Update...I have been running around and gathering information for the past couple weeks regarding all this. To say I am overwhelmed is an understatement. I did find a holistic vet that spent 3 hours with me. Yes, 3 hours!! I could not believe the care and compassion she had and had information already looked up before I got to meet with her for his appointment. She knows a lot about nutrition in terms of treating for wellness. Although she has not come across cystine in the past 18 years and at that time she was a traditional vet. She has spent the last 8 years going the holistic direction. She told me about feeding according to their nature of origin and this goes along with all dogs. At first she asked me how kibble came about and I said I didn't know. She said years ago our ancestors fed their dogs their scraps from what they ate. Then came a time when the families themselves had little food to spare so they saved their own scraps for later and sent the dogs to go out to eat with the livestock, eating grains and corns and such. Since the dogs could tolerate the livestock feed someone came up with an idea to bag it for dogs and call it dog food. Thus where the problems began. Nature of orgin refers to what the ancestors fed them from once they came. Over in England where our dogs come from, they ate alot of beef, potatoes, cabbage and corn. This is what the English Bulldogs should be eating. She provided me with the amount of cystine in each item which were all pretty low. So I am feeding him a raw food of beef and a mixture of veggie and fruits, along with adding boiled cabbage to it. Talk about a stinky dog!! Well, not yet anyway, only been a week. I am to check is pH levels each day too. Right now they are at 6.4 and she wants them at 6.8. The other vet wanted his pH at 7.2. He also has struvite crystals in his urine too. The vet did say too that although she does want to keep a watch on his pH levels, she believes the answer lies within watching the levels on cystine. Now the vets do not normally do this, but the vet did contact a vetiat the University of Pennsylvania where they can possibley run a test on his cystine levels. I'm hoping a diet will help, but the more I am reading the more I am realizing that a surgery to reroute his urine to where he no longer urinates as a male would be the best option for this to be resolved. The thing is that means an invasive surgery, meaning more money too. It was funny, I was in my Microbiology class today and my professor was talking about cystine and the disulfer phosphates that play a role in bonding the cystine. I asked my professor if there was a way to prevent the bonding, which he said there was not. After class I told him why I was asking and he told me that what it sounds like to him is similar in the disease PKU which is only managed by diet and is also a genetic disorder. It's so disheartening. I find myself constantly worrying if he's going to be able pee each time I let him outside.
