Blood in cat's urine

Our customer commented:
My tom cat is 9years old and gets blood in his urine and finds it hard to urinate quite often.
Otherwise he is very healthy apart from overweight.

Our Advice:

Male cats with this problem are in danger of developing urethral obstruction. They are then unable to urinate at all and need emergency veterinary treatment, or will die painfully after just a couple of days.

Therefore it is something to take seriously. The blood is usually produced from the bladder lining due to a type of cystitis. This causes discomfort and the urge to pee when the bladder is actually pretty empty. Hence they strain and pass just a few drops of urine and some blood. Sometimes there is inflammatory debris in the urine as well, and maybe crystals too. These can tend to clog the urethra which goes into spasm, preventing urine from passing.

By far the most effective treatment is simply increased water intake. This dilutes the urine, helps to prevent the commonest type of cystitis, and usually resolves the problem completely. The way to do this is to stop giving dry food. Tinned and pouch food is much better for this problem. Some cats initially need a bit of luke warm water to be added to the moist food, so that it is very watery. If you get a bit more water into your cat, he will reliably produce dilute urine and probably have no more cystitis. There are other treatments for this problem, but simple water intake will usually do it. Funnily enough it is overweight cats which are more prone to trouble, so some weight loss would help.

I would have to suggest stopping dried food completely. See how you get on after that. Get back to us if you need to.