any chance at all he ate some kind of red fruit? or something red?

like Rimadyl? My 12-year-old Rottweiler had been taking Rimadyl for her arthritis. She started to poop and pee blood. Fortunately, I had done some research on the drug and knew what adverse effects to watch for. I discontinued the drug and she was fine.

Did it happen again?

but really, as soon as I brought it inside and was dipping the stick, I smelled the pungent odor of a UTI. He was 3+ for blood, trace protein, but nitrate neg and leukocyte esterase neg.

Just got home from work and neither he nor Luna drank while I was gone. I watered his food down a bit and added some blueberries to help acidify his UT. He ate most everything but still didn't drink

I collected another spec when we went out to take care of Dahli and Bella. This time 4+ for blood and trace-1+ for leukocyte esterase, so his immune system is now kicking in. His pH moved from neutral to more acid, which is good.

He still wasn't drinking, tho. Then I had a brainstorm and remembered I have some beef broth cubes. So I mixed him up a nice broth, broke cookies into it and that did the trick. Not only did he slurp up all the broth, but it was a bit salty, so 5 minutes later he hit the water dish. It dawned on me that it probably doesn't hurt to have him drink that salty broth; unless he's harboring a halophile the salt will also make his tract less hospitable to bacteria.

So I'm going to try to get a spec to the vet tomorrow morning if they're open (I think he said they were in the am), so he can run official tests and put him on antibiotics.

He's still not showing signs of pain, discomfort or fever. In fact, disappeared into the pasture and was his usual bratty self when we were tucking in Dahli and Bella. So I think we caught it very early on.

Your dog is distinctly the beneficiary of your expertise.

Carry on!

although I had to fish a bug out of it that fell off a leaf

Got back from the vet a short while ago. Blood is down to trace, LE is up to 2+, protein is 1+(which given the size of the spec could have been caused by me fishing out the bug ), pH is 7. Vet said to just keep doing what I'm doing. He has a better centrifuge than I do at work; I need 8+ mls, he's able to do it on teeny amounts (maybe using a cytocentrifuge . So he said he'll do a microscopic on it this pm and let me know if he finds anything of concern.

Jake, in the meantime, shows absolutely no sign of suffering other than the indignity of my trying to catch his pee in a cup.