Health Medical Information

OR lots of correct protein. It depends on the breed AND the disease – all kidney diseases are not alike.

Add detail like breed and age and that will help

If you must use a prescriptive diet I prefer the Purina one to the Science Diet one.

brand are different in different countries..

the best wet food for cats with upset tummy is CHICKEN and RICE mush or LAMB and RICE mush.. NOT chunks in gravy…

gravy is carbs and is bad for cats (fattening and hard on their tummy)

of course stay away from fish…

Try looking for Yahoo Groups for dogs with kidney disease. Join a few. I am sure there are several..

They should be able to help you find a food for your dog.

Stay far far far away from purina, science diet, eukanuba. . .go to a holistic pet food store, bring blood work tests results and pee test results. Some of the stores offer nutritional analysis based on your dogs test results.

Do not go with the vet diets either. . .they get kick backs, and in my experience, sicker dogs=more vet visits.

Also, I found that when my vet pushed the Euk on me, my dog got sicker. . .turns out it wasn’t kidney disease at all. . .I asked for bloodwork, pee work, and brought it all to the holistic pet store.

I got Solid Gold, I add water to it, like a soup, it helps with kidneys, adding the water. Good luck. It’s a long hard road trying to find what fits your dog.

Dogs in renal failure (kidney failure) need a low protein but a high quality protein food. Some of the better protein sources include egg and meat protein. Egg is actually the best. Some dogs won’t eat the special renal failure foods no matter what. In this case putting the dog on a good quality senor diet might help. I really can’t give you the best one as many of these foods are only available in certain areas. You might want to consult with your vet on finding a good food that your dog will eat.

There are a couple of very good answers in this thread. I don’t have a specific answer for your question but do have an experience to share that jibes with some of the posts about holistic food and prescription diets and options you have:

1. My dog got into a bottle of Advil when my wife had the flu and had left the top off. He ended up in the ICU for 5 days on an IV, and the first 3 had zero kidney function. He had acute renal failure. The week after he was discharged, he was on prescription wet food (Science diet). The vet had 3 options and gave us the canned food that had the reputation has the most palatable. We were issued 8 cans for one week’s worth of food. After 3 days, my dog (who wasn’t eating food, only taking in stuff through the IV in the ICU) had eaten no more than 1/2 of a can of this stuff (so a total of 8 days without food other than fluids through the IV). He absolutely refused to touch it (and he’s not a picky eater). Desperate, I defied the vet’s advice and cooked up some unseasoned chicken and gave it to him (also a way to help him get down some of the medicine he was one) and he wolfed it right down. At the end of the week, I returned the food and my dog’s renal function checked out at an acceptable level.

I won’t presume to say that vets want sick dogs or only refer foods because of kickbacks. But I know that human doctors are affected by company reps and their offers so I sincerely doubt that the food prescribed by vets should be automatically assumed as the best option. Some vets (especially holistic ones) yes, but not a blanket trust.

2. From everything I’ve seen, anything below an 8% protein level in the food produces malnutrition–and that is in a dog that is inactive. And quality of protein is everything as well.

3. There are a range of foods you can get that have very high quality protein in them. And if you want to try to keep the protein level not too high (that’s a conversation you need to have with your vet and based on your own research as well), then one recommendation I can make (that is a dry food) is Solid Gold Holistic Blend (I think I’ve got the name misspelled). It’s the food I put my dog on after we stopped using the Science canned prescription food. We’re now no longer using it (because we got the okay to resume agility and for that, my dog needs a high protein and fat percentage plus his renal performance indicates a nearly full recovery). But I’ve always been happy with Solid Gold, the quality of their product, and the ingredients that go into it.