Update...NO more bladder stone:)
Wynn went back for his test today and his bladder stone is gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still has to have special food forever but that's OK. Wynn (AKA Mr. Chubo) has lost 5 pounds!!!!
Wynn had to go to the vet for blood in his urine. Looking online made things very scary for what it might be BUT it ended up being a single large(nickel size) bladder stone. He now has a special canned food for a month to see if it will dissolve and if not he will need surgery. Vet didn't seem overly concerned and said surgery is not much worse than him being spayed...
Anyone have any experience with this?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sara (Howie and Holli) on
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We have experienced this with both of our Corgis. They are not related so we are thinking it was the food we had them on which was a high quality (high protein) grain-free food. Our girl, Holli, showed symptoms of a UTI so we took her in and it was bladder stones. She was put on antibiotics and the canned dissolution food for a month. The stones were dissolved and now she is on a prescription dry food for urinary tract health. We took our boy, Howie, in just the other day and he has the same issue so we will follow what we did for Holli. Our veterinarian said that even high-quality foods do not always research how they affect urine pH which can lead to development of the stones. Overall, it's been a pretty easy fix.
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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Thanks Sara, I also had to put Wynn on antibiotics for a week. We are on week3 for the food...I am hoping it works. What kind of dry food did you put them on. I asked my vet checking into different brands because I would like to avoid Science Diet if possible. Thank-goodness Wynn doesn't mind the canned food. I a;so had to add potassium to his diet, did you?
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Holli is on the Hill's Science Diet Urinary Tract Health (c/d) dry food and Howie will also get it when he is done with the dissolution diet. My vet clinic also sells the Royal Canin line of prescription foods. I have not tried it since Hill's is what they recommended. We didn't talk about adding potassium to his diet or to Holli's.
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I was thinking the Royal Canin but also will ask my vet about the homemade diet. He is checking into this. The reason Wynn was put on potassium was of weakness, shaking and rear end weakness. All he gets is the no salt people use as that's potassium:) Seems much better after about 5 days...thankgoodness!!!!!
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Permalink Reply by Linda on
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Jane....Max doesn't have any rear end weakness (at least that I have noticed) but I see that his one hind leg shakes/quivers when he is excited like when we are playing fetch and he is waiting for me to make the throw or he is barking at the brat dog behind us. Is that the type of shaking Wynn has? I'm curious, I always forget to say something whenever I have him at the vets.
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Linda, I would see him doing this more when he was laying down and he looked like his belly and legs would do this and seemed with getting up his backend would look weak...if this makes sense...
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Permalink Reply by Holly on
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Wow, I have seen this quivering in Sully but it is limited to the belly area during rest. I just passed it off as a quirk. I get something called fasciculation (Good job spell check) that is annoying but painless and related to spinal cord compression. It starts in my trunk and spreads at times to my legs, but I have issues in other parts of my body and Sully never seems to have any motor trouble. I thought it was a reflex, like hiccups, that comes and goes. She doesn't seem to notice it at least. Doesn't wake her if she is sleeping when it happens. I will mention it to the vet at next visit. I am SO sorry about all the pets suffering with bladder issues That sounds so scary and painful! Get well soon all!
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Jane....that makes sense. I only see the quiver with Max when he is standing but excited about something. Odd it's only the left leg that does it. He doesn't seem to notice. I see it when I am behind him and he's waiting for hubby to toss the ball towards me. I need to stop borrowing trouble....he's 12 and I guess I look too hard for anything to be wrong. He's actually quite healthy, his neck doesn't give him a lot of trouble and he sure takes off like a shot down the ramp after a squirrel or that bratty chi/JRT behind us.
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Permalink Reply by Vicky Hay on
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For Ruby, the Royal Canin urinary diet in fact did dissolve the crystals -- but she didn't yet have a stone, and of course she was a still a pretty little puppy.
My understanding is that high protein (mostly meat) diets are good for dogs predisposed to urinary tract infections. The vet blamed something called "ash," which he seemed to think is associated with meat. But when you look it up, you discover "ash" in dog food is a source of the minerals that you see listed on the label. It's called "ash" because it's the cremated product of waste foods (bones, innards, etc.) -- what remains is high in minerals.
We tried switching Ruby over to canned foods (the Royal Canin was canned and she just loved it, weirdly enough), but that was not very successful. Regular commercial canned dog food made her sick.
So I put her on the real food mix I give Cassie: meat (cooked and ground up); Costco's "Tuscan" frozen vegetable mix (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower), microwaved until lightly cooked and ground up in the food processor, and a starch such as yam, squash, rice, oatmeal, or quinoa. One-half meat, 1/4 veggies, 1/4 starch.
Next, she developed ear itch or infection. The vet speculated a food allergy (he proved right with the greyhound some years ago, so it was reasonable to think this was a good theory). Some experimentation revealed a sensitivity to beef.
Because I'd stocked up preparatory to the endless surgeries I've been enjoying, I had a lot of home-made dog food in the freezer, most of it made with hamburger. Since I was about to visit the hospital at this point, I bought an outrageously expensive dog food that comes in rolls, wrapped in plastic. You can find it at Petsmart and also at Whole Foods. The brand is "Freshpet." It's made in the USA and alleges to be organic, antibiotic-free, hormone-free, hot diggety dawg! Conveniently, one variety is grain-free, turkey with cranberries.
So I started feeding that to her. She seems to be thriving on it. Because someone at MyCorgi.com remarked that plenty of water helps with UTIs, to each dish of food (about 1/2 her daily ration), I've been adding 1/4 cup water. I've added a boiled egg at mid-day, which also seems to agree with her.
The cost, which I just figured out this evening, is about $1/week less than a comparable amount of home-made food. It's not cheap, especially for a puppy. For an adult dog that doesn't need mountains of food, though, it would be manageable.
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Vicky....ash is the reason that cat food is so bad for dogs. Cats need a lot of it in their diets..they are dedicared carnivores. And it does cause urinary problems in dogs. I would check the calorie content in that Freshpet....just recently someone on here who was having a weight problem with their dog discovered that one of those "fresh" foods was causing the problem because it was high in sugar. I hope I remembered that correctly.
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Is that so? That explains a lot.
LOL! We have a lonely, bored neighbor who goes around and leaves handsful of cat food on the sidewalks for the stray cats people allow to run loose. Cassie ignores it, but I have to be really careful that Ruby doesn't scarf it up on the run.
I'll check the calorie and the sugar content of the Freshpet -- thanks for the heads up.
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Hm. I'm back: checked on Freshpet ingredients. Probably the idea that some of these products contain sugar comes from the fact that some (but not all) contain caramel color, which can (sometimes) be made the way you or I would make caramel in the kitchen: by scorching sugar. Freshpet's slice and serve rolls, the ones that look like liverwurst or mortadella, do not contain caramel coloring. They don't appear to contain any other form of processed sugar, either.
Caramel coloring is commonly used in pet foods, as it is in soda pop and many other human comestibles. It's not a very healthful ingredient: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-f-jacobson/caramel-coloring-i...
Here's what Freshpet has to say for itself, by the way: http://freshpet.com/faqs/ Dog Food Advisor doesn't seem to hate the stuff: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/vital-dog-food/ (for the rolls, not FP's other dog food formats). And here's a New York Times piece on FP's made-in-America advertising campaign, kinda innaresting: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/business/media/freshpet-dog-food-... And here the Wall Street Journal holds forth on this general category of pet food, which is also pretty interesting, especially for those with a skeptical ben: http://online.wsj.com/articles/more-pet-brands-target-owners-who-li....
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