Urine ammonia ratio may help predict canine CKD outcomes

Dogs with chronic kidney disease may have a new, noninvasive way to identify higher-risk patients earlier. A prospective study published January 21, 2026, in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine found that dogs with CKD had significantly lower urine ammonia-to-creatinine ratios, or UACR, than healthy dogs, and that lower UACR tracked with worse renal function. In related coverage published May 29, 2026, dvm360 reported that dogs with UACR below 2.0 had faster disease progression and shorter survival, positioning the marker as a possible prognostic tool alongside existing CKD staging and monitoring approaches. The work comes from investigators at North Carolina State University and the University of Florida, and builds on earlier research that established a reference interval for UACR in healthy dogs. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Why it matters: For veterinary teams, the appeal is practical: UACR is urine-based, noninvasive, and tied to a biologically relevant process, impaired ammonia excretion, that may reflect acid-base dysregulation before metabolic acidosis is obvious on routine testing. CKD in dogs is typically staged using creatinine and SDMA, with additional attention to proteinuria and blood pressure under IRIS guidance, but those tools don't directly capture renal acid excretion. If follow-up studies validate prognostic cutoffs and show that treatment decisions based on UACR improve outcomes, the test could help identify which dogs need closer monitoring, earlier diet changes, or more aggressive management of complications. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

What to watch: The next step is whether larger longitudinal studies confirm the proposed UACR threshold and whether IRIS or specialty clinicians begin incorporating ammonia excretion into routine CKD risk stratification. (dvm360.com)