I wrote this post in January 2022 about Lola -
Lola is a gorgeous 2 year mixed breed rescue from Cyprus (yes like our own Ruff so we have such a soft spot for her!) who has suffered from bladder stones and urinary tract infections – a common condition seen in any breed and more likely to affect females than males (and especially small breeds).
Poor Lola had symptoms of squatting to urinate regularly even in the house, and blood in her urine. Her Mum took her to the vets immediately as she was well aware that a bladder infection left untreated, could move up to the kidneys and cause kidney damage and be fatal.
Lola had x-rays taken and her urine was analysed and she was found to have struvite crystals in the bladder as shown in the image below.
This is when Lola’s Mum contacted me as she had always fed Lola a plant-based diet and she was devastated to be told to stop feeding her what she had chosen and she felt forced to feed the meat based diet from her vet. Lola was eating a homemade plant-based diet.
Her diligent owner had done her research and she knew to add a supplement, but she had chosen to buy V-Complete from Vegan4Dogs and as Lola did not like the taste of this supplement, she stopped using it to please Lola.
The V-Complete supplement (which used to be available in the UK in 2022) contains the valuable addition of one of the sulphur amino acids Methionine. This particular amino acid that is found in meat, chicken and fish needs to be supplemented in a vegan dog food diet as it has the important function of acidifying the digestive and urinary tract environment and it stops the formation of cysteine crystals with recurrent infections.
By not adding the supplement to her homemade food as Lola did not like the taste; Lola’s Mum felt that she had caused the condition in her little dog that she loves so much!
I reassured her that the condition was reversible with use of one of the dog food diets that contained Methionine such as Greta, Solo Vegetal, Hownd and Green Crunch, or by using our JUST BE KIND Supplement that contains Methionine and is more palatable than the german supplement.
Lola’s Mum began using our JUST BE KIND Supplement that Lola is very happy eating as the supplement is tasty, contains exactly what she needs and it even has the valuable addition of prebiotics to encourage the growth of her healthy gut microbiome that would have been damaged by use of the antibiotics that she needed to treat the bladder infection.
Her Mum kindly sent us photos of Lola as well as this –
“Of course you can write up about Lola, use all the details and you’re welcome to use the ultrasound photo too and I’m happy for you to be honest about my mistake of just because Lola didn’t like the supplement of V-Complete, meant that I didn’t give her as much as I should have done – which caused the problem!
Her being fussy wasn’t an excuse, I should have switched supplements much sooner. Lesson learnt, the hard way!! Hopefully others may learn sooner.”
She finished the e-mail off with something that just warmed my heart – “I’m so glad there are people like you in the world :)”
See a video below of Lola kindly sent in in August 2024 by her Mum -
“If nobody changes then nothing changes, but if somebody changes then everything changes”
Dr Arielle Griffiths Vegan Vet (Read more here)
