Last year my son and wife adopted a Schnauser dog that was a stray from the Humane Society. She had a bladder stone the size of an egg which was removed. She was on antibiotics after the surgery and was also put on special prescription food. One year later no problems she is a happy dog with no bladder problems. She has to stay on this strict diet but she loves it and has gained some weight as she was super skinny when they got her. It is so heartwarming to see how much she loves them and I can't understand how anyone would turn out a little dog that was in such a bad state. It is just wonderful that we have people who care. Hopefully you little dog will regain control with time. I don't recall that they had a problem after the surgery but I know she is fine now.

There can be a lot of inflammation associated with having bladder stones, which may cause her to feel like she has to pee all the time, much like having a UTI. She may still have a UTI as well- sometimes if the urine is not cultured the antibiotic chosen just doesn't work against the bug she has.

My lab Max has had bladder stones twice. The first time, I found them incidentally while on an ultrasound rotation at school. Two days later, he blocked and I had to remove the stones. With Max, the type of stones he had- struvite aka triple phosphate- are associated with UTIs, and Max has had more than his share of them. But repeated urine cultures came out negative, which is very unusual. A couple months later, he developed stones again, but this time he never blocked and I was able to dissolve them with prescription diet. Max has several health problems, and I make his food now, and so far no recurrence of stones. I also do a urine culture every month just to make sure because UTIs are the major cause of struvite stones in dogs. Max doesn't generally have any symptoms with his UTIs, except the one that resulted in having a kidney removed due to an abscess. Then his was peeing what looked like root beer- dark red brown urine. Yuck.

Anyway, once the inflammation +/- infection is cleared, she should be able to control her bladder better. If not, she could be not so housetrained or have estrogen-dependent incontinence (aka "spay incontinence). For now the best thing is to keep up with her vet appointments and work to get the current problem resolved. You may try giving her some cranberry juice if she likes it to help calm the inflammation. Besides those things, there isn't much else you can do.

Thanks so much for your advice. We'll take care of the infection first and then go from there. I will ask our vet what she thinks about the cranberry juice. Do you think I can do the capsuls instead of the juice?

I'm not sure of the composition of the stones. I should have that analysis back tomorrow. She is going to have another urine culture when she finishes this round of antibiotics.

One of our cats has kidney disease and we get a urinalysis done on him every 3-6 months. So it won't be a big deal to do the same for our new dog. If it is a housetraining issue or submissive peeing issue then we'll try some potty pants on her.

Thanks again.