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  • in reply to: Advice on food for dog with urinary crystals #131474 Report Abuse
    Hannah S
    Member

    Just wanted to add to Sherry Sā€™s comment about water… our vet told us years ago to only give ours distilled water. Even a lot of ā€œpurifiedā€ water has ā€œminerals added for tasteā€. These minerals found in tap and bottled water can cause problems with stones (and tear stains, if you have Maltese or similar breeds).

    in reply to: Advice on food for dog with urinary crystals #131473 Report Abuse
    Hannah S
    Member

    I realize I am a little late to this conversation. I hope you have found a good food for your dog by now that helps prevent urinary stones. I just wanted to add that you can buy a potassium citrate and cranberry supplement called K-Plus that is a chewable tablet given twice a day. I buy it from Chewy, and itā€™s less than $20 for 100 tablets. We have 2 Maltese (had 3, but one passed a few months ago) that are prone to stones. The one that passed was a male, which made it that much worse. He had 4-5 surgeries over the last 7 years for stones. The vet eventually did a urethostomy to allow stones to pass more freely. She prescribed potassium citrate to help dissolve kidney stones. We were buying it from the pharmacy with a prescription at first, which was very expensive. Then I found these cranberry/potassium citrate tablets on chewy. They are a LOT less expensive and do seem to help prevent stones. This might be something you want to look into. Our dogs are small, so they only take half of a tablet twice a day. They eat it with no problem. I guess the cranberry gives it enough flavor for them to like it. They were also on the Royal Canin SO for a long time, and it seem to work well. However, one of the girls now has an enlarged heart. The SO works by encouraging them to drink more water by increasing sodium content. Itā€™s not enough to harm most dogs, but bc of her heart condition, they changed her to Hillā€™s c/d. Apparently it helps to dissolve stones without the added sodium. Now we are making another change. The oldest of the two (sheā€™s the mom to the other) has had bloody stool lately, so we are trying the Royal Canin gastro diet. Iā€™m worried about the possibility of the forming stones after taking them off of the urinary care food, but I guess in her older age (sheā€™s 12), she needs something more palatable. If any of you have any suggestions as far as any other foods that might be better, Iā€™m all ears! Thanks so much! Hope your fur babies are all doing well!

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