Can someone dumb down diabetes for me?

My dog had bloodwork yesterday for a dental cleaning in 2 weeks and said her glucose was high but no glucose in her urine so worried about early diabetes. She described it as if she were human, she would be a pre-diabetic. She's going to have her glucose checked before her cleaning in 2 weeks while fasted and doctor said if it's still high than her dental will be postponed. I forgot to ask if there's anything I should be doing in the meantime besides monitoring for symptoms? *she has a history of elevated liver values and was tested negative for Cushings. Her ALT was higher than her last BW but her ALK dropped 200 points. Also she's a SF 8 yr old American Staffordshire Terrier.

Gosh - it's pretty unusual for a high blood sugar not to be causing clinical signs, and very timely that your staffy had the test when she did.  Diabetes happens because you need a chemical called insulin to use the sugar in your diet.  'Sugar' comes from any carbohydrates - they are all broken down into a sugar called glucose - and insulin is needed to usefully move that glucose from the blood, into the body-cells, where it is turned to energy.  Diabetics don't make insulin, so the sugar can't get into the body-cells and turn into energy.  These dogs end up with high levels of sugar in the blood, that can't get into the cells to be used.  This means that they lose weight (you need to absorb sugar in your cells to put weight on), feel excessively thirsty (high sugar in the veins affects the kidneys, making the patient wee more and feel more thirsty), and very hungry (because all the energy they're eating just isn't getting absorbed, so they want to eat more).  It doesn't sound as though your dog is showing these signs, or if they are, then the symptoms are not yet causing a problem.  Your vet must therefore be keen to check that your dog is genuinely diabetic, which must be why they have asked to repeat the tests.  There are some differential (alternative) diagnoses for high blood sugar, such as some obscure kidney diseases e.g. renal glucosuria, Fanconi syndrome , perhaps some dietary indiscretions (such as consuming very highly sugary substance just before the test), and perhaps some rare lab-testing errors too.   Giving Insulin where blood sugar is not high, can lead to some horrid side-effects, so I think that your vet is right to monitor things very carefully while they figure out what is going on.  They might decide to consult pathologists or canine diabetes experts on the subject, but the main thing for now is that you know the signs of diabetes and if your dog becomes lethargic, starts drinking excessively or if you smell pear-drops on her breath, then do contact your vet right away.

Please will you let us know how she gets on?

Ok, thank you! In June 2022, she started urinating more but I didn't notice an increase of drinking and given her high liver values, that's why we decided to check for Cushings. Her glucose has always been normal until now. She did lose 2 pounds since September, but I changed her food in November. I'll definitely update when I take her in for cleaning. Thank you for answering!

Oh! I also forgot to ask if there was anything I could to reverse it? She's not overweight-shes always been very lean

Some diabetes is obesity-related, especially in cats.  However, a lot of the time diabetes is an auto-immune condition (think: Type 1 diabetes in people) and not caused by diet.  Genetic factors and perhaps an interplay between that and (as yet unidentified) environmental factors, may be responsible.  It can be triggered at times of mild stress, but the stressor didnt cause the diabetes, just triggered it. Obviously dont give your dog stuff containing fast sugars and avoid bananas at this stage (which can make things infinitely worse because of the way Potassium is metabolised) -  but most people dont and shouldn't give these things to their dogs anyway.  Providing a lot of water and keeping an eye on drinking can be helpful.  As ever, check anything like this with your vet.

Hi there! Just wanted to let you know she went in for her dental today and her glucose was 103 so she's not diabetic! Vet thinks it may have been stress but she wants to recheck her glucose in 3 months unless she starts showing symptoms