Robin
Not long after we found Robin, she had a series of urinary tract infections with struvite crystals.
We knew a bit about struvites because our cats had experienced them. Our male cat, Chester, had a complete blockage that required surgery and an open catheter for a week. A big cat with a constant drip of urine is a less than pleasant event. Some of the others had also had these crystals.
I'd read quite a bit about this and about the benefits of raw feeding for this condition from the CatInfo website. While the cause for these crystals is somewhat different in cats than in dogs (in cats, the crystals, which form in an alkaline environment and dissolve in an acidic one, tend to be a result of diets high in certain nutrients and low in moisture-- we'd fed the cats a lot of fish and mostly dry food-- sometimes accompanied by infection; however, with dogs, the crystals are a result of an infection that creates an alkaline environment conducive to crystal formation), the principles remain the same: more moisture means the UT remains flushed out more frequently, and a diet higher in meat creates a more acidic environment that is hostile to crystal formation. For more info on crystals, University of Minnesota's vet school has a whole center devoted to urinary crystals. A whole freakin' center!!
When Robin experienced her second or third run-in with the crystals, the vet pushed hard for us to feed her the prescription food. By this time, we've been feeding the dogs Taste of the Wild, Simon's been getting home- cooked foods, and feeding Robin a food where actual meat product was 4th on the ingredient list didn't sit well with me at all, much less all the corn (filler), brewer's rice (cheap filler), fat (flavoring), and very low protein. We had her eat it for a while, but we saw our once muscle-bound, athletic dog's rippling muscles wasting away. Plus, she hated it. Just hated it. She liked the canned version better, but it DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A MEAT LISTED. Only by-products.
I convinced the vet to allow me to try and find a diet that recreated a similar profile with better ingredients. We used a lot of the Natural Balance foods; California Naturals low-fat; Innova senior; some of the Castor and Pollux varieties. Even though it's not necessarily diet-related, we went with foods that had similar mineral profiles, just in case, and began preparing a raw meal for their evening meals. And voila. We went a very long time without crystals or UTIs.
After a while of this, I got busy. And lazy. They were only getting a few raw meals a week. And then Robin started hating her kibble. I had to mix wet food or cooked turkey with it to get her to eat. And even still, she would shuffle to the bowl, ears down, tail tucked, like she was being beaten. Seriously, like someone was torturing her physically to make her eat.
Then she had another UTI. This time, with crystals. We used the Rx food just long enough to dissolve the crystals and that was it. No more dry food. No more canned food. No more miserable meals.
A diet high in meat creates that acidic urinary environment hostile to struvites (not calcium oxalate, which are a different story altogether). A raw diet is also extremely high in moisture, so there's that flushing that we want to keep a clean UT.
So we switched to all raw. We have yet to have a UTI with crystals since then, knock on wood. And even if she did, it wouldn't warrant a change to the Rx food unless she had recurrence after recurrence like she was before--a UTI and crystals every 6-8 weeks. As is, she's had a couple of UTIs. No crystals, and the UTIs have been mild.
Best of all, this is how she is for every single meal. I should have started filming at the top of the stairs because she literally dances the whole way down... Look at that wagging tail.
Go Robin!
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