Diabetes in cats

Monitoring Urine

Glucose & Ketones

Tracking Diabetes in Your Cat’s Urine

Your vet may ask you to check your cat’s urine in order to monitor glucose and ketone levels in the urine. If there is a suspicion that your cat is going into diabetic remission (which means that the insulin requirement is greatly reduced or is not needed), then an early morning urine sample is a very useful monitoring tool.

Collecting Urine

Tools for Collecting
  • A clean litter tray
  • Special cat litter that doesn’t absorb the urine (your vet or nurse can discuss options and you may be able to purchase these via your clinic)
  • Urine dipsticks from your veterinary practice
  • A place to record results (e.g. a Diabetes diary or the Diabetes Tracker App)
How to Collect
  • Prepare the clean cat litter tray and place either the special non-absorbant cat litter or cleaned aquatic gravel within it. Make sure any previous litter has been removed!
  • Make sure only your diabetic cat has access to this tray and keep them indoors so that they have no option than to urinate within the prepared litter tray.
  • Once your cat has urinated within the litter tray use a pipette to transfer the urine into a sample pot (this may be included within the special cat litter kits, or you can get one from your veterinary clinic).

Using Urine Dipsticks

Step 1

Read instructions for dipsticks you are using to ensure test results are completed successfully.

Step 2

Remove one test strip and fully immerse in urine to ensure all pads are soaked.

Step 3

Immediately remove the test strip and tap to remove excess urine.

Step 4

Read the result after the time specified on the dipstick bottle.

Step 5

Hold the stick against the chart on the dipstick container to compare colors.

Step 6

Record the results. Include time of collection and time of Caninsulin® given on that day.

Tracking Results

Recording your cat’s results is important to properly manage care. Keep track using the Pet Diabetes Tracker app or download a copy of the diabetes diary.

Tracking Tools & Resources

1. Pet Diabetes Tracker app
Review and keep important information to manage diabetes.

2. Blood Glucose Curve Tool
Review and keep important information to manage diabetes.

3. Helpful Downloads
Additional resources to understand and manage cat diabetes.

Next Article: Monitoring Blood Glucose >

Further Reading

Detection and Diagnosis

About Glucose Curves

Managing Diabetes

Talk to Your Vet Today

to learn more about pet diabetes, and how cats and dogs can lead a happy,
healthy life with proper management

Caninsulin® 40 IU/ml Suspension for Injection contains porcine insulin. POM-V.
Further information is available from the SPC, Datasheet or package leaflet.
Advice should be sought from the medicine prescriber.
Prescription decisions are for the person issuing the prescription alone.
Use Medicines Responsibly.