Urine acidifiers?

Abrams has started peeing a TON again. Not just asking to go out frequently, but when he is outside he squats and pees repeatedly. (And no, he isn't marking. I don't think this dog would know what marking is if it hit him in the face.) And he is also starting to have accidents inside again. (Not just his "I'm going OUTSIDE" peeing, but actual accidents.)

I ran his urine at work and the dip stick showed a pH of 9 (!) and 1+ leukocytes. When I looked at it under the microscope, however, I didn't see anything. No crystals, no bacteria, nada. So I'm under the assumption he doesn't have a UTI, but that I just need a urine acidifier for him to help his bladder be happier?

What would be a good supplement I could give? Can I just give human cranberry tablets? If so, how many for a 60# dog? Anything else that may work, either human supplement or made specifically for dogs? I'm on a tight budget, so preferably something cheap(er).

yes to cranberries and cranberry supplements. as for if they will do the trick, i dont know, but dogs can indeed have them

I also use ester C 500 mg. 2 x a day and cranberry caps. 2x a day and Braggs organic apple cider vinegar table spoon in his food dish with food.
Seems to be helping he had cronic UTI's.

You might want to send off a culture and/or treat for an infection anyway. Gavroche's slides usually didn't have much on them, and once when we sent it to Idexx they didn't even grow anything...but antibiotics helps. Eventually it escalated far enough that we DID see stuff and we DID grow stuff, and then we could treat it properly (and then it came back, so we did a U/S that showed a prostatic cyst, and then it was 6 weeks of Baytril, and NOW he's better...but hopefully Abrams will be more simple than that )

Cranberry actually seemed to make Gavroche worse. No idea why.

I feed Auggie high protein food to help keep his pH lower. That's about the only thing I do anymore, nothing else really seemed to have much effect (and he still gets UTIs every now and again, so even that is questionable.)

Does Abrams get distracted easily when he's outside? Auggie's problem is he doesn't empty his bladder all at one time. He gets distracted by any given thing he deems worthy of running off to bark at - so he'll stop mid-pee. And sometimes he won't finish peeing so he runs around with pee still hanging out when he needed to empty his bladder, and he doesn't. So it could be Abrams is the same way, just running around and getting distracted so he has to pee multiple times. =P

Payton does the same thing but for him it's, it's equal parts distracted, can't stand still for long gotta keep going, and oh I'll just mark here really quickly SQUIRREL.

The vet was hesitant to treat with antibiotics unless trying to acidify the urine with supplements didn't help. But I may recheck his urine again anyway just to double check.

He actually focuses really well when it is potty time. He goes out, does his business, then comes right back in. He'll even continue urinating if a rabbit hops out of the woods. Lol I'll let him out to pee, he'll do his business, and then on the way back to the door he'll squat again to urinate but nothing comes out. When I was out at Mom's the other day he literally squatted to pee ten different times when we were outside.

I'm just worried with his pH being high stones my start to form. And that's freaking me out. LOL I don't want to have to deal with that on top of Cynder's issues.

He's eating 4Health Salmon and Potato dry food mixed with their grain free Turkey and Potato formula. He has a sensitive digestive system so I'm worried to try him on something new, but should I try switching and see if that helps with anything?

That would have me REALLY concerned. If he empties his bladder in one go, but still tries to urinate and nothing comes out, his bladder is probably uncomfortable, which could be stones or infection or something else entirely, but it's not normal.

Agreed.

Agreed... any squatting but no pee coming out would have me alarmed.

Yah, I decided to have him reevaluated tomorrow. Poor guy.