My 5-month German Shepherd has UTIs. Are there non-antibiotic options?

UTI or genital tract infection, renal failure (unlikely) or possibly severe skin infection could be all realistic possibility in this case. Without a more detailed description of the smell unfortunately it is difficult to give you more specific answers. If amoxicillin is not effective, I would recommend to have her checked again and have some blood test and abdominal ultrasound performed as well to rule out other differentials. Hope this answer was helpful, but please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further. If this answer was helpful please let us know, this will be used to improve our service!

It's not recommended to keep an animal on antibiotics long term unless absolutely necessary. She's only four months old, and she may not go into heat until she is closer to a year of age. I would have her spayed to see if that helps.

Based on the report you provided it looks as if this is a normal population of bacteria that lives in the skin. However, if there are signs of infection, like inflammation and purulent exudate, then you may want to consider treating with an appropriate antibiotic. If this is the first time an infection has been present your vet will likely recommend an empirical treatment with antibiotics. However, you could also culture the exidate to determine what organism specifically are growing and what antibiotic they are susceptible to. This would be the most definitive way to treat the infection. I hope this helps. If you have any further questions please let us know! Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to address your concern. I am sorry to hear that Scotch is dealing with such a severe urinary tract infection! Unfortunately this is going to be quite the difficult case to manage due to such the resistance to antibiotics. In this case it would be worth trying a multi-antibiotic approach and you may need to resort to an antibiotic such as Amikacin, which can have adverse effects on the kidneys. Unfortunately, I see that Amikacin is also on the list of antibiotics that this is resistant to. There are more alternative methods of treatment such as ozone therapy in the bladder which may help kill the bacteria. I would discuss this further with your veterinarian as treatment will depend entirely on what the vet wants to use. Scotch may need to be admitted into the hospital for treatment for IV antibiotics as well. I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to address your concerns! My next concern is are we dealing with some predisposing factor leading to these UTIs or is there a resistant bacteria in the urine that is not responding to the current rounds of medications? I would recommend ultrasounding the bladder and obtaining a sterile urine sample for culture and go from there. Have the crystals resolved yet? If there are still crystals in the urine, then these need to be resolved as the presence of crystals will lead to recurrent UTIs and symptoms. I hope this helps!

Hi, thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! It becomes concerning when an older dog develops blood urine that is non-responsive to antibiotics. Having blood in the urine with out bacteria can mean a bladder stone or a bladder tumor. Tests I would consider next would be a urine culture, one belly X-ray to look for a bladder stone and full blood work. If the culture is negative and the X-ray doesn't show a stone then I would worry about a bladder tumor. An ultrasound of her bladder would help diagnose if she has a bladder tumor. Another option before doing more testing is to try a more powerful antibiotic for 3 weeks. But if the blood is still present with out the presence of bacteria then I would go forward. I hope this helps!

The most common thing is the antibiotics may not have been given long enough and she needed maybe another week, so when you stopped the antibiotic there was still bacteria left over in her urine. Clavamox is a great antibiotic to start out with but she may need a different medication that is more broad spectrum. The other thing that could be going on (especially since she is so young) she could have a congenital issue like an ectopic ureter. With this, she will continually dribble or drip urine. An ectopic ureter is when the ureter (brings urine from the kidneys to the bladder) is attached at the wrong location on the bladder. I recommend a urinalysis (if one wasn't done last time). You can bring one when you go to the veterinarian tomorrow. You can also have a urine culture performed. This will state what bacteria is in the urine and what antibiotic is best used to treat it. If you do these tests and treat the urinary tract infection and she is still having issues the next diagnostic would be an ultrasound looking for anything congenital like ectopic ureters. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.