Not trying to be argumentative...but, your dog had struvites due to a bladder infection....not due to food. Infection causes those stones. Your vet found bacteria and struvite stones and should have not told you it was a food problem, the food also did not "alter" your dog's GI system in anyway...it is just food. I sincerely hope that your Veterinarian helped your Sheltie (have to love them, too cute) and did a culture and treated the infection with the proper antibiotic to get rid of this problem :( This is a problem that can keep reoccuring if it is not totally treated and only urine analysis will tell you when it is totally cleared up. If it is not cleared up the infection will continue and the stones will continue to form no matter what food you are feeding :( There are also rare cases of congenital malformations of the ballder or urethra that could contribute to a UTI problem....I hope your dog is feeling better in any event.

There is nothing to argue Eastgsd. The tests and evidence speak for itself! My dog has NOT had any more kidney problems whatsoever since taking her off of Life Abundance! And the before and after tests are very clear! Grapes can cause Health problems that is a fact! As I mentioned by dog did have the urinalysis and cultures and blood work and ultrasound! One year and half on Life Abundance with high pH, struvites, etc. showing up on urinalysis but every urinalysis clear after STOPPING Life Abundance speaks for itself. The vet we went to is a internal medicine specialist and I don't mean just putting internal medicine in her ad, either! So I will trust her opinion as well as all the clear urinalysis speaks for itself. I know all about bladder and kidney infections. My other vets that saw my dog even before the specialist tried to tell me to change dog foods! They all agreed there was NO infection after several urinalysis and cultures were done! If you don't think food can cause digestive and other problems you evidently have not done much research on that. My vets has helped my dog but changing her dog food helped the most. Again can't argue with the evidence. Even if arguing it was not the grapes it was something in Life Abundance that gave my dog her health problems! As I wrote I am very happy for all the dogs that do well on Life Abundance but I have heard from others that their dogs had kidney problems, too, that was on Life Abundance. I have researched enough to find vets, vet nutritionists, and professors disagreeing on what's the best foods for pets and some disagree on what can be harmful, too, but there is enough evidence to support commercial pet foods can cause health issues for some pets. It is just food? If that was the case no one and no pets would ever have problems from foods which simply is not the case. For someone to side with vets that believe all the ingredients in pet foods cause no health issues I can respsect that but that does not mean the other vets/vet nutritionists are wrong! If you research Bacteria Overgrowth you can find lots of information supporting that a dog's diet can be one (and yes there are other causes, too) of the causes of Bacteria Overgrowth! I have read much about diet being one of the causes of Bacteria Overgrowth including undigested carbohydrates will then ferment and create bacterial overgrowth resulting in the production of gas and excess water creating the symptoms of maldigestion. There is definitely a legit debate on whether or not all the carbs in pet foods are healthy for pets.

I'm sorry but, the infection being cleared up while being treated with an antibiotic AND changing the food does not prove that a food (any food) caused the struvite problem. I know you feel strongly however, your connections in this case are purely anecdotal and without any real connection :( There is simply nothing dangerous in this pet food. Of course not all pets will do well on all foods and in this case that was probably an issue, it happens however, that does not mean there is something terribly wrong with the product. It just means it did not match your pet. I will not comment on the rest of your post because you are assuming quite a bit about me. I feel my comment to you was fair and unbiased and I stand by it.