncturist

Published on May 14th, 2019

KG is lucky to have you!! It is wonderful that you have already taken him to your veterinarian for a check up. The urinalysis and bloodwork should have indicated if KG has any kidney failure (high creatinine or BUN or SDMA with a low urine specific gravity). If all of those were normal- it is highly unlikely that he has kidney failure!! Other things that can cause a dog to drink LOTS of water are diabetes (2 kinds) and psychogenic polydipsia (a fancy way of just saying they like to drink water) and a few others. Your vet can work through the blood work to rule many of these out as well as do a water deprivation test (this must be supervised by your vet!) to determine what is the root cause of KG’s behavior. Thank you for using Pet Coach!!

1Pet Parents found this answer helpful

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