Frequent Urination & Crystals-Our Story & Advice

Recently there have been some posts about crystals in the urine. This is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, as our two and a half year old boy, Niles, was diagnosed with mal-absorption not too long ago.

Niles was one of those puppies that really didn't have puppy fat. He has always been tall, lean, and very muscular. From the beginning he ate a lot and gained little weight. We drank water obsessively and never really had that nice perfect stool. He had regular blood and fecal labs done and we were assured by both our vets and our trainers that Niles was just one of those very active terriers and would likely fill out at around 12-14 months old. When at 14 months old he was still a gangly 14.5" and 13.11 pounds, we had him neutured to see if we could take the edge off. Still nothing. We just knew something wasn't right, but every blood test and fecal sample came back very healthy. We fed a high performance diet and Niles ate all that he wanted. We poked at stool, monitored eating habits, and kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

As his second birthday approached Niles was starting to have some other problems-sudden bouts of confusion, excessive napping, and periods of uncontrollable shaking. Our new vet suspected hypoglycemia related to his high activity level and prescribed free feeding to help keep his blood sugar levels normal. Just after his second birthday, Niles picked up the campylobacter bacteria at a flyball tournament. He lost four pounds in 14 days despite antibiotics and low residue food. He couldn't gain the weight back. We were devestated and heartbroken to see him in such horrific state.

This new vet actually listened to his life story and went through two years of records and noticed that a urinalysis had never been done. We did a full work up: blood, fecal, urine. They found crystals called ketones in his urine but he was otherwise perfectly fine. There are only two things that cause ketones in dogs: diabetes and starvation. The former was ruled out by all the other tests and we learned that Niles was starving. I can't tell you the feelings of horrific guilt, anger, and utter sadness we felt the moment our vet said that horrible word. But we soon learned that we were not starving him but that an enzyme defficiency was making it so that he could not absorb the nutrition and energy from his food. His body was slowly starving itself. As our vet explained it to us: Essentially, when a dog eats, he fills up his gas tank (no pun intended), then he runs off an plays, taking the gas tank back to half full, then eats again to fill up. In Niles case, the gas tank could never get above a quarter tank. His body had started to use its reserve fuel source: fat of which there was near none of. Next would be muscles. Then organs.

It has been four difficult months of trial and error to find exactly the right balance of enzyme supplements and which food would meet his needs. We have spent countless hours with our vet and we weigh Niles in once a week to chart progress. He is a stunning 14.5" tall and 15 pounds today, his heighest weight ever and while there is little if any body fat still, he is energetic, athletic, and without ketones. He will never be a truly normal terrier, but then, he never really has been. In our eyes, he has always been a very special little boy.