Hi there, a couple of weeks ago I posted about my St bernard puppy 5 mth old  who had a 'urine infection'.
Well, it came bk, this time vets did urine culture and found she has Struvite crystals. :(
She is at vets as we speak for xray to see if she has bladder stones.
We have been told to put her on Hills prescription diet to dissolve stones/crystals.
Thing is, being such a big dog this will cost me an arm and leg to feed!
Does anyone know what other foods we can try? Maybe the BARF diet?
We had recently changed her over to Nutro and thought this may have triggered the urine infection. Has anyone had any trouble with Nutro foods, this is the first time I thought to try the food. Do struvite crystals occur with change of diet?

Also, I have heard about minerals (magnesium) in water that can cause crystals. Is this possible and if so, would boiling the water get rid of minerals?

Any advice wld be most appreciated.

http://b-naturals.com/Dec2002.php

Yes you can feed raw to dogs with this condition.

Read the above link for further info.

If you contact one of the yahoo raw feeding sites, particularly a US one, you will find a wealth of information and expertise on this subject.

HTH

thanks for the info i will def have a good read on this.
I have 12 tins of this hills diet and am reading up on meats that are good for acidifying the urine.
BUT the tins say low protein?
Do i leave her off her complete altogether now?
 

Struvite crystals are quite common in dogs, but only cause problems in a few. There's lots of info available if you google (such as this and this. A search will be confusing but ultimately worthwhile!

Boiling the water and cooling it would actually concentrate the chemicals, as only pure water would evaporate. The various bottled mineral waters contain different minerals depending on the rock they've permeated through - the purest water is distilled water, which is condensed steam.

We have had news on Isabelle and she has no stones on the xray so all seems good, we need to dissolve these crystals and this Hills food and get her checked out regularly.
We cant wait ti go and pick her up! :)

Good news that there are no stones! Let's hope you can find a diet to keep it that way! :)

Edit: This seems helpful.

My bitch has had 2 ops to remove struvite stones.  Vet recommended Hills CD and still produced struvite stones. I have put her back on meat and biscuits and introduced organic cider vinegar and so far so good no stones.