[Stones] change urine smell

[admin]

We have an elder female, PigWheet, that has occasional bladder sludge. Her
urine smelled *very* bad last summer; like a smoldering cigar. It turned
out to be a UTI; she passed a great deal of blood and sludge on the exam
table. An x-ray revealed that she did not have stones.   

It required 2 - 1/2 weeks of baytril to clear up her UTI, after which she
was fine - until the next bout a few months later. This time, the infection
cleared up in about 3 days (kept her on baytril for a week, however). 

PigWheet just turned six; she has cystic ovaries that we manage with
monthly injections of HCG. PigWheet loves to play with her water bottle, so
she gets plenty of fluids. She often has a wet bottom - especially when she
had the UTI. Part of her problem is that she also has arthritis, so she is
not fond of moving a lot. We have had her on metacam; it was a toss-up as
to whether she'd have a wet bottom or not. She has her good days and her
not so good days; we take it a day at a time and bathe and dry her as
needed. I'm only mentioning all this because PigWheet's problems stem from
a lot of different factors.

I agree with the rest: you should try and encourage Star to drink more.
Sometimes "water games" help: with a syringe or water bottle, squirt some
water in her mouth, making a game of it. She'll spit a lot out, but she'll
also drink some. You may need to dry her off afterwards though :-)

I've also seen biting/chewing as a reaction to pain. We had a longhaired
piggie that barbered himself bare when he developed a stone; after the
stone was removed he had no interest in chewing his hair. 

Tex