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bladder stones in mini dachshund

19 10:53:50

Question
My 12 lb. mini dachshund has surgery to remove bladder stones yesterday. She will be 3 years old in June. (We bought her from a family that owns the mother and father dachshunds. They are family pets, not show dogs.) Since we have had her, she has had a case of puppy strangles at 15 months of age, a seizure 2 months ago, and last week I noticed her squating to go to the bathroom, but nothing was coming out. This happened on numerous occasions. I took her to the vet April 16th, they determined a UTI and gave her antibiotics. By April 23, she finished all of her medicine, but still had a problem. I took her back to the vet. While in the office, she urinated a small amount on the floor and it was red. They took and x-ray, which indicated stones. She had surgery yesterday, and I brought her home this morning. Reading up on this on-line, I'm guessing these stones will re-occur. She's not even 3 yet! I've spent 987.00 at the vet this week. The vet told me to switch her to Hill's cd, purina pro plan or purina one. I currently use Purina Little bites dry food, with an occasional Cesar's wet food on special occasions. What should I do so that these stones do not re-appear?

Answer
Stay away from Purina and Science Diet. She needs to be on a low ash, high moisture food with as little additives as possible, the fewer ingredients the better and I personally prefer NO grain. If you must feed a food with grain, stay away from , corn,. wheat and soy, no by products and no chemicals.
I like Wellness and Natural Balance.FLint River, Eagle Pack and Solid Gold.
Here's a website that breaks down the ingredients as well as giving you the protein levels, levels of ash and moisture in each food.

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=grain_free

She also needs to be on supplements, vitamin E, dose by weight, vitamin C, for her size probably five hundred mgs broken into three doses per day, biotin, b complex, omega fish oil,. you can use human supplements just does by weight. Or children's and dose by weight if you can't find a canine one that you like.
LOTS of exercise a lot of people dont realize how necessary that is and how much it will help but I promise you it will!! Lots of fluids, push them,w hatever she will drink from unsalted chicken broth to just plain old water. The right dog food will help immensely, the supplements will boost her immunity, the liquids will help keep her urinary tract flushed and working. You can also give her cranberry capsules, oddly enough these DO work though IMO not as well as the juice,unsweetened which even I wont' drink and I'm sure she won't either LOL.
Hope you find this helpful
Fruit and veggies, no salt no sugar added are great for her if you can get her to eat them.