Quote Originally Posted by doubledip1 View Post
Luna had 2 UTIs and a recessed vulva. She just had her first birthday and will be spayed between 18 months and 2 years. Her first heat cycle was in April, when she was 9-10 months old. You could definitely tell her vulva was swollen, and noticeable blood. We believer her RV corrected on the first heat but are allowing her to go through a second as we don't want to have such an invasive surgery before she's fully grown. She was allowed to play with her best friends, who was over a year and had been neutered for a full year so we weren't worried about semen reservoirs, etc. though we did not allow him to hump her at any time during her heat just in case his vet screwed up his procedure in some way. She was never accepting of any humping, just sat right down whenever she was humped. She was definitely more clingy, slept more, and was just generally mad at us because she was under house arrest and couldn't go to pet stores, the dog park, or for hikes with us.

My vet told us to wipe her vulva every time she came inside with an unscented baby wipe, and to have her lose a few pounds so any bacteria in the folds of the vulva would have less of a chance to go up in her urinary tract. My vet told us we could give her cranberry caps. She told us checking with the pH was unnecessary, since pH naturally increases and decreases throughout the day depending on what's in her stomach, etc and wasn't a reliable method to detect a UTI. We gave her 1 antibiotic each time she had her UTI at each meal, and I usually gave her a little plain Greek yogurt for lunch.
This is why you always test PH on first urine of the a.m. prior to food or water. Just like when taking a sample to the vet. Testing PH like this is surely an indicator of possible UTI if PH is elevated. I have been doing it for years and backed it up with same sample tested at the vet. I have also tested urine first thing in a.m. and again later in the day to get different results. Thus, the reason to test first thing in a.m.

As to the dog loosing weight. That is only going to help if "puppy fat" is the cause of the RV and a bit of weight loss lessens the recess where urine pools. Sometimes it is and as the pup grows the RV corrects. But, most times it takes the heat cycle to correct.

And yogart is ok but not near enough to counteract antibiotic IMO. The reason I like using a true, live organism probiotic other than just yogart. They are much more potent than yogart.