HELP/ADVISE: Blood in Urine (Maltese)

 Get him in to the vet and if the vet says, get him on the prescription food asap!

 On the bichon forum, a friend (who lives near me, I know her in the real world as well as on line) was determined NOT to use the script food.  She did lots of online research, tried this and that and home cooked = in 6 months her dog had to have a second surgery for crystals.  There is no way around it, you must use the script food.  After a 3rd surgery for crystals (she switched from the Royal Canin to the Hills script food), she does not change what works.  

 There is a food which they try sometimes to try and break up the crystals, if they are small; but this food is very high in fat and some dogs develop pancreatitis from it (just had another bichon on the bichon forum have this happen).  Maltese are close cousins to the bichon, as you know.

 Once the dog is clear of crystals, you can take in a urine sample once a month for testing.  This will help catch crystals early in their development, making it easier to treat without the surgery.  Your friend really needs to start doing this!

I hope your friend's doggie will not need surgery.  

This could be more than a UTI -- I'm glad she has the appointment.  "pink" urine is DIFFERENT from bits of blood in the urine.  *red* urine is different yet.  Yes, a UTI/crystals, etc are possibles = but so is something like an auto-immune disease (where the body may dump blood straight into the urine rather than filtering it as it should). 

There comes a time when you need to do what works -- if she's adamant against a prescription food (and I understand that) then she'd need to be willing to get a prescription *diet* for this dog and home cook.  Contacting someone like Monica Segal and Mordanna who have the expertise to write diets (and work **with** vets) may be an alternative.

But FIRST FIRST FIRST you need to get the dog stable whatever is the matter -- so the vet visit is first.  But tell her if it **is** a UTI, then she needs a sterile draw and not only a urinalysis but also a culture and sensitivity to see WHAT the bacteria it is and make sure it doesn't return. 

Crystals can sometimes be "genetic" (oxalate usually) and sometimes a result of the ph balance in the body -- there's no one "fix all" thing to it -- and hopefully the vet can advise her on that