Can my dog with bladder stones on Hills U/D diet chew bones?

Hello. You do want to keep to this diet for the majority of his calories. Acceptable treats should make up less than 10% of his overall calories per day & include low fat yogurt ( 2-3 tbsp. 2-3 x weekly ), 1/4 of an apple, white rice, rye bread, 2-3 non-salted saltine crackers, 2-3 baby carrots per day, & small amounts of cooked beef, chicken & eggs. Avoid lots of meats & any high protein treats & no vitamin or mineral supplements. The daily Dasaquin is fine to use. Try to keep to the prescribed diet as much as possible. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

I would suggest that you ask your veterinarian about using Hill's Science Diet W/D. This is a low fat and high fiber diet that is good for diabetic dogs, but is also known to produce a neutral urine ph and may be adequate in preventing the return of her bladder stones. Depending on her individual situation, this may be a possible solution. If a duet change is done, it would be a great idea to periodically check a urine sample to monitor the ph and look for problems.

Bladder stones are collections of mineral crystals that combine together in the urinary tract. Excess minerals can encourage the formation of crystals in the urine, leading to the creation of bladder stones. Urinary diets have the correct balance of minerals to maintain bladder health. In addition, they have low protein and calcium, which results in decreased urinary concentrations of stone-forming constituents. To get the biggest benefit, I recommend choosing a urinary specific food for Liir, as regular diets will not be formulated to help with bladder health. I recommend Hill's Science Diet u/d. I hope this helps!

The recommendation is to feed your pet a low protein, low sodium diet to help alkalinize the urine and reduce cystine urine excretion. You can achieve this with the Rx brands Hill's U/D or Royal Canin UC Low Purine. Although it is suggested that feeding a canned diet or increasing water intake will help to dilute the urine as well, and therefore reduce cystine urine excretion. Dissolving stones is possible with the diet, but this can take an extended period of time and there is always the risk of stone blockage along the urinary tract. If blockage occurs then your only option for resolution is to have the stones surgically removed. From a medical standpoint, the drug 2-MPG is used to dissolve stones that are currently in the bladder. You will have more success riding stones if you implement both MPG treatment and a urinary diet simultaneously.

It depends on which diet you are using in the Hill's brand. The link below is to a school that many vets will send stones to for analysis. On this page you will find a PDF link to treatment/prevention of urate stones. There are several diets listed there. Another option is having a nutritionist make a diet for your pet that you would make at home. Most vet schools offer this service and it could be facilitated through your vet if you don't live near a vet school. Hopefully your pet has also been evaluated for diseases that predispose to urate stones as this is a more rare stone. I hope this helps and thank you for using PetCoach! https://www.vetmed.umn.edu/centers-programs/minnesota-urolith-center/urolith-analysis/treatment-recommendations

The appropriate diet here would be the urinary diet either Urinary S/O or Hill's C/D, and then placing your pet on a liver protectant medication to address the liver issues. The liver protectant medication is called Denamarin, and has to be prescribed by your vet. I would then consider getting your pet an abdominal ultrasound to better define what is specifically going on with the liver, so that we know what mode of therapy would be best to manage things going forward, because these values (ALKP, CHOL) can be changed by not just the liver, but also the gallbladder and adrenal glands. I hope that your pet Ceca is able to manage both of her conditions well moving forward. Best wishes and take care. : )

I personally would not recommend a home cooked diet for a dog with bladder stones. A therapeutic diet is probably best to prevent more stones from forming and the foods restrict minerals used to form stones, encourage water consumption so that water is dilute, and keeping the urine at an ideal pH. If it is very important to you to cook meals for Hades I’d recommend using a diet formulated by a nutritionist- the website BalanceIT is a good resource. www.balanceIT.com