Our beautiful female mastin Blue had a little period of being under the weather, poor love! Around November we noticed when we took her for walks, she was passing blood in her urine. At first we did n't worry too much as we knew she woud be soon coming into season, and thought it maybe linked with that. However after she had finished her "time of the year" she was still passing blood. We discussed it with our vet and he recommended blood testing her here at home, as she gets very travel sick in the car, so we only take her out in the car if it is a real necessity, and he was coming to blood test the alpacas anyway. It showed she had a bit of an infection so he precribed some antibiotics. As she is a very big girl, and they are prescribed by weight, we had boxes and boxes of them, bless her. A month later and yet another course of antibiotics and poor Blue seemed no better.
The next plan was a urine test. Hehe Alan looked so funny going off for a walk wearing a rubber glove and carrying an old tupperwear container. She always does a wee at the same place so we were ready to launch the tupprwear container under her, when all of a sudden she caught us totally unawares and squatted in a diferent place! Phew Alans rubber glove worked well and we managed to collect what we needed.
The testing of Blues urine showed crystals, in simple terms we had to change the PH balance of her urine. So we did quite a bit of research on line, and it all added to to the same answer - we had to buy a bag of hugely expensive food! So we bought the hugely expensive food, that for most dogs would have lasted months, for Blue, just over 2 weeks! She was doing well however and the blood loss almost completely stopped, however we knew we could not afford to keep her on the specific diet. Once again we chatted to our vet and we decided with his blessing to feed her rice, and hot dogs (like the farmers eat here whilst working) and a small handful of her normal dog food. What we did not want were for her to be on the dry biscuity type of food.
It is now six months down the line, and touch wood she is doing great. She has lost weight and is more perky and puppy like that ever ..... Oh God! She still loves her dinners and leaves a trail of dribble when she knows it is on it's way!
