154 KENNEL DISEASES. 
CHAPTER III. 
RETENTION OF URINE. 
Tue term retention in this connection signifies an inability to pass the urine 
from the bladder. It is to be understood that there is urine to pass, and the 
condition must not be confounded with suppression, in which none is passed 
because none is secreted. 
Retention of the urine may arise from causes functional or organic. Among 
the former are included paralysis, or want of power in the muscular coat of the 
bladder, and spasmodic stricture of the urethra, or canal from the bladder by 
which the urine passes off. 
The organic causes include obstruction to the canal by contraction, termed 
permanent stricture; stoppage of the tube, the same being blocked up with 
small calculi coming from the bladder; obstruction of the tube by organic dis- 
ease, as in enlarged prostate, and inflammation and swelling of the mucous 
membrane of urethra. Possibly blood-clots may form and thereby obstruct the 
passage ; and cases have been reported where worms have lodged in the canal 
and closed it. 
The loss of power in the muscular coat of the bladder may be due to true 
paralysis, also existing elsewhere at the same time, or to purely local paralysis 
induced by distention occurring during the confinement of dogs that are exces- 
sively neat in their habits. Spasmodic stricture may be caused by exposure to 
cold and damp, and by certain medicines taken into the stomach, as cantharides. 
That drug, by the way, might be absorbed from blisters and have the same 
effect. Such stricture, also, sometimes occurs in stud dogs, and results from 
undue sexual excitement. 
Restlessness and continuous pain, with constant and ineffectual efforts to 
urinate, are the prominent symptoms. The animal’s movements are unceasing, 
and his gait stiff and “straddling.” In getting up and lying down his actions 
are restrained as though painful. The abdomen is distended, and pressure over 
the bladder causes shrinking and distress. Unless relieved the pain grows more 
severe, vomiting occurs, the pulse runs high, becomes weak and feeble, and the 
general appearance indicates gravity. Finally, in most cases convulsions set in 
and are followed by profound stupor and death. 
If the symptoms are not extremely urgent, one or two grains of opium, 
according to the size of the dog, should be given, and followed by a hot loin- 
