[Paul M]

My dog was recently diagnosed with kidney failure. She is looking great but I am wondering what diet?

I have read lots and gave her chicken and rice today. I also gave her coconut oil as it’s good for kidneys.

Any other advice would be amazing! Shes only 6 and a half so losing her so young would be awful.

The vet said by her levels she should be dead.

[anonymous]

Prescription food/therapeutic diet.

Unless you can afford a veterinary nutritionist and have the time to cook and prepare meals for an hour or two a day.

Add water to all meals.

Honestly, I would go strictly by your veterinarian’s recommendations, I imagine the dog will need frequent lab work. Work closely with your vet.
Best of luck.

PS: re: coconut oil. http://skeptvet.com/Blog/?s=Coconut+oil

Per the search engine here /forums/search/Kidney+failure/

[Paul M]

Thank you for the reply. Yeah I shall cook for her , its no worries for me.

He said make sure she eats and drink. Even eating something is better than nothing he said.

[Lori H]

Hi Paul,

My dog Buddy has been through a lot, much like your dog. He just turned 10 and during his life he has had surgery on his spleen, surgery for bladder stones, been diagnosed with Diabetes and I was told by my vet that he was suffering from liver failure and was preparing me for the fact that Buddy was going to die. The liver failure diagnosis was 6 months ago and today, he is healthy, happy, looks amazing and has so much energy.

I now believe wholeheartedly that most vets know nothing about nutrition. They are told to carry a line of food in their offices by one of the large pharma/dog food companies because most of these companies go out and recruit at the vet universities across the United States when vets are in school and provide them with a kickback when the sell either Science Diet or Royal Canin in their clinics, up to 40%. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my vet, I just don’t believe he knows much of anything about nutrition. He has been great to me, my dog Buddy and my three cats. He is good at what he does, diagnose and perform much needed surgeries and procedures. He did Buddy’s bladder stone surgery which has complications.

I was at my wits end as well and thought that I was going to lose Buddy, but I was not willing to give up so I did a Google search and found an amazing person who brought Buddy back to the healthy dog he is.

Buddy is on a very special diet and he has made huge strides in the last 6+ months. He is a very healthy dog to what he was 6 months ago.

I worked with a man named Rick Scheyer. He has an amazing website http://www.doglivershunt.com He has helped many dogs with liver shunt, kidney disease, bladder stone problems and much, much more become healthy dogs again. I would suggest reaching out to him for a free consultation.

If you choose to go with his program, it is not cheap, but I believe that over time, I will save money by not taking Buddy to the vet time and time again because I don’t know what is wrong and having a battery of tests run and racking up bills in the thousands, I have been there!

He was slowly weened off of his processed food Science Diet U/D and placed on a diet of fresh veggies and meat based on a very slow transition to follow with Rick’s help.

Buddy’s diet is a balance of ¾ veggies to ¼ meats. Dogs with liver issues do not need as much protein as you would expect. He gets lots of yellow veggies (squash, tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, celery, carrots, Brussel sprouts, snap peas, etc.) along with hemp oil and nori blended with goat yogurt into almost a smoothie consistency. I then add meats, liver is great as it helps to detoxify the liver (funny that you feed liver to a dog with liver issuesJ) and then he gets a variety of supplements. He receives three gut supplements in the morning (Acidophilus, Bifudus and a Spectrabiotic) along with an Enzyme and something called Whole Body. In the evenings he gets the Enzyme, Whole Body and a Mushroom supplement. The process to make his food is not that time consuming and if you are at your wits end like I was, I was ready to do anything.

He also gets to have as much goat yogurt as he wants with coconut oil. He also gets sweet potato chews and coconut slices.

He is also allowed to eat fruits, not during his morning and evening meals since they digest differently than veggies, but he has not yet warmed up to them yet. I don’t know if he ever will.

He is doing great! He has so much energy and the numbers don’t lie! I got a glucose meter and I am going to start checking his levels daily. I would really like to get him off the insulin if I can. I believe the medicine is what causes the blindness, not the actual diabetes, my vet believes otherwise.

My vet has not said much of anything. I explained I was taking him off the prescription food and putting him on this program and he never responded. When I took him in the last time for blood work, I think he was surprised Buddy was doing so well, but did not ask me further about what I was doing. He is a pretty straight and narrow vet and I don’t think he looks outside the box. If Buddy’s glucose numbers continue to decline, I will take him back and back off on the number of units he is given. Now it is just maintenance and keeping a spreadsheet and monitoring how he is doing.

I suggest reaching out. I think Rick saved Buddy’s life. I took him to the vet in October to have blood work done and he is perfectly healthy!

Let me know if I can be of anymore help.

Good luck on your search and reach out if you have further questions or concerns. It was hard to take the jump and trust someone other than my vet with my dogs nutritional health, but I am so glad that I did.

Lori

[anonymous]

Copied from a response to a similar topic/,question

I lost a dog to kidney disease many years ago. This is a very serious condition. You should be working closely with a veterinarian.
My dog needed sub-q fluids almost every day the last 2 years, prescription dog food (canned) and plenty of water, nothing else. No supplements. Just prescription meds. Discuss with your vet.
He doesn’t want to eat because he is probably nauseous, in pain, hence the vomiting. I would not try to force him to eat.
The next thing that will occur after kidney failure, if it hasn’t already, is uremia. The dog smells like urine 24/7. It emanates from his pores.
Difficult decisions ahead
Your dog needs the expertise of a veterinarian, not the internet.
Good luck

[Paul M]

Thanks for the responses.

Lori- I shall look into this , thank you for the advice! Much appreciated . Hope Buddy keeps getting better 🙂

Anon101- She only got out of the vets today. She was in for a week and on fluids. The vet doesn’t understand how she is still alive nor can we. She is eating fine. Actually she would eat forever but she hates drinking out of certain water bowls here now for some reason.

[Author]

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