urinary tract infection in 8 week old female

[windycanyon]

I used to have issues w/ UTIs -- but normally at ~14-15 wks when they were cutting teeth. Go to Walmart or costco (I think they are on a no-coupon special right now at Costco!) and get the cranberry supp. I have a pup here for another 10 days or so and think I'll pick up some for her, just as a precaution. The girls squat VERY close to the ground, and that little bead of urine on the vulva can often act as a wick to suck bacteria back up into the bladder. The cranberry will not only help keep the bladder environment acidic (like ascorbic acid/Vit C supps) but also apparently has some factor in preventing the binding of bacteria to the bladder wall. I think the push to crate train puppies early has lead to some of the issues now. A puppy only has the capacity to hold their bladders ~ 1 hr for every month old they are. So an 8 wk old can really only hold it ~2hrs. I keep mine in a pen w/ a potty pellet pool thru ~3 mos for that reason as I don't like getting up in the middle of the night!

[chesaka]

I had a female pup in my last litter that developed a UTI at 7 weeks. It took 2 different antibiotics as the first one wasn't right. You might ask your vet about culturing the urine to find out what antibiotic will work best. Cranberry and Vitamin C are very good ideas and I would keep the pup on that for a while after the course of antibiotics are done. Don't let it go on too long as it can progress to the kidneys and that's not good.

[Upland Hunter]

Our 10 week old BLF is just finishing her round of antibiotics today for UTI. This is our first dog to have this condition. I appreciate the ideas on cranberry supplements. Does anyone have a dosage or recommended amount for use on pups based on body weight and, or age? How young would you start and at what amounts? Lastly, same question for vitamin C as we have not tried that before with any of our dogs. Thanks.

[Pat Puwal]

I think it says something on the cranberry supplement bottle about dosage. We gave our 11 week old pup one a day for many months and the same thing with the Vitamin C - one chewable once a day.

[windycanyon]

I think when I was able to get the chewable cranberry supp, I'd break it in half but once I got the (fairly small) cran cap at Walmart, I just gave the whole thing. If doing the cran, you probably don't need the added Vit C (most have it in it already that I've seen). I'm giving the pup here ~1/4 of a Kirkland Vit C currently, so ~250mg as an acidifier.