Gaining weight while on a prescription diet

[tdawks]

Hi All,

It has been quite a rollercoaster ride with my first boxer pup, Olive, over the last 4 months. We got her when she was a healthy, happy 8-week old puppy in July, and she is growing into a wonderful dog. We love her to pieces. She loves everyone, and she only wants to make us happy. Unfortunately we have run into a bit of a health snag when it comes to her bladder. She seems to have a penchant for developing both kinds of crystals. We had been feeding her Taste of the Wild when we first got her, switched her to Science Diet c/d recommended by our first vet (we have since switched because of a personality conflict), put her back on TotW as recommended by our new, awesome vet, found redevlopment of crystals along with a urinary infection, and as a result put her on Royal Canin Urinary SO. She has been on the SO for three weeks now, and her urine is totally clear. Now our goal is to put weight on her. She is only 36lbs. at 6 months, way too little in my opinion. Our vet recommended trying to find a good quality food that we can mix with the SO for a month to see if crystals redevelop. If not we may be able to move her totally off the SO (I am hoping). I know that Royal Canin is not the most desirable food, but right now it is working. My main question is does anyone know of a good quality kibble that we could mix with the dry SO?

Thanks for your help!

[BxrMommieNAZ]

I would recommend you find a qualified animal nutritionist in your area, take your medical paperwork with you and they should be able to either help you formulate a homemade diet (if you're willing) a raw diet (if you're willing) or a kibble for you.

Good luck!

[gmacleod]

Do you REALLY have to feed her a kibble diet? I'm a bit surprised that your vet hasn't suggested already that you switch to normally hydrated food, as many will "ban" the feeding of kibble ever again to animals that develop severe crystals, stones or blockages. Reason being, of course, that the feeding of kibble is part of the cause of the problem.

Which type of crystals does she have? There are at least 3, but most common are struuvite. *IF* that is her case, then you don't need the prescription diet at all - you would achieve exactly the same by giving her a capful or so of apple cider vinegar with her food or water daily (NOT the clear, sterilized-to-death stuff you get in supermarkets, but the natural cloudy type that still has bits of 'mother' floating in it that you get in health food stores). You should also change the source of her water - go bottled if you need to.

Notwithstanding that though, you need to address diet and lifestyle to stop the problem re-developing.

The simple fact about urinary crystals (and later stones or blockages) is that they can ONLY form when the urine is being concentrated. Kibble diets are dehydrated and always dehydrate the dog - this encourages urine concentration (especially if the dog is also crated or otherwise unable to go out to urinate every 2-3 hours as he should).

Put another way - dump the kibble in favour of normally hydrated food instead (canned, homecooked, raw - doesn't matter which), and you remove most of the cause of the problem. If you can also address any lifestyle factors, that is, IF you currently crate or leave your dog for many hours a day without the opportunity to urinate - STOP doing that and get her a chance to pee at reasonable intervals instead - then she is unlikely to have further problems of this type. Those are the causative factors.