another UTI

[sandy's mom]

Bella is starting another round of anti biotics for a UTI in a month.

all of this started a week or so after changing foods, but my vet says that is just a coincidence. I am not convinced.
Does anyone give cranberry additives to their babies and could it be the food??? She eats Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and rice small bites.
She prefers small bites, I don't know why...

 

[Jan]

What you feed can certainly affect general health! You can certainly find a better food than what you are feeding. Check out Dog Food Analysis - Reviews of kibble

 

[Stub]

I used to know a person who had a female bull terrier who was prone to UTIs and she took a cranberry supplement once per day in her meals. I don't know what the dose was but it was a human supplement the owner got. She (the owner) claimed it helped a lot.

 

[whiskers]

It can certainly be diet related, however if she had only been on the new food for such a short period of time, I wouldn't suspect that's the cause.

I haven't done cranberry supplements, haven't had a need... but I do give Juno apple cider vinegar every day (just for the overall health benefits it supposedly has), and that is supposed to be good for UTIs as well (same concept as the cranberry I think, it's supposed to balance their pH). She got a UTI over the winter, because when it was cold she would refuse to go outside... my first thought was "well obviously the ACV didn't do anything for that!" but it was a REALLY mild infection with really subtle symptoms, that my friend suggested to me that perhaps the ACV is what kept it so mild, instead of being a worse infection. Which I suppose makes sense, I mean if she's going to hold her urine for 24 hours she's bound to get an infection regardless of how great the supplement is!

So that's my 2 cents. :p

 

[Gatorblu]

My boy Thor didn't produce enough acid in his urine and got bladder stones. The first thing my vet wanted to do was change foods. Since I couldn't change foods for him because of another healthy issue, I gave cranberry capsules. He was about 80-85 lbs. I started him at 300 mgs once a day and he did well on that but I had trouble finding that dosage and could only find 500 mg. He did equally as well on them. I never could find a site that gave a dosage amount and my vet didn't have answer either, so I figured I would start with the lowest I could find and work up to what worked. I just bought the human version and got it either from the grocery store or The Vitamin Shoppe.