Hi All,
I'm new to the forum, although have read loads of posts over the last few weeks.
I have 2 older dogs, but currently have a 19 week old male GR who I'm having a problem with!
I am based in the UK, first of, so can't get a lot of the foods commonly talked about on here (Wellness etc).
I got my puppy at 9 weeks. Since then he's been on a good quality UK food, with protein of 26%. He's always been VERY hungry, which isn't something I've experienced with my other 2 GRs, who've been ok with food, but not greedy like Labs I've previoulsy had. My puppy, Dougal, is very very foody.
At about 12 weeks we had aggression problems with him, which again was unusual for a puppy this age. I first took him to the vet to get checked over in case there was a pain issue. Vet said he thought there was no physical problem, but after discussion gave him some antibiotics in case he had a UTI. He didn't do a urinalysis.
After 2 days of antibiotics he seemed to be weeing less frequently, and the aggression was stopped with behavioural management over time. I then sort of dismissed his constant weeing as just puppy behaviour.
However, over the last 2 or 3 weeks I've come to the conclusion that the weeing is definitely not normal.
First off, he knows, for absolutely definite, to go outside to wee, and has done for ages now. The problem I'm having is that he's weeing LOADS!! By that I mean sometimes every 5 or 10 minutes when he's awake, and they're not small dribbles, but large puddles. Often he's getting out, but also often he seems to have no time between needing to go and going, and so he has lots of accidents as well. He's never given any warning of needing to go, no sniffing, no circling, nothing, just bang, squat and wee. From around Christmas he's also developed a dribble, which is often when he's excited, but also other times he does it sometimes as well.
He doesn't have any incontinence issues when asleep either during the day or at night. He's crated during the night and can now go 7 hours, and is only rarely crated during the day for 2 hours, but this could be maybe once a week at most.
We had a urinalysis done 10 days ago which when the vet dipsticked it in the surgery showed lucozytes (sp?) which he said indicated infection, but when a lab culture was done there was no bacteria found, but struvite crystals were found, and his PH was 8.0.
The vet recommended HIlls C/D and no antibiotics. I wasn't happy with this and phoned HIlls who said def not to put a puppy this young, particularly large breed, on c/d as it's a growth restricting diet. Royal Canin said the same about their s/o.
So, what now?! I'm trying cranberry capsules, putting loads of water with his food, giving him ice cubes to add fluid, but am really not sure what else to do to lower the PH? I can't work it out, 'cos everything seems to say high protein in raw diet, but then the c/d and s/o diets are low protein. There is a fish based dog food over here (Fish for dogs) which I'm not sure if it's anywhere else in the world, but apparently has 75% fish, so if it's meant to be high protein that would figure.
Also, I can't figure out why he'd have the crystals and high PH if there's no UTi? My vet doesn't think this is strange, even though I've said to him everything I've seen says it's a cycle of bacter=high PH=struvite formation, and therefore if you get rid of bacteria then the rest will sort itself out. He has given him now 2 weeks more of antibiotics anyway "just in case", but although again after a couple of days there was definite improvement (he was going perhaps an hour) he's now gone right back to every few mins again.
I really don't know what to do and can't find an explanation for this! I've also looked into the distilled water thing and we live in a soft water area, so I don't think this would be an issue.
I'd really appreciate any advice, and if anyone has any other possible suggestions for the excessive weeing if there's no bacteria?
One other thing to add, have considered diabetes and cushings, but no funny smelling breath, not excessively drinking, no pot belly or loss of muscle tone or hair.........
Help!!
Thanks
Karen
I'm new to the forum, although have read loads of posts over the last few weeks.
I have 2 older dogs, but currently have a 19 week old male GR who I'm having a problem with!
I am based in the UK, first of, so can't get a lot of the foods commonly talked about on here (Wellness etc).
I got my puppy at 9 weeks. Since then he's been on a good quality UK food, with protein of 26%. He's always been VERY hungry, which isn't something I've experienced with my other 2 GRs, who've been ok with food, but not greedy like Labs I've previoulsy had. My puppy, Dougal, is very very foody.
At about 12 weeks we had aggression problems with him, which again was unusual for a puppy this age. I first took him to the vet to get checked over in case there was a pain issue. Vet said he thought there was no physical problem, but after discussion gave him some antibiotics in case he had a UTI. He didn't do a urinalysis.
After 2 days of antibiotics he seemed to be weeing less frequently, and the aggression was stopped with behavioural management over time. I then sort of dismissed his constant weeing as just puppy behaviour.
However, over the last 2 or 3 weeks I've come to the conclusion that the weeing is definitely not normal.
First off, he knows, for absolutely definite, to go outside to wee, and has done for ages now. The problem I'm having is that he's weeing LOADS!! By that I mean sometimes every 5 or 10 minutes when he's awake, and they're not small dribbles, but large puddles. Often he's getting out, but also often he seems to have no time between needing to go and going, and so he has lots of accidents as well. He's never given any warning of needing to go, no sniffing, no circling, nothing, just bang, squat and wee. From around Christmas he's also developed a dribble, which is often when he's excited, but also other times he does it sometimes as well.
He doesn't have any incontinence issues when asleep either during the day or at night. He's crated during the night and can now go 7 hours, and is only rarely crated during the day for 2 hours, but this could be maybe once a week at most.
We had a urinalysis done 10 days ago which when the vet dipsticked it in the surgery showed lucozytes (sp?) which he said indicated infection, but when a lab culture was done there was no bacteria found, but struvite crystals were found, and his PH was 8.0.
The vet recommended HIlls C/D and no antibiotics. I wasn't happy with this and phoned HIlls who said def not to put a puppy this young, particularly large breed, on c/d as it's a growth restricting diet. Royal Canin said the same about their s/o.
So, what now?! I'm trying cranberry capsules, putting loads of water with his food, giving him ice cubes to add fluid, but am really not sure what else to do to lower the PH? I can't work it out, 'cos everything seems to say high protein in raw diet, but then the c/d and s/o diets are low protein. There is a fish based dog food over here (Fish for dogs) which I'm not sure if it's anywhere else in the world, but apparently has 75% fish, so if it's meant to be high protein that would figure.
Also, I can't figure out why he'd have the crystals and high PH if there's no UTi? My vet doesn't think this is strange, even though I've said to him everything I've seen says it's a cycle of bacter=high PH=struvite formation, and therefore if you get rid of bacteria then the rest will sort itself out. He has given him now 2 weeks more of antibiotics anyway "just in case", but although again after a couple of days there was definite improvement (he was going perhaps an hour) he's now gone right back to every few mins again.
I really don't know what to do and can't find an explanation for this! I've also looked into the distilled water thing and we live in a soft water area, so I don't think this would be an issue.
I'd really appreciate any advice, and if anyone has any other possible suggestions for the excessive weeing if there's no bacteria?
One other thing to add, have considered diabetes and cushings, but no funny smelling breath, not excessively drinking, no pot belly or loss of muscle tone or hair.........
Help!!
Thanks
Karen
