My dog hates her urinary food. What non-prescription options?

It can be tricky when our pets are picky eaters! I recommend talking to your vet about this, as there are many different possible urinary prescription diets that can help prevent her from getting future stones. If she doesn't like her current diet, there are many other brands with equally good urinary foods, and perhaps she'd find a different food more palatable. I cannot offer specific recommendations without knowing what types of stones she has a history of developing, but I'm sure your regular vet would be happy to talk to you about other prescription foods you could try. Even if they don't regularly keep the foods stocked in their clinic, they could provide a prescription for you to buy the food either online or from another vet clinic. I *do* strongly recommend keeping her on a prescription food - as you said, you don't want to risk a recurrence of stones or chronic UTI's. Hope this helps!

I would recommend just feeding normal dog food rather than using human food until you can discuss it with your vet. You may even be able to just call the clinic and ask for a prescription for another brand of dog food. Sometimes you have to dry a couple different prescription dog foods to see which one your pet will prefer. Hill's and Royal Canin also have similar prescription dog foods that you could try. Good luck!

I wouldn't recommend trying a home cooked diet without consulting your veterinarian first - many recipes online are not nutritionally balanced. Whether or not your dog can switch to a new diet depends on the type of stone - some are more likely than others to come back. Ask your veterinarian about other options, and be up front about the cost being an issue.

The prescription diet is required for pets that have been found to develop urinary crystals/stones. If your vet detected crystals, then she must be on the urinary food or she could develop a urinary stone and possibly even require surgery in the future. We as veterinarians are told that pets shouldn't have anything in addition to the prescription diet b/c this could potentially lead to failure of the diet to help regulate her condition. However, you can opt to get some of the canned Hill's S/D food to mix in with it. I hope that this helps. Best of luck with Mamie moving forward. Take care.

You can find a couple of over the counter foods in the following link that are adequate for urinary tract diseases but non of the non prescription diets are as good as the prescription diets and this is something you must understand: https://herepup.com/best-dog-food-for-urinary-health/

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! if Lucky is on a prescription urinary diet for bladder stones, to prevent a urinary obstruction or to prevent urinary crystals it is not recommended to mix the food with anything else as it virtually makes it in effective. I would discuss other brands that may be more affordable with your Vet. Purina, Hills and Royal canin all make urinary foods. If you absolutely can not afford it then I would have him on an all canned food over the counter urinary diet and add extra water to the canned food. This will cause his urine to be more dilute. I wish you the best!

To my knowledge, there are no current OTC diets formulated for dogs with urinary issues. These diets are designed to alter the pH in such a way to keep the urine at a certain level. Her current diet does not explain her weight and appetite despite being fed a normal diet. I would be interested in seeing what her current blood work looks like, and would want to investigate some potential causes for these symptoms you are seeing. It is possible Roxy could be developing several different endocrine disorders. If you are seeking to change her food and still need it to be appropriate for a dog with urinary problems, I would consider consulting with a veterinary nutritionist. You can usually find these professionals through veterinary schools. They will typically offer consultations for extremely reasonable costs, as they primarily function in the research circle. The nutritionists through my vet school ,Virginia Maryland College of Vet Med, would probably be happy to assist you if you emailed them with your concerns. Hope you figure things out and consider getting some diagnostics done on Roxy.