A Ritzy Update

I have noticed the past couple of days that Ritzy has been licking himself more than normal and "tugging" slightly after he licks and this raised a red flag in my head. I brought him into the vet and had a urinalysis performed to find that his urine pH was 6.5, he had an infection and a lot of crystals. I asked the vet if she thought he had stones and she is assuming not, but unsure. This is, obviously, a huge bummer.

My vet wanted to perform a liver test to rule out the possibility of a liver shunt. I did some research on liver shunts and, in my opinion, I don't think the liver shunt issue sounds like Ritzy at all. We also found out the test would be $70 and if it was, in fact, the issue, the surgery would cost at a minimum - a couple grand which we are unable to do. We will use it as a last resort.

The next step is to add potassium citrate to Ritzy's diet to help raise his pH. I have heard mix reviews about this. For some people the potassium citrate worked on their dogs, for others it did not. This is another course of action we're contemplating. Another step would be to add some enzymes that deal with the calcium and also make Ritzy urinate more so the crystals do not attach and form stones, this too is something we're considering.

Our best bet, I think, would be to implement the Fuzzer Diet which is a part of the K9KidneyDiets group. The founder of this diet and web group had 3 or 4 dogs with inoperable calcium oxalate stones and was told there was nothing she could do and she'd have to watch them die. She said "like hell" and went to work creating a diet to help her furry friends. The Fuzzer Diet shrunk the stones in all of her dogs and healed them and they all lived to be 18 or 19 years old. This sounds like, for us, our miracle. It just takes a lot of work and research to implement and I took a break from my research. So I am back at it so we can implement this diet. We are praying SO HARD that we'll find a way to manage this awful condition.