I have an 8 week old female puppy that the vet diagnosed with having crystals in her urine after she would squat and hardly anything would come out and testing a small sample of her urine. He wants to do x rays in addition to blood work to find out more. My questions are is it common for puppies this young to get crystals? She's on canidae dry puppy food. And is it necessary for x rays and blood work if we know it's crystals? Also, will this be something she will be battling the rest of her life?? Is there a good puppy food that would prevent crystals?? Sorry for all the questions but I'm at a lost. Any help would be great, thank you!
Good point "also". I left a sample in the car in the winter for a few hours and vet found crystals but said it could have been from the cold. The reason i don't refrigerate samples. Collect and take right to the vet.
Now did she have crystals or crystals + white blood cells + red blood cells + bacteria + a urine pH of greater than 7?
Crystals on their own could mean the urine was sitting too long before it was analyzed. When the urine sits at room temperature it develops crystals as time passes. If there were the other components in the under microscopic examination then yes it probably is a full blown UTI. The gold standard would be doing a urine culture and sensitivity - but *only* if you are close enough to a reference lab to have it plated within a couple of hours. Longer than that and the bacteria will all die and you will get a false negative.
95% of the time crystals in dogs are because of a bacterial infection the other 5% its' because there are stones. The stones are usually caused by an infection that has gone unnoticed by an owner for a very prolonged time or in some breeds they are prone to happening. And yes - there are lots of people that don't notice the signs of a UTI!
It is quite common for little girl puppies to get UTI's. Especially during the 8-15 week period - they may have a litter mate that during play has poo on a foot and it ends up getting in the vulva and tracking up to the bladder. The urethra in female pups is short and it doesn't take much. They are also being crate trained and have to hold urine longer than before when they were in a whelping box.
Try the cranberry to acidify the urine and see if that works if it's just crystals. If the other components of a UTI are there I would recommend using an appropriate antibiotic. No need in the little thing suffering an untreated UTI if she doesn't need to. Once a UTI gets deep seated in the bladder wall it can be very hard to get rid of.
