A couple of days ago we noticed that Isis was behaving out of her norm. She'd sit for no reason and refuse to move, she'd attack her tail more than normal, she got aggressive over her food (which has never happened), and she got very grumpy when I tried to pet her closer to her tail/girl bits. She also had a little discharge that smelt bad (she's fixed). She has not been drinking any more than normal, nor has she had any difficulty urinating. No crying, no bleeding, no crystals...just this strange behavior the past couple days. Since Dante had an appointment to be seen anyway, we took her in last night just to see if she could get checked out.

They asked about her symptoms, looked her over, and decided to do an urinalysis and vaginal exam. They came back with results that she "might have" an infection. They couldn't decisively say with the amount of bacteria they saw, b/c they had to hold a pan under her to get a sample of urine (they tried to poke a needle into her bladder and didn't get anything). They said that would account for more bacteria than normal, but the levels still looked pretty high.

Now, bear with (and forgive) us, that the vet we've used is Banfield. Only after being signed up for the wellness plan have we realized the mistake we made. On top of the other additional expenses they hit us with last night, they want to give us an antibiotic and pain reliever that together are $100.

Getting to the point of this whole post (sorry, just want to put as much info out as I can), are both medications needed? We want to do everything we can for Isis, but I don't want to over medicate, or jump right to using antibiotics if it's overkill. We are happy to get the medication if we need it, and even the painkiller if the good outweighs the bad (but they told us we should do blood tests first, which is concerning). I've seen online that cranberry tablets and vitamin C can help, but I've also seen places say that vitamin C isn't needed for dogs and that antibiotics are the only way to get rid of it.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm suspecting that our new 5 month old has a UTI and I just got back from buying him cranberry supplements from walmart. I plan on giving him one a day and hope it clears.

Personally I would opt for antibiotics and no pain killers. Once the meds kick in it doesn't hurt that bad. I'm sure its rimadyl for the pain and I wouldn't give that unless absolutely necessary.

My lab recently (2 months ago) had one. Her symptoms were pretty much what ours would be, she kept peeing, I mean accident after accident (unlike her for sure) then I called and they told me to bring in a urine sample. I used a clean plastic food storage container (new actually) and collected a sample. When I looked at the container it was reddish in color. They put her on an antibiotic which did upset her tummy a little, but I swear the next day the peeing in the house stopped. They did send the sample away and it was indeed an infection. My vet did not mention a painkiller.

If she has a uti I would use the antibiotic. You don't want it to get worse.

We used a strong antibiotic for Delilah when she had a UTI, thankfully it worked like a charm and within 24 hours I could tell she was feeling better. We were not given painkillers, and I wasn't going to give her any. We gave her cranberry tablets and the most important thing, Plain yogurt. It's important because you don't want her getting a yeast infection from the strong antibiotics, plus it helps to combat the bad bacteria in that area.

Delilah loved it too.

Rogue had a really terrible UTI (I blamed it on her digressing and it not being medical for a long while) that bothered her A LOT, and I just gave her the antibiotics and it quit bothering her rather quickly without pain meds.

Thank you everyone for your responses! We're getting the antibiotic but skipping the pain pills. Hopefully she'll be back to her normal self soon!