Cranberry Pill

[Guest kar]

does anyone give their dog cranberry pills to ward off urinary tract infections? if so where do you get them and what brand to you buy.

[GeorgeofNE]

Funny you should ask!

 

Science has recently shown that even in people, it's a myth that cranberry juice wards of UTIs.

 

Although my vet had me giving it to George for years! Didn't seem to help, but doubtless it will hurt.

 

I can't remember the brand, but lord knows I spent hundreds on them over the years!

[Houndtime]

I used to give them to our first greyhound. I would buy whatever brand was on sale. Some things; if you believe it will work, it does. Spreading the positive energy. I take them, too.

[XTRAWLD]

Interesting. I've never thought of that, however I do tend to focus on raw foods that include more of the anti-oxidant berries in them, like cranberries and blue berries, so I guess why not?

[DocsDoctor]

Yes - Ken had a UTI that was hard to shift (took two rounds of antibiotics) and left his wee still rather dilute. While we waited to do another test and see if there was another issue going on, I put him on human-grade cranberry pills (my idea - vet was sceptical, saying there was no evidence of it helping for dogs) and glucosamine (vet's suggestion - apparently it is good for the bladder as well as the joints.) His wee is much improved now so we will be stopping the course in a few days when the current bottles of pills run out.

[MandysMom]

I gave Mandy cranberry capsules for most of her life with me. When I first adopted her, she had a string of UTIs. After I started giving her the cranberry, she had one UTI in six years. My vet said it wouldn't hurt, and it might help. Maybe there is no scientific evidence, but it seemed to work for us. I usually bought the Spring Valley brand at Walmart. I think it was like $6.00 a bottle, which had sixty capsules. I felt the $3 a month was worth it. Mandy died in 2012, so the price has probably gone up.

[Rickiesmom]

My understanding is that Crananidin is supposed to be effective - it makes it harder for e-coli bacteria to stick to the bladder wall, so helps prevent UTIs that are caused by that type of bacteria.

 

That said, Jeff had the first UTI of his life a few months ago, vet had a culture done and he was treated with the appropriate antibiotic. When the infection returned following treatment, the vet took another sample to culture, but also did an ultrasound which showed Jeff had some crystals in his bladder (IIRC they weren't big enough to be called stones). As it had before, the culture showed that the associated bacteria were staph and his infection and the crystals were wiped out with antibiotics and a stone diet. He's had no issues since.

 

Based on this experience, I would use Crananidin if my dog was prone to UTIs that were e-coli associated, but I'd also go the culture / ultrasound route, if it was recurring.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Rickiesmom

[XTRAWLD]

My understanding is that Crananidin is supposed to be effective - it makes it harder for e-coli bacteria to stick to the bladder wall, so helps prevent UTIs that are caused by that type of bacteria.

 

What I have heard from human use is that drinking cranberry juice (increase fluid intake in general) just encourages you to pee more, thus pushes the infection or bacteria out (and more often). Interesting to hear about the less stickiness angle.

[racindog]

Yes. My vet had me put one of my houndies on 1/2 of a Cranactin capsule twice a day. I do believe it helps. I have continued giving my other dogs occasional doses of it for a pre-emptive strike and have not had any uti's in any dog since beginning to use it. Further I thought I would try it on myself and was happy to discover that it greatly reduced the number of night time bathroom trips The vet specifically said Cranactin. That is what I use. It makes sense to me. You get what you pay for but still even though it is top quality compared to many others it still only cost $20 a bottle of 180 on Amazon. Not sure why it works-something to do with making the urine acid? I don't know.

[Guest kar]

Can I give my dog the human cranactin instead of the dog cranidin?

[Vampiric_Conure]

I, too, have heard that cranberry juice makes the lining of the bladder less 'sticky' for problematic bacteria. And good to know that there's a brand of cranberry pills out there that can be used on dogs

[carronstar]

I use NaturVet Cranberry Relief, 50 Gram that I get on Amazon for $11, I go through about 2 per year. I mix it in with the raspberry powder for anti-oxidants. I sprinkle it on her food. Neither Tallulah nor Aquitaine have had UTIs.

[NeylasMom]

I like the Vetriscience UTI products, which do contain cranberry but also contain other natural supplements intended to reduce infection in various ways. The UTI Stat Strength is meant to be given in 7-10 day "courses", the every day one is for, obviously everyday. However for some reason they decided to make the every day one available only through vets. You can still get the feline every day supplement online though through Chewy, Amazon, etc. Its the exact same stuff in the exact same proportions, just less per chew and it comes out to the same price per dose. So Skye now gets 4 of the cat chews daily instead of one dog chew (she's 40 lbs).

Edited November 14, 2016 by NeylasMom