Help with a foster boy

Not mine, but one of my foster parents. We have a boy, Huey, in foster care who is loaded with struvites and has a high urinary pH. He is also an incredibly picky eater--really picky. Vet wants him on the urinary diet, but he has refused to eat it in the past according to his owner and it took his foster parent 3 to 4 days to get him to eat anything at all so she doesn't want to go with the vet food. We've flooded his food with water, etc, but he still has a high pH and still has crystals. The first time there was no infection, but now there may be--they sent the urine out for C and S.

I tried searching for other threads on this as I'm sure someone had suggestions about supplements for pH, but the darned search feature is useless.

So ideas anyone? His foster mom would rather not switch his food--he's on Acana Pacifica. She might consider going to raw, but it reduces his adoptability if we have to stipulate raw feeding as a condition of adoption. We'll do that if necessary, but I was sure that I saw some ideas for dealing with struvites and pH--besides Berry Balance.

Blanche, I had this thread that had some ideas for struvites. Brenda had mentioned Wysong Biotic.

http://www.pugauthority.com/general-medical-nutrition-f1/struvite-crystals-t3779.htm

Nothing to add other than my usual schpeel -- water, cut all calcium, and cut out anything that contains minerals (including vitamins). We never went the way of supplements because I was too scared of pushing Bruno into calcium oxalate stones and the less extreme methods did work for Bruno.

Does Acana make a senior recipe? I remember in my numerous conversation with our vet over Bruno's struvites and high pH levels, and my strong resistance to Hill's food, he told me to at least look for a senior product because in his experience, they contain far fewer minerals and other additives which may aggravate struvite crystals and affect pH.

My oldest pug Lillie had a horrible time with struvite crystals for years. I tried everything, berry balance, flooding her food, prescription trash... I mean food. Nothing seemed to work. I finally did a ton of research and found Innova senior food to be the closest in composition to the precription food. I wish I'd saved all my research but I believe it has to do with the phosphorus and magnesium. That worked about as well as the prescription food but after 2 yrs of off and on issues I asked my vet if there were any other solutions. He suggested we try DL-Methionine and BINGO, no more problems. She's been on it for years now. We still test her urine twice a year and this past April was the first time there was anything wrong.

I don't have any personal experience but here's the thread about struvites:
http://www.pugauthority.com/general-medical-nutrition-f1/struvite-crystals-t3779.htm?highlight=struvite

We never did try the Wysong Biotic with Buster, but it could be worth a shot. There is another product called Uroeze that I've heard recommended several times by other pug owners (including one of our NIPRA foster moms). http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=9792

I don't know anything about this topic, but it piqued (or is it peaked?) my curiosity. What is a good level of ph in their food to maintain a healthy urinary tract? If the pug doesn't have stone issues, is a higher ph food okay? Or will that lead to problems down the road. I checked our food and it has a level of 6.8. I have no idea if that's good or bad.

Saira wrote:Blanche, I had this thread that had some ideas for struvites. Brenda had mentioned Wysong Biotic.

http://www.pugauthority.com/general-medical-nutrition-f1/struvite-crystals-t3779.htm

Amanda wrote:I don't have any personal experience but here's the thread about struvites:
http://www.pugauthority.com/general-medical-nutrition-f1/struvite-crystals-t3779.htm?highlight=struvite

Yep--found that thread, but I was sure there was another one talking about urinary pH specifically. Any who, I'll pass this along to the foster mom. I had forgotten about the senior food.

All of my girls get struvite crystals and soak all their food too but when I do I add about a capful of all natural apple cider vinegar and it seems to help some.

Chyna had to take Uroeze for a while due to her struvite crystals and severe food allergies. The only problem is trying to find the correct dosage. So, while we were trying to figure the correct dosage for her, we would have to take very frequent urine samples to the vet. There have been a few NIPRA foster pugs that have had to use this as well due to food allergies.

Thanks everyone. Our biggest struggle with this little monkey is that if anything changes in his food--and I do mean anything--he stops eating. He approaches new treats as if they are going to jump up and bite him. It's remarkable. Hands down, the pickiest damn eater we've ever seen.