Dogs are perhaps closest to human beings. Their pleasing nature, cooperative
behaviour and natural instinct for affinity to human beings are some reasons for choosing
them for companionship. Numerous tales relate to their obedience, loyalty and affinity to
their masters. They are considered most intelligent and loyal pet animal to the mankind.
Now a days the dogs are being utilised in different areas like forensic medicine, tracking,
mining, sports, defence, space science, medical science and many more. With an increased
importance of dogs, it becomes imperative to care for them and to provide best possible
treatment against diseases, they suffer from. The dogs suffer from large number of diseases
which may be of infectious or non-infectious origin. With the increased closeness to
human beings and changed feeding habits by the owners over the years, renal diseases are
a common finding.
The kidneys are bean shaped organs that serve several essential regulatory roles in
vertebrates. Each kidney consists of an outer cortex and inner medulla which projects into
the renal pelvis. The nephron is the functional unit for urine production (Chew et al. 2011).
Kidneys serve as the principal organ in maintenance of homeostasis, elimination of
metabolic waste products of the body (such as urea, creatinine, uric acid and ammonia),
regulation of extra-cellular fluid volume, blood pressure (by the rennin-angiotensin
system) and systemic pH (via regulation of H+ and HCO3
- concentration). In addition,
kidneys play integral role in the excretion of phosphorus, reabsorption of calcium, renal
metabolism of vitamin D as well as regulation of erythrocyte mass under influence of renal
erythropoietic factor (Cortan and Kumar 1999 and Sebastian et al. 2007). The kidneys also
produce hormones including calcitriol, erythropoietin and
