Urinary health is a very important consideration when it comes to plant-based diets for pets.
Plants in general tend to make one’s body more alkaline, and this can lead to urinary problems in pets (especially male cats due to their anatomy). Modern vegan diets address this problem by adding acidifiers to the formulas to maintain pH balance.
In this blog post, we are sharing 3 important tips for supporting urinary health.
#1. Hydration
The best solution to avoid urinary tract obstruction is to keep your pets well-hydrated. Water flushes out any debris and crystals that may be forming blockages.
There a few ways to achieve better hydration:
- providing moist food in cans (which is 76% moisture)
- moistening dry kibble (adding water to kibble)
- mixing dry kibble and wet food in cans
- ensuring fresh water is available at all times
If you have a male cat who likes to eat only dry kibble, then you have to be especially diligent in making sure that they get enough water outside of their dry meals. Dry kibble only contains 10% moisture, whereas in nature mice and other prey would have the moisture level of around 70-80%. So what you can do at home is you can start using a special water fountain for pets to encourage them to drink more.
Use Moist Food (76% hydration)
| Evolution Diet Moist Food | Benevo Duo |
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Add water to Dry Kibble (50% moisture level)
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Add 1-part kibble to 1-part water
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Let this mixture stand for at least 30 minutes for dry food to soak in the water
(Use distilled water whenever possible)
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Add nutritional yeast for a nice cheesy favour
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This mix is around 50% moisture by volume and is much closer to what cats/dogs would be eating in nature than the dry kibble
Shop Dry Kibble >
Mix Dry Kibble & Moist Food
To add some delicious moisture, consider mixing canned wet food with dry food. It not only provides additional hydration but also adds variety to your pet's meals.
All these hydration techniques help to bring more water into pet’s body, which helps to flush out any crystals or debris from the urinary system.
#2. Acidification
Like we mentioned earlier, vegan pet food may have an alkaline effect on the body. Modern vegan dry food formulas for pets include acidifiers that keep the pH at the right level and so additional supplementation is generally not required.
For optimal health we recommend adding Cranberry Treats to the diet as well as Cranimals Original and Cranimals Gold. These products have natural acidity (naturally sour), which helps to dissolve alkaline crystals. Furthermore, products like VegeYeast also have high acidity and are helpful for urinary health.
| Cranberry Treats |
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| Cranimals Original | Cranimals Gold |
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#3. Monitoring
After you transition your pet to a plant-based diet, you should monitor your pet's pH. For example, pH of cat’s urine should be in the range of 6.0 - 6.5, and pH of dogs should be kept in the range of 6.0 - 7.0. If you see that pH is 7 or 8 or higher, then you know it’s becoming too alkaline.
You should be more carefully observing your pet’s behaviour for any signs of trouble (see “Signs of Trouble” section below) and also you should consider adding additional acidifiers into your pet’s diet (more cranberries, or Cranimals, or VegeYeast), and also improving their hydration regime.
Monitoring pH can be done with something like CheckUp kit. It’s basically a paper strip which you can deep into pet’s urine to determine the pH level. CheckUp kit helps measure the pH of urine, detect common issues including urinary tract infection (UTI), and blood in the urine.
Video below explains how to use the kit.
| CheckUp Kit for Cats | CheckUp Kit for Dogs |
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We recommend measuring pH of our pet’s urine before you transition them to a plant-based diet to establish a reference point. If you’ve already transitioned them, then you can still measure the pH to determine where your pet is at now. Then 1 month after that do the pH test again. And then continue doing regular tests every other month. For male cats who prefer dry food (high risk situation) it’s better to test pH every month.
Signs of trouble & when to ask for help
How do you know that your cat might be experiencing cystitis
or urethra obstruction?
There are a number of symptoms that can indicate that your pet might be in trouble.
If you observe any of these symptoms you should talk to your vet right away.
- Straining to urinate - with or without production of urine
- Frequent trips to the litter box
- If you are using clumping litter, cats with cystitis will often have many small urine balls (small clumps) in the litter box
- Crying while urinating
- Excessive licking of the genital area
- Blood in the urine
- Urinating in places other than in the litter box
- Posturing (squatting) in the litter box for a long period of time
- (note that sometimes people think that their cat is constipated when he/she is really showing signs of a lower urinary tract problem.)
Again, if you see any of the symptoms you should consult your vet right away.
Find the right product supporting urinary health with our helpful search tool
Go to
Vecado.com/Finder
