Update on Ritzy

Things seem to be going well with Ritzy. I do keep an eye on his urination frequency and to see if he is showing signs of any problems. I am a little concerned about the frequency (because it can be a sign of calcium oxalate crystals/stones) but we've also been pushing a lot of fluids, so that could also be the explanation. I will be going in to see the vet in October for another urinalysis for my own piece of mind.

Ritzy is stricly on wet/dry Hill's u/d. His around 16 lbs. and he has 1/2 cup wet and 1/2 cup dry food a day. Unfortunately, our son (20 months old) has a habit of throwing food over the side of his highchair for Ritzy, a habit we are trying very hard to break him of, so Ritzy has gotten the tiniest bits of human scraps from time to time, which definitely worries me, hence another reason for the urinalysis in October.

Ritzy only gets steam distilled water which was suggested to me by a group I joined on Yahoo called the K9 Kidney Diet, it is a homemade diet that I am contemplating starting Ritzy on but won't impliment until I get the "go ahead" from our vet and she wants to wait and see what Hill's u/d continues to do for him. Steam distilled water doesn't contain the minerals found in regular tap water or bottled water, minerals that can also contribute the calcium oxalate crystal/stone formation.

We've also changed Ritzy's bowl for his water. He does not drink, we've done everything short of force feeding him water and nothing has worked. We changed his bowl to a plastic one and he drinks a TON more than he used to. He especially likes it when I freeze the water a little for him, he likes it ICE COLD. If you have problems getting your dog to drink, definitely change up the types of bowls and ways you serve the water, some dogs are just fussier than most when it comes to that. It has made a world of difference for us.

Another way to get Ritzy to drink more as well is that I also add some of the distilled water to his canned food. He HATES it, so I don't add a ton, but just adding that little bit makes a big difference for a dog who doesn't drink much.

For treats, this has been so hard for us because our little Ritzy loves treats and I was one who purchase him all sorts of baked goods from the doggy bakery, etc. so he is used to yummy nummies and he can't have any due to his condition now. So for treats I make ice cubes in a tray with his distilled water and I will add some of his dry and/or canned food to the cubes and he gets really excited about them. For us this is great because it is a treat for him and another source of water for me to get into him, so it makes us both happy.

Another treat idea I actually found online from a woman who had the same problem as me, a pampered pup who was used to goodies and was on the same strict diet. Here is her recipe:

3 cups dry Hill's u/d

1 /2 cups distilled water

Pinch of cinnamon

You take the 3 cups dry Hill's u/d and put it in a food processor until it is a somewhat fine texture and then add the water, this makes your "dough". Spoon the "dough" into muffin tins or an 8x8 pan and then little dust the tops with cinnamon. Then bake at 420 for 45 minutes and it makes little "muffins" or "brownies" depending on how you bake them.

We made these treats for Ritzy for his birthday and he went nuts over them so we were thrilled he felt he was having something special and we didn't have to go off his special diet.

Just some helpful hints.

Diagnosis and Surgery

Symptoms

We found out Ritzy had bladder stones because he had peed indoors (not being able to hold it is a sign of bladder stones) and there was blood in his urine (another sign of bladder stones). We were immediately upset, but it was late at night and Ritzy was acting fine, so we took him to the vet in the morning.

Ritzy did show other symptoms that we didn't associate to a medical condition. He would urinate many times while outside but we attributed that to marking while on our walk. He also, during play, would walk off with his tail between his legs and go lay down when I would make him jump, etc. - we thought it had something to do with our toddler wabbling about and thinking he was in trouble or something, but now we know that the jumping and excited play would cause the stones to rumble around and cause him a lot of discomfort and pain.

Tesing and Diagnosis

The vet did a urinalysis and found calcium oxalate crystals present. We authorized a full blood work up and a urine culture to be sent out to a lab.

Our vet spoke to us about calcium oxalate stones and recommended we have surgery performed on Ritzy right away and we set it for the next week.

Things didn't feel right with our vet, she wouldn't really answer our questions and seemed to want to perform surgery more for her paycheck than to save Ritzy, so we looked around and found another vet and this vet was a GODSEND and a blessing. This vet was caring and thoughtful and incredibly charming AND half the price which we were so thankful for.

We picked up Ritzy's test results and file from our old vet and brought them to the new one. Ritzy's blood work showed severe dehydration. This is something that puzzled my husband and I because Ritzy always has a bowl of fresh water available and we change the water frequently to keep it cold and fresh. But we just found that Ritzy is not a dog that drinks often, we started noticing that after having it pointed out to us and it became quite clear, he drinks maybe once a day and that is not enough and could be part of the cause of the stones. His urinalysis also indicated a urine pH level of 9 (normal range is between 6.5 - 7).

Surgery

Ritzy had his surgery on Wednesday, July 15, 2009. He had 4 small stones. I have a picture of the stones and will post it in another posting. The vet sent them off to the University of Minnesota for further testing to verify that they were, indeed, calcium oxalate.

Recovery

The recovery process was VERY hard for Ritzy. The pain was unbearable and the pain medications did not even touch his pain. There were many nights and many tears while we watching Ritzy scream and cry in pain - not easy at all. Ritzy was on Clavamox for the inflammation the stones caused in his bladder and Previcox for pain medication.

Food and Follow up Testing

We had him on Purina NF after the surgery. A mixture of canned and wet. The canned contains water so it should help with fluid consumption. For dogs prone to bladder stones you want to increase water consumption and add more trips outside to go potty to keep the bladder flushed, so if crystals are present, they are unable to form stones.

Purina NF went well for a while. Ritzy seemed to like it, but after about a week we noticed he had diarrhea and he was vomiting, so we switched foods.

The vet then put Ritzy on Hill's W/D which is formulated for struvite bladder stones - wet and dry. This was about one week or so after the surgery. They performed a urinalysis to see how he was doing and his urine was free of crystals but showed mild irritation which the vet contributed to inflammation from the surgery. They wanted to be certain stones had not formed again, so they also performed some x-rays tests and did not find any stone formations present. His urine pH was 8.

When my vet received the stone analysis back from the University of Minnesota she confirmed with me that they were, indeed, calcium oxalate stones so Ritzy was changed to Hill's Prescription Diet U/D. We do a mixture of wet and dry and Ritzy is doing very well on it. We went for a follow up urinalysis 2 weeks after the last one and his pH was an 8 still and also was showing mild irritation again, so they wanted us to come back in 2 more weeks for another urinalysis.

We went in for a follow up urinalysis and Ritzy's pH registered at 6, so it is going down, but we need to actually keep it around 6.5 - 7.0 in order to make sure his urine is not too acidic, which would be the ideal environment for calcium oxalate stones - we don't want that. No crystals were present and his specific gravity was 1.036 which is fantastic. The vet was very optimistic and said she wouldn't need to see us again until December for another urinalysis, but for my own piece of mind, we will be going back in October (two months after final urinalysis) to see how things are going.