Born July 12, 1993, Fraser started coursing at 1 year old, and ended his career at age 6, when he received his LCM title. At about age 4, often, immediately following coursing events, I noticed red tinged urine. It was only after coursing that these symptoms occurred. Fraser showed no distress, nor did he seem unwell before or after these episodes. My regular vet had no explanation for this and suggested we wait and see since it only occurred during strenuous activity.

In 1998 he started showing distress when peeing and some blood in urine at times other than coursing. The vets suspected penis tunic rupture. He was treated for UTI and improved.

In July 1999, shortly after coursing at the Deerhound National, he blocked. He had a scrotal urethrostomy and cystotomy. The stones found were 100 percent cystine. Following this surgery I changed his diet, eliminating chicken and acid-producing ingredients, added large amounts of water to his food and the prescribed amount of potassium citrate powder to his meals twice every day.

In Oct. 2000, he started straining and dribbling urine, had a UTI and was treated with antibiotics. Whenever he had such an episode he would be treated for UTI and always improved.

In March 2003 he had an ultrasound, which showed stones in his bladder. The vet initially diagnosed struvite stones because of his alkaline pH and suggested acidifying his urine and feeding Hills. I was confused to say the least; I had a cystinuric dog and expected cystine stones. I did not feed the Hills. I did, however, stop giving him the potassium citrate because I felt this was setting him up for UTIs and struvite. He continued to have UTIs until May 2003 when I took him back to the vet who performed the urethrostomy and he had a cystotomy and was neutered. Stones found were cystine. Fraser was now 10 and I decided to give him a regular diet. I started Canidae Platinum for Senior dogs, sprinkled liberally with grated parmesan cheese, and a daily vitamin (same one I take). Because of arthritis in his rear and general senior creakiness, the vet suggested Rimadyl but I decided to be more conservative and started him on one Ascriptin 500mg aspirin daily and GlycoFlex III...... this made a world of difference for him. He was still creaky in his rear but did not seem to be in pain and enjoyed his walks much more.

In May of 2005, just a month or so shy of his twelfth birthday, Fraser's arthritis worsened and we made the decision to let him go.