Diesel has been diagnosed with bladder crystals by ultrasound. He had urination with bleeding about 7 months ago, but they just treat it as a UTI. Then he had the same thing happen about 5 weeks ago along with a patchy flakey rash, so they performed the ultrasound and lots of other lab work to see what was going on. Everything else came back in normal ranges. He only had the crystals and a little weight loss, so they gave a course of antibiotics for 5 days and recommended we try out a new food as they thought it was allergy related (we are stationed in Italy and the base vet could not see him for a few weeks, so we were forced to go to an Italian emergency veterinary clinic).

His symptoms cleared up after the first day like before, but this weekend we saw he passed some crystals and today had a little blood in his urine. He also has had some mucousy stools and has been licking his paws, so I think he is allergic to his new food too. The vet on base will be seeing him on Wednesday, but I have a feeling they will want to put him on Science Diet and that's all just fillers.

From what I'm seeing online, he should have been on antibiotics longer, or was perhaps on the wrong type of antibiotics for the type of bacteria causing his UTI/crystals.

We also got some of the Solid Gold berry balance. He just finished up the month long course of that 2 times per day and is on the maintenance dose of one dose 3 days a week.

Anyone else dealt with crystals and have advice that doesn't include Science Diet prescription food? I've contacted the kennel where we got him, but they are working with a certain food brand now, so she thinks that is the ONLY food and it's a cure all. I have nothing against it, but they charge just as much to ship as the bag of food costs, so it's not worth $100 a bag for it when I can get other foods rated at the same level shipped for nothing to FPO/APO addresses.

Changing the dogs water to distilled water can help, as crystals are from the large amount of minerals sometimes found in drinking water or pet foods.

I also found this, worth a read.

http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter/bladder-stones-crystals/

I wonder if what we are giving him is mineral water.... I'll have to look into it. We all drink bottled water since the water here is questionable. The label is all in Italian though, so I'm not sure if it's mineral or distilled or what really. He didn't start having trouble until we got here and started drinking this water now that you mention it and I've sat here trying to sort things out in my head.

You want distilled. Not spring or mineral.

Another idea that can help flush crystals out and keep them from forming is really increasing their water intake. Increasing the water intake will in turn mean more frequent urination. More frequent urination will help reduce crystal formation by removing them before they really have a chance to form and sit. Easy ways to increase water intake are foods with a higher water content (like wet or raw instead of dry kibble), increased exercise will likely lead to drinking more, and even adding flavor to the water bowl (something as simple as adding a little bit of chicken or beef broth) can increase water consumption. And of course as Kristina suggested, using distilled water in their water bowl is advisable.

We've been trying to up his water intake, but at the vet today they said he is a little dehydrated. His blood labs came back clear though. He looks good other than the bladder/crystals issue. We are at home for a bit collecting urine since he wouldn't go for it at the vet. The vet is thinking the Italian vet either treated him for too short of a time period or he did not take the time to make sure he was using the correct antibiotic for the type of bacteria Diesel has going on.

Hopefully we will have some more answers in the next few hours. Waiting on my toddler to wake up so we can take this urine sample back over to their lab.

Keep trying. When I add a bit of chicken broth to my dogs' water bowl they can't get enough to drink and I have to keep shooing them away from it after a while before they start having accidents from drinking TOO much. Lol

I tried some beef broth since that's all we have at home right now. That doesn't seem to be making too much of a difference. I'll grab him some chicken and see if that makes a difference. He needs to go take some notes from the cat because she can put some water away LOL

Have you tried wet food? I will sometimes add wet and then warm water to kibble to get more water in them.