Food Suggestions - Need a low ash, magnesium, salt and phosphate diet

To find a diet low in all of those above, it will be most beneficial if you are able to have your mom feed a canned only diet, or a commercial home-made diet like Honest Kitchen (www.thehonestkitchen.com)

Ash: Comes mostly from the bones of meat in meat meals (it's the leftover mineral content after the food is incinerated).  A food high in protein will usually yield high ash.

Magnesium: Usually higher in foods containing fish.  A food w/o fish is best for a dog w/ any type of crystals or urinary issues.

(phosphate and salt are *usually* synthetically added so just keep an eye out)

 a canned diet would be fine :)  I'll check out the honest kitchen.  I might have to do the ordering of food for her, since my Mom is NOT internet saavy at all lol (it's rather cute actually).

I would not recommend monkeying around with the diet too much off the beaten path until the problem has been definitively diagnosed.  There's a slightly different approach for diets based on whether the urate formations are oxalate or struvite.  For instance, in the case of oxalate stones, if you lower phosphorus too much, you can increase calcium absorption, leading to excess excretion - and there's the raw materials for those stones again.  Also, magnesium is required for the prevention of calcium crystallization, so again one would really only need to investigate whether the diet is providing too much, rather than blindly reducing it to below the levels needed for proper urinary function.

Once you know what you are dealing with exactly, you should be able to narrow down what you are looking for much more easily.

I agree that feeding a "wet" diet will be very helpful.  If her dog has a tendency to form stones (ie, it's not a diet-related issue), then lots of fluids will be important.  If you have old pipes and don't filter your water, offer bottled water instead (or get a filter - not a softener, which adds sodium or phosphates).

Once interesting tidbit I found in Monica Segal's Optimum Nutrition - consider adding soluble fiber in sensible amounts.  Phytates slow the absorption of minerals and help ensure that excesses leave through the gi rather than via the blood filtration system (and therefore UT).  She also suggests adding salmon oil to assist in UT healing, and B-6, to decrease exposure of the urinary system to phosphates by helping the GI to handle them instead.   I've actually had a vet suggest the B-6 for a dog with liver issues, to me, for the same reason (roughly).

Good luck! 

brookcove

I would not recommend monkeying around with the diet too much off the beaten path until the problem has been definitively diagnosed.  There's a slightly different approach for diets based on whether the urate formations are oxalate or struvite.  For instance, in the case of oxalate stones, if you lower phosphorus too much, you can increase calcium absorption, leading to excess excretion - and there's the raw materials for those stones again.  Also, magnesium is required for the prevention of calcium crystallization, so again one would really only need to investigate whether the diet is providing too much, rather than blindly reducing it to below the levels needed for proper urinary function.

Once you know what you are dealing with exactly, you should be able to narrow down what you are looking for much more easily.

I agree that feeding a "wet" diet will be very helpful.  If her dog has a tendency to form stones (ie, it's not a diet-related issue), then lots of fluids will be important.  If you have old pipes and don't filter your water, offer bottled water instead (or get a filter - not a softener, which adds sodium or phosphates).

Once interesting tidbit I found in Monica Segal's Optimum Nutrition - consider adding soluble fiber in sensible amounts.  Phytates slow the absorption of minerals and help ensure that excesses leave through the gi rather than via the blood filtration system (and therefore UT).  She also suggests adding salmon oil to assist in UT healing, and B-6, to decrease exposure of the urinary system to phosphates by helping the GI to handle them instead.   I've actually had a vet suggest the B-6 for a dog with liver issues, to me, for the same reason (roughly).

Good luck! 

 Very true brookcove, but if they are going to feed a commercial diet there won't be a risk of not having enough phosphorus .  I second the addition of B-6 and filtering the water. 
 

 Blurg.  For some reason I misread the OP as being that they were considering going to something homemade.  "Diet" maybe made me think that.  Though duh, all food is diet.  It was pretty late . . .

This is one case where I really trust the vet's suggestion if they want to try a specialized commercial product.  Then one can sort of make it an even playing field and one isn't playing guessing games that maybe there's something in excess or lacking in the diet (ha!).  Dogs are such individuals in this respect that I gather that there are about as many ways that dogs form crystals and stones, as there are stone formers!  Once one has a handle on the cause of the problem, then it's easier to find something that's a fit for the dog in terms of mineral profile.

I had a Dalmation/BC/Setter mix that was a stone former - very mild, thank goodness - and he was on a special diet for several years.  However, I wasn't happy with the fact that the enamel on his teeth was very soft, leading to severe dental problems.  A more detailed analysis of his diet revealed that he was lacking in - uh - something, that helps with that very thing (magnesium, maybe?), and I had a custom homemade diet done by a friend who was a vet with an interest in nutrition (small animal nutritionists were a rare breed in those days).  That, in fact, was the beginning of my home prepared diet journey!