New & looking for advice

[beefyreese]

Hi! My bulldog is 1.5 years old, she is the first bulldog I have ever own. My boyfriend really wanted to get one so I have been a pretty newbie parent to all things bulldog. I currently am facing an issue with my dogs eating. She was on Royal Canine Bulldog until there was a massive outage and I switched her to Fromm. Later on she ended up getting a UTI and they did a urine test and found crystals in her pee as well. Vet recommended I changed her diet and we went from Fromm to Royal Canine Urinary Tract Formula. She’s been on this food now for about over a month-two. The past week she’s been throwing up just her food late at night. She’s done it 3 times over the last 8 days. I took her to the vet today and pretty much got no where. I was told to give her anti-nausea medicines for the next four days and that may be buying another bag of the same food would be recommended as maybe her food just is contaminated. I gave her bananas and pumpkin last night after she puked up her food. She slept through the night perfectly. The other thing I’ve noticed is redness between her paws and her biting at her paws.

sorry for this long post I’m just very lost on what to do

 

[berlin78]

We've had a lot of experience with the throwing up and sometimes it was something they ate that they shouldn't have, like bark, and sometimes with Sophie I think it was the peas in the foods I tried switching her to. Not sure if that RC Bulldog has peas in it or not... we had both our older Bella and Sophie on Ultamino for a while as we were attempting to get ahead of allergies and even though I don't like the food as far as ingredients, I will say it seemed to help their tummies and allergies. Sometimes I think their systems just need a reboot.

Also, we use antacid in the form of Famotadine 10mg for Sophie when she has more than a couple episodes of throwing up and it almost always helps. Might be worth a try.

 

[kyredneck]

The only part I can give advice is the redness between toes and itchy paws. Once I switched Levi’s food over to Acanna Grain Free Red Meat Formula he was back to 100%. I’m sure someone else here will give you much better advice than me but I do know that going GRAIN FREE is very important owning a Bulldog.
Royal Canine is not a very popular brand with Bulldog owners on here as well.

 

[Cbrugs]

RC is not a good food and can very well be contributing to the throwing up and red paws. What kind of crystals were found?

 

[beefyreese]

The vet said It was small crystals that apparently could form into stones and said that it would be best to switch her diet and get off the other. I also don’t know if crystals in the pee was contributing to the UTI she got. I did have her on grain free originally and it stopped a lot of little eye boogers and allergies. Ever since this new food switch I’ve been having problems.

 

[beefyreese]

What is the best food recommendation for her? I’m probably just going to switch her food then.

 

[Cbrugs]

The vet said It was small crystals that apparently could form into stones and said that it would be best to switch her diet and get off the other. I also don’t know if crystals in the pee was contributing to the UTI she got. I did have her on grain free originally and it stopped a lot of little eye boogers and allergies. Ever since this new food switch I’ve been having problems.

There are different types of crystals, for example struvite or cystine. UTI’s can cause struvite crystals. So it’s important to know what kind of crystals you are dealing with. If you do a search in the forum you’ll find other threads about crystals and stones. And depending on what type of crystals, diet can play a major role.

 

[beefyreese]

There are different types of crystals, for example struvite or cystine. UTI’s can cause struvite crystals. So it’s important to know what kind of crystals you are dealing with. If you do a search in the forum you’ll find other threads about crystals and stones. And depending on what type of crystals, diet can play a major role.

I looked over her vet records and it says she had struvite. I’ll search among the forums, I do appreciate your help!

 

[helsonwheels]

I looked over her vet records and it says she had struvite. I’ll search among the forums, I do appreciate your help!

Great advice above. Reading your post and we see this Royal Canin, Science Hii, Purina issues numerous times.

You kind of figured out what works for her. Stick to it. RC is all grains, these are dogs n not farm animals. Vets gets a kickback on all RC they sell from the company. My brindle as a pup had struvite and was on a quality kibble. Simply can be one ingredient that doesn’t work. I got fed up and cooked for her. A week later everything disappeared. Kept her on fresh homemade soup style turkey, carrots, peas n top with that broth for months. Froze portions. Them time consuming kicked in n put her on raw. You want to eliminate almost every allergies n health issues? Go raw. Best decision I’ve ever made.

 

[Zedsded]

Our previous bully Dudley suffered with crystals which produced stones and had to have an emergency op to remove them, the first thing that was recommended after that was to take him off dry food altogether as this can cause the urine to become more concentrated which then produces crystals

 

[oscarmayer]

So, did the Struvite crystals cause the UTI or did the UTI cause the crystals? You're going to have to figure that out...maybe by trial and error. Struvite crystals are also caused by urine that is too alkaline, IIRC. That's a function of YOUR bulldogs body(processing proteins) and perhaps the only way around this is to feed a Hydrolyzed protein food.
Unfortunately, there are only a few choices of Hydrolyzed foods...made by Crap Pet Food Manufacturers.

If this was my dog I would change foods to a high quality kibble and serve it wet, always...or a canned equal. This will give more water to your pup and help dilute the urine, hopefully altering the ph level. You might also encourage your dog to drink more water. We do this with ice cubes and a water bottle. Our Lala will drink 16 ounces of water from a water bottle even if she's not thirsty. She just loves drinking from a bottle. If the UTI returns despite this plan, then the Hydrolyzed food may be your only choice.

Please let us know how it goes.

 

[2BullyMama]

The gang sure has you covered…. Good luck and keep us posted