I adopted my dog when she was 2 years old.  Less than a year later she needed an emergency operation for bladder stones and infections.  Her bladder was full of stones and they were all struvites.  I started giving her Cranberry supplements and using the Solid Gold Berry Extract powder, also ground up Vitamin C into her food.  Since then, she consistently got bladder infections, sometimes only  a month or so apart.  In Aug. her urine also showed signs of crystals.  I had been feeding her Wellness Light formula (she needs to lose weight) or Natural Balance.  I had no choice but to put her on the Vet's Royal Canin SO 14 for UTI's.  Since then she has no more bladder infections.  I know she needs to be on a mineral controlled diet and this Vet Food is not really nutritious for long tem health.  I noticed that Wysong makes a food for Cats with UTI's, but not for dogs.  Anybody have success with a particular kind of nutritious dog food that successfully prevents UTI's/struvites in their dogs?  My dog is large, over 100 lbs and she only gets about 1 cup of the RC SO 14 mixed with veggies, fat free broth.  She still has not lost much weight.  I do clean her "girly bits" so as to keep her from getting infections.  I have spent hours on the computer doing research and so far have not come up with a healthy dog food solution for her.  I hope somebody can help or point me in the right direction.  :-)

It was once believed that the alkaline urine "caused" struvite stones, but that doesn't appear to be the reason. It's now believed the cause is bacterial waste products. That is why struvite stones are often referred to as "triple phosphate" or "M.A.P" for "magnesium, ammonium, phosphate." urease-producing bacteria that usually cause canine UTIs produce magnesium, phosphate, and ammonium as waste products. The urine becomes super-saturated with these waste products and together creates struvite stones.

When you diagnose and treat the underlying bladder infection the urinary pH will resolve naturally.  A urine culture test along with a sensitivity test which takes about three days to run, to determine what antibiotics would be effective against the bacteria is the correct approach along with a urinalysis, but keep in mind that you cannot diagnose a bladder infection, nor effectively treat it, with urinalysis alone.

It's usually fine to begin antibiotic therapy before the results of the tests are known, as long as the urine sample is obtained before giving antibiotics. Once the sensitivity results are in, if the chosen antibiotic was not appropriate, a switch can be made at that point.

It is of vital import that you give your dog the entire prescribed course of antibiotics, stopping the treatment too soon can often create drug-resistant infections that are very difficult and at times almost impossible to treat.

In your search for the perfect diet, there is no diet that will help treat a bladder infection, but of course proper nutrition will help a dog be more disease resistant in general. I would avoid mostly dry food and give mostly wet.Avoid too much calcium, I would also be sprinkling the food with a small amount of no-sodium salt-substitute. That should make your companion thirsty, so more water will be consumed. The more water, the more pee, and that keeps the system all flushed out. And be sure the water is of good quality, and that should go for the whole family.

As far as the herbs, there are quite a few herbs that can help treat a bladder infection. Some being very and are also powerful diuretics potent no different than pharmaceuticals as well as many, gentler herbs.  Use them only as recommended by a qualified holistic vet.

I recommend discontinuing all dry and canned food and feeding only "real" food that includes raw vegetables, greens and some fruit.   The meat can be cooked, but I recommend raw.  No grains at this time.  You could substitute lentils or beans for the dry food, if need be (budget-wise).   So a meal could consist of 1 part meat, 1 part lentils, 1 part vegetables.  Supplement with digestive enzymes, essential fatty acids (fish oil), and grapefruit seed extract (dosage is 1 drop per 5 pounds of body weight per day, which would mean 20 drops per day for your dog - so if feeding two meals. your dog would get 10 drops mixed into each meal).  Continue the Vitamin C.    Be sure and stir the Grapefruit Seed Extract into the food.  It's bitter to our human taste buds.  I include it in my dog's food, and she never seems to notice.

The "BUN" blood urea nitrogen level measures the waste levels that pass through the urinary tract.  In animals that eat dry or canned food, this level is much higher than in animals on a whole-food diet.  Since heat-processed (dry or canned) is so much harder to digest, it produces more waste during digestion (BUN levels) and creates a heavy burden for the organs of elimination, especially the kidneys and bladder.  Feeding whole, digestible foods, mostly raw, can be very healing for all the organ systems, including the bladder.  

In regard to weight loss, the answer is the same - feed meat and vegetables and eliminate the dry foods and grains.  Reason being that most weight control dry foods (1) are baked and hard to digest, (2) contain a lot of grains.   These extra carbohydrates are not contributing to weight loss AND they are very hard to digest.  I have never understood why every weight control dry food I've ever looked up is loaded with grains.  My dogs are on a meat (some raw, some cooked) and vegetable (almost all raw) diet, and I include rice in about half of their meals or they will actually lose weight.  

I hope this is helpful!  And ONP has a product called Only Natural Pet Tract Ease that could be very helpful for your dog.

Dry food is a major contributor to urinary tract disease in both dogs and cats, so I agree with Sarah to get rid of the dry food. "Light" dry foods are even worse because they are higher in fiber and carbohydrates--and that makes them even more fattening. They key to both weight loss and preventing UTI's is eliminating dry food.

Meat should be the basis of the diet; even veggies and fruit should be used with caution. This is because meat is naturally acidifying to the urine, while all plant products are naturally alklanizing. Horses and cows have a urine pH around 8 and that is due to their diet. Dogs get a double whammy because when bacteria get a foothold in the urinary tract and cause infection, that in turn causes the urine pH to rise; and the normal components of urine that form struvite stones will start to precipitate out at the higher pH.

Canned food is a better choice, if you are not ready to commit to homemade or raw food. It is far less processed than dry kibble. Canned foods generally contain much more protein than dry foods, and of course they help push more fluid through the bladder, which is another key to preventing infections. But of course, real, fresh foods are always the best bet for both ourselves and our pets!

One other thing to consider is that frequent elimination is nature's best preventive for bladder infections. Dogs that must "hold it" for many hours while their people are at work or school are more prone to UTIs. The urine sits in the bladder for all that time, giving bacteria a free pass to establish their colonies and really cause problems. Making sure your dog has free access to the outdoors, coming home at lunch to let her out, or maybe having a neighbor do it, could really help your dog.