Hi

For several reasons I have just changed my dogs from BARF/Raw food to dry food..its going down really well and one of my dogs symptoms of excessive smelly coat believe it or not has all but dissapeared !! he has a intolerance to Chicken and I had often wondered if it was that that triggered the smell--well obviously it was.

Back to my topic....Although I have been soaking the dry with a large amount of water well before I feed, the dogs are still drinking an enormous amount compared to before,and the biggest problem is my elderly standard poodle .She wet in the house last night and also today whilst I was out but worse still she now appears to have a bad cystitus..she is crying and peeing small amounts every 5-10 minutes.  is this just an unfortunate coincidence or is it related to the dry food would you think.
I shall be taking her to the Vet but I just wanted to ask peoples advice on here. I have to say I will be stopping her dry food as from tonight,but I am now concerned about my other dogs.

Rosie

We have quite sophisticated chemistry to stimulate thirst when the body requires more fluid and dogs should not have any difficulty with this.  The total amount of fluid required and obtained remains the same whether it is delivered within the food, added to or totally separate to it.  It may be that your elderly dog is less responsive and less well regulated in how it achieves that balance nor has the habit of drinking the right amount with a dry diet to fall back on or perhaps just a coincidence, as you say.  I would, certainly, ask the vet, taking a sample but I don't think the younger ones should have any difficulty in regulating their requirements themselves.

I agree with Isabel but would just add that your poodle does sound as if she has cystitis. This will have nothing at all to do with the dry food.

My lot get their dry food unsoaked but the amount they drink varies from dog to dog. One deerhound hardly ever seems to drink but my IW drinks enormous amounts (he has been tested for possible medical reasons, and he just likes water). Fortunately he has a vast bladder capacity to go with his vast intake! :)

It certainly sounds as though your bitch has cystitis or some other UTI, which is unlikely to be connected with eating the dry food. I've had cystitis myself, and have never eaten kibble in my life! However it is very painful so a trip to the for medication would be a very sensible thing to do.

I don't know how much your poodle weighs, but I was told recently by my vet that a 20kg dog needs to have a litre of water a day. If wet food is eaten then less wil need to be drunk as liquid intake, but if dry food is fed then it'll all need to be drunk.

There has been a recent thread on one of the Flickr groups about Cystitis and about giving your dogs Cranberry tablets, there is also a discussion on Champdogs from a previous listing.

Here's the link http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/board/topic_show.pl?pid=714134;hl=cystitis;hlm=and#pid714134

Did a quick google search and found this regarding cystitis: "Urine should be acidic so look for foods that have a high meat content and that [preferably] don't have vegetables, cereals, grains, as these encourage an alkaline urine". Not telling you what or what not to feed (and I agree it may not even be connected to the kibble), just passing on information Hope you got on ok at the vets. If I wanted to continue feeding dry I would probably give her a while to get over this bout and then introduce the kibble again and see what happens.

Ideally urine should be neutral. ;) If a dog's urine has been tested and proved to be acidic, the diet should be geared towards foods to make it more alkaline, and vice versa. Alkaline urine is predisposed to the development of certain bladder stones and acidic urine to different ones, requiring different treatment. Repeated infections give rise to yet another type of stone! So it's unwise to start tinkering with the acidity or urine until you know where you're starting from, by having a urine sample tested.

Articles I've found all seem to be saying that the ideal pH level for dog urine is acidic, between 6.4 and 6.6

One of my dogs has recently had a bladder stone removed and my vet and I have been in contact with the world specialists. ;) There are umpteen articles about stones, their formation, treatment and prevention, such as this, this and this. :)

It categorically says here that "Diet does not cause cystitis".

It also says on that same webpage that "the ideal pH level for dog urine is acidic" ;)

You have to be very careful where you source your information on the web.  A lot of web pages are put on the net by people with no more qualification than you or I and, unfortunately, sometimes a hidden agenda.  Always check out the credentials of the author.  If there is no personal information given you can safely assume there are no relevent qualifications or quality publications to their name.

And acidic urine encourages the formation of certain stones. ;)

Don't think I'll be feeding Iams anytime soon then ;)

"The ideal pH level for dog urine is acidic, between 6.4 and 6.6"

"Our dog foods contain high quality, animal-based protein sources which help maintain an acid urine" and "All of our dog foods are formulated to produce a urinary pH between 6.4 and 6.6". 

Certainly something to consider if your dog or breed is prone to developing stones but clearly not something the average dog has difficulty with otherwise they would not have much of a customer base left.

No, I wouldn't either, because it would be totally unsuitable for my dog, whose urine needs to be kept at a pH close to 7. :) That's why you need to know the pH of your dog's urine before you start tinkering with the diet to alter it! ;)

Hi
First of all I want to say sorry for the original title--didn't realise I has put *fooding* instead of *feeding* till it was too late. I expect you all thought I was mad.

Update on my old girl who was peeing a lot and all my guys who were drinking heavily as well. My old girl did have a urine infection,she's had a course of antibiotics,I'm also adding cranberry tabletsto her food and I've taken off dry food  for a while and she is 100% again. Rather than soak the food I just add a mug of warm water to their food before I feed and the excessive drinking has also stopped. So all is well again.

Thanks everyone for their advice

Rosie

A good result! Glad she's better now. :) And don't worry about being being thought mad for the mis-spelling - we all knew what you meant, and most of us are fairly doolally anyway! :)