Cranberry Capsules

[Westwood]

I think Henry may have the start of a UTI - two nights in a row he's asked to go out at 3:00am, which he never does, and he's been paying a little more attention to his boy bits area than usual. Other than that he seems totally normal. I figure I'll wait and see how he is over the weekend, and if he gets any worse I'll bring him in on Monday.

In the mean time I bought some cranberry capsules, but how many mg should a ~30 lb dog be getting? The store had 475mg powder capsules, and 300 mg hard capsules. I got the hard ones because I figured I could just break them in half, and I wasn't sure how I was going to store half of a powdered pill...but do you think they'll digest okay? Should I have gotten the powdered ones?

This is the same thing I got, 300mg:
http://www.wagnerpharmacies.com/Cranberry.html

It says to take 6 pills a day for a person, so I thought just one pill per day (half after each meal) for him should be okay? What do you guys think?

[Dillydoodle]

Jane,
I use the 475 mg capsules. For daily maintenance, i open the casule and sprinkle half the pill in each dog's bowl... and i do that twice a day ( so in total they get one 475 mg cranberry pill a day.) I mix it in with their pumpkin, yogurt and canned food and then mix in the kibble and they are good to go.. they never turn their nose up at the cranberry... and they do not have digestive issues with that... glucosamine was acutally more of a digestive upset initially than cranberry. So it is pretty safe. I have used the hard pills and cut them in half like you said, then i would give half morning and half evening.

The thing is though, if he has a UTI , cranberry wont cure it.. he will need antibiotics ... but i swear by the cranberry helping to prevent them from reoccurring. Gus used to get UTI's often with his auto immune disorder.. i started cranberry and the Acai juice mixed in water once a day and since then , we have not had another UTI . knock wood.

The idea behind the acai was that it is high in antioxidants and i figured it couldn't hurt with his auto immune disorder. Additionally, he likes the flavor so it got him to drink more water... and keeping the dogs hydrated well also helps to keep those UTI's away... or so i believe.

Anyway, i sure hope he doesnt have a UTI , they are uncomfortable.. when Gus had his last one, he was on tramadol for pain for a day until the antibiotics kicked it... poor little guy..

Hopefully Henry feels better fast!

[Bobbie]

You may want to try D-mannose.

[Westwood]

Thanks for the info, I can't be sure it's a UTI quite yet but I figure it couldn't hurt to give him the capsules. There's no way I could get him to the vet today because of work, and obviously they're closed tomorrow, so hopefully he does okay for now. If he's not any better on Friday I will call and see if I can at least bring in a urine sample (assuming they're open).

He's still his normal goofy self and doesn't seem to need to go out any more often than usual, except for that one time at night, so I really can't be sure yet. There should be play time at the vet's office on Friday even if they are not open, and I'm friendly with the employee that runs it, so I'm sure I can figure something out if we need to.