Age related kidney issues in dog (Difficulty level: Indonesia)
July 11, 2020 7:41 PM   Subscribe

The older of my two rescues (the blind one on the right) is in the early stages of kidney decline. I'm trying to sort through the best food choices I can make for him.

Junebug (9) has been having some issues with drinking a lot and a few pee accidents, so I took him to the vet for some tests. A urine analysis showed a bit of struvite, a bit of protein in his urine and slightly elevated kidney levels. According to the vet, this is consistent with age-related kidney decline. The levels aren't high enough for them to recommend any medication.

I've done quite a bit of online reading, and now I'm confused on a higher level. It seems I likely have the opportunity with healthy food to hold off further kidney issues, possibly indefinitely-- however, there doesn't seem much consensus on what that healthy feeding looks like.

Junebug currently gets Blackwood All Life Stages dry food and boiled chicken. He's a fruit bat and gets small snacks of carrots, papaya, banana or mango on an infrequent basis.As I read the advice online, I see it ranges from "chicken is fine!" to "never give chicken to a dog with kidney issues!". Some sites recommend against fruit. Some enthusiastically recommend fruit as long as it is not too acidic. I'm frustrated, annoyed and lost trying to find some consistent guidelines.

The vet recommended a specialised senior dog food, but these are irregularly available here. I don't mind paying money to import some, but it's also challenging to even find a way to import.

Has anyone navigated a similar phase successfully? Any advice?
posted by frumiousb to Pets & Animals (5 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Went through this with a cat so the dietary specifics are different but our vet wanted him eating all wet food - more liquid helps ailing kidneys. He was a weirdo cat who would only eat kibble so that didn't work out but you might consider eliminating dry food from Junebug's diet. I won't attempt to talk about specifics because dogs and cats have pretty different metabolism. Good luck!
posted by leslies at 5:48 AM on July 12, 2020


I went through this with my last dog. The guidelines are pretty much the same as what's recommended for humans with kidney issues. I lost a kidney to cancer some years ago; I'm fine now but I definitely have to treat my sole surviving kidney with respect. The key is to minimize the kidneys' (or in my case, kidney's) workload as much as possible. Here are some simple rules:

1. Keep protein low. According to my urologist, you want to avoid protein bombs like dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse but a human diet of 6-8 ounces of protein per meal is just fine. You can do the math to adapt that advice for your doggo.

2. Keep the chemicals down. So be careful about highly processed foods and OTC medications. Again, a small to medium amount is fine, depending on how strict you want to be about it.

3. Keep plenty of fluids moving through so it dilutes all the nasty things you're asking the kidneys to process. For a dog, this means getting as much water into them as possible. If your dog loves ice cubes, give him water on the rocks as much as humanly possible. Don't overlook the water content of vegetables and fruits when strategizing how to get more fluids in.

4. Keep the blood pressure under control. High blood pressure is particularly taxing for kidneys, for some reason. This isn't probably a problem for your dog, but it might be worth either researching further or asking your vet.

As always, any changes you make to your dog's diet should be gradual to limit the disruption to his system. Should your dog ever reach acute kidney failure, any food he will eat and keep down is the right diet for him. May that never happen to your dog, but you probably know that kidney failure is a very common cause of death in dogs. Whatever you can do to delay progression of the kidney failure is cheatin' the devil, IMO.
posted by DrGail at 8:40 AM on July 12, 2020


I'm also coming to this from a cat perspective but can you get Royal Canin food easily? My friend who breeds cats feeds hers Royal Canin because it's more widely available than other types of food so it might be a choice. As a sort of intermediate solution could you try the appropriate senior diet for your dog - the senior formulas are usually created to consider aging problems like kidney disease, hypertension, etc. Not the fancy vet diet, just elderly dog food.
This is a problem that plagues cats so maybe see what sort of homemade diet is recommended for them. I think it's eggs and rice?
posted by fiercekitten at 9:25 AM on July 12, 2020


I also used Royal Canin renal support for my dog, and we managed his kidney disease for many years with this.

When I considered moving him to real food during his last year of life, my vet highly recommended a consultation with a vet nutritionist to create a plan that would give him the right amount and type of foods. Vets not are necessarily trained in this area. This one is local to me (I think they do phone and video) but maybe there’s another more accessible to you: https://www.vetmed.vt.edu/vth/services/nutrition/forms.asp

Good luck!
posted by inevitability at 10:33 AM on July 12, 2020


You want high quality proteins so they need to eat less of them as you need to reduce protein, phosphorous & sodium in their diet. There is some evidence Fish oils can help in the cases of dogs & cats with kidney problems, talk to your vet before adding them to your dogs diet to find the right dose.

So step one you also need to avoid giving high protein treats such as meat, jerky treats, cheese, rawhides, pig ears etc If they like fruit as a treat, here is a good list of the phosphorous levels in fruit so you can pick the low phosphorous ones for them.

If you can't get prescription food, years ago back before prescription dog food was such a big thing I had what I think were good results with a dog diet very similar to this one for a dog with kidney failure. If you need to substitute ingredients Here is a list of foods & their phosphorous levels. Remember this is a list for people so if in doubt check the food is dog safe before feeding. I am not a vet, but that is very similar to the recipe the vet recommended to me at the time, when in doubt talk to your vet.

The chicken issue is divisive as chicken is sort medium in phosphorous, for the want of a better phrase, & in many cases it can depend on which stage of the disease your dog is at what is OK for them to eat. What is OK for one dog is not always Ok for another. If it's only mild then chicken might be fine for your dog, but at the end stages or in a severe case it might not be.

My current dog is slowly dying of a liver tumor, he was supposed to last 6 months, he's now lived 18 months mostly due to how closely we've been watching his diet. What he could eat 18 months ago he can't eat now & we have to get more & more strict on the available foods. Diet really can make a difference to dogs with liver & kidney disease/failure. Even if it does not extend their lives it can make their remaining time so much more comfortable as they're not in as much pain or feeling sick.
posted by wwax at 10:07 AM on July 14, 2020


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