Help With Kidney Failure (Dog)

Skillie

Our retriever went to the vets today for further tests on her kidneys as she had a blood test yesterday and it showed up problems with her kidneys. She’s 7 years old now and she’s been loosing weight in the last couple of months without explanation her appetite hasn't decreased or increased, shes walking fine not showing any major signs of anything wrong but shes lost aout 10% of her bodyweight in 2 months and is very thin esp for a dog whos always struggled to keep weight down and would typically have been on “needs to loose a little weight” list. Now she was never fat just not thin and lean, shes spayed etc. We have done everything we could I think since we started noticing it we brought her to the vets and he felt she was in good shape and not too thin and that we should just monitor the weight over time. So weekly weigh ins for the last few weeks and then we decided enough was enough it needed further investigation. So bloods were taken yesterday and the results found a problem which needed a urine test today and whatever else they deem fit. I have no knowledge of kidney probs and must start my research as to the possible causes, prognosis, outlook and solutions etc.

its renal failure and the longterm outlook is bleak according to the vet. we're distraught and will have to go in later to speak to the vet in detail about all our options but for now he is saying she will be treated as best we can and monitored over the coming weeks and months but its not something shes going to live with it is going to shorten her life significantly its a case of lottery as to how long she has left. afraid i am at a loss to say any more. if anyone can offer any first hand experience or help it would be great thanks

boomerang

Hey Skillie,

First of all, my sympathies on the diagnosis. I know it's a shock. But don't give up hope just yet - wait for the blood test results and urinanalysis. Kidney failure is staged. Depending on the blood work she could have mild, moderate or advanced renal insufficiency. The earlier the stage, the more you can do to prolong her life, but even in advanced cases there are plenty of supplements and treatments that will help keep her comfortable.

There is a lot of helpful information on the internet but I don't want you to get bogged down this early in the day. The first thing I'd have a look at is this excellent info on the Dog Aware website:

http://www.dogaware.com/health/kidney.html

I have a dog with mild renal insufficiency, so I've been through the shock of the diagnosis and all the reading and research that comes with it. When you are ready and you have the results of the blood work and urinanalysis (ask the vet for copies) then I would join K9 Kidneys - it's a Yahoo! group! They are a very supportive, expert bunch and there is more info and resources there than anywhere else on the internet. The amount of info available and the variety of supplements/treatments suggested can be really overwhelming at first though which is why I'd suggest you take a few days to let things sink in before jumping into the technical stuff.

If the vet is recommending Hills k/d or Royal Canin renal food, you could try homecooking instead. That's what I do for my dog and she loves it. It's far more nutritious for her than the commercial foods for dogs with kidney problems. There is a lot of reading and research to do before you can start preparing homecooked food for a kidney-impaired dog, but if you want to go down that road I'll do my best to advise you. There's also another great Yahoo! group, called K9 Kidney Diet.

For more support and encouragement I'd also recommend CRF dogs on Facebook - Carolyn and the girls are great:

https://www.facebook.com/CRFDogs?ref=ts

If you have to jot down the results from the vet rather than getting a print out, the most important blood test results from a diagnostic point of view are BUN (blood urea nitrogen) and creatinine. The phosphorous level in the blood is another one to note.

Urine-wise, he should check how concentrated her pee is. This is called urine-specific gravity. He'll also need to find out the level of creatinine and protein in her pee and if there are any traces of blood in it.

boomerang

tk123

The fact that she's not showing major signs, still eating and walking would be really positive signs to me and would make me try the treatment. I know there's special diets for kidney problems that can help manage it.
My cat died of kidney failure but there was nothing they could do for him - even with IVs his results got just worse, he wasn't eating and was withdrawn just staying by himself so for me it was a no brainer because he was suffering and I didn't want it to go on. He was fine one day then off his food and vomiting the next so I brought him in but it was too advanced - we think it may have been lillies that did it.
I would try the treatment and see what quality of life she has on it. I really feel for you Skillie - I'm holding back tears typing this because it's so scary and heartbreaking to be in this position.

boomerang

tk123 wrote: »

The fact that she's not showing major signs, still eating and walking would be really positive signs to me and would make me try the treatment. I know there's special diets for kidney problems that can help manage it.(

tk123 is right Skillie. Her relatively young age and the fact she is still eating willingly suggests to me that it's not advanced kidney failure. Obviously I don't want to get your hopes up without knowing the results of her bloodwork and urinanalysis, but I would be cautiously optimistic. If it's at mild/moderate stage you can stall any further damage to her kidneys (and greatly extend her lifespan) by carefully controlling her diet.

carwash_2006

Boomerang has given you very good advice on feeding etc. I will just give you one tale that should give you some hope.

One of my mothers collie crosses was diagnosed with fairly severe renal failure at age 11, after treatment from the vet and going on the special diet she rallied very well. She would go downhill every year to 6 months, but after a spell in the vets would rally again. At about 13 the vet gave her another 6 months before her quality of life would deteriorate too much, however she obviously wasn't listening :pac: We finally made the decision that her quality of life and physical health was going downhill too fast in early April this year at the age of 16

So while the longer term future may not be great, don't despair that she will not get another few good years yet. Hope she does well and you have her around for a good while yet.

DBB

Skillie,
I'm so sorry that you got a bad diagnosis with your dog, hearing such news is just spine-chilling, I really feel for you.
I'll also go along with what Carwash and Boomerang have advised about diet: the trick now is to give her liver and kidneys as little work to do as possible, which will mean really getting purity into her diet, and taking out anything you can which gives the main organs work to do.
I'm not sure if there's a better way to do this that to get her onto a natural diet, providing her with a balanced mix of meat, veg, nuts, and perhaps certain supplements. Whilst I feed my own dogs semi-natural now with a view to going fully-natural, I'm no expert on it, so I'd suggest you have a goosey at Tom Farrington's (homoeopathic vet) blog, which also links to the foodie bit of his website:

http://tomheals.blogspot.com/

I think the natural food approach is fab, but I will admit to not being a huge fan of feeding raw meat. Dogs prefer it cooked anyway! But Tom advised me to lightly cook the food for a liver patient, so worth asking about a kidney patient. Try to make contact with him, he's really good and although he's a conventional vet, he can also see thigns from another angle with alternative remedies and support systems.

The very best of luck with your Retriever, I hope you can get her stabilised and find a way to keep her healthy for as long as possible:)

Skillie

Thank you so much for this detailed and very informative reply and to all the rest of you too for your kind words and advice. Yesterday was just the worst day ever really and we were totally bowled over by it all. I know we only have our furry friends in our lives for a short while but it doesn’t make it any easier when you are faced with them leaving. Shes 7 and we knew she was getting on to that stage of her life where things could get tricky, retrievers are prone to such things I suppose and we’d always feared cancers etc, but we really hoped to get her into old age at least.

The talk with the vet yesterday went as expected its at stage III he says we got a copy of the bloodwork and the urinalysis and the results were

UPC 3.97 (he said anything above 0.5 is bad)
Specific Gravity 1.016

HCT 35.7% low
RDW 18.3% High
BUN 27.6 mmol/L very high
CREA 436 micro-mol/L very high
Phos normal
AMYL 1694 U/L

He was non committal on how long she’d have without seeing how she’d do in the coming weeks to months, he said worst case a month to 3 months, absolute best a year to 2 but he’d be thinking months rather than years. He said it depends on how fast its progressing and things like that. He’s started us on the Hills K/d and ACE inhibitors but said he’d hold off on phosphorous binders a while as her levels are ok. Thankfully she ate the food ok anyway last night and this morning as that was the main worry.

Shes been on the raw food diet for 2 years so going back to dry food was a worry but so far so good shes eating it. Her form is good she had her walks last night and this morning and was happy out, she has had no vomiting or diarrhoea just weight loss (she has gone very boney in the space of 2 months) increased water consumption, bad breath and a bit of a loss of appetite. She has been eating but over the last few months shes been turning her nose up at meals a lot more esp in the morning. We thought it was just getting bored with the food etc or fussiness or that the bowls were bothering her. She can be noise sensitive. So we changed bowls that didn’t work, changed food and she was still picky, but still eating enough and we weren’t too worried as shes always been carrying a kg or 2 more than she should, she was always around 34/35kg but never too heavy. Then it just dropped and dropped the last couple of months shes down to 31kg now and feels very boney.

As I said we are still in shock over it and still in that frame of mind where we don’t know enough yet to know whether it would be better for her to go fast or slow. The main thing is we don’t want her to suffer a minute of pain or illness. I take on board what people are saying here about how it can be managed to an extent but at least if we’re prepared for the worst anything else is a bonus. She really is the sweetest and greatest dog I’ve ever had and I’ve had dogs all my life. Right now it feels like shes on death row we’re glad shes here and we’re able to enjoy her and appreciate her as much as possible but we also feel helpless and like we’re just gonna be watching her and waiting for the inevitable to happen. Hopefully over the coming weeks we’ll have a better picture of where its at and where its going. Shes back for more bloods in a couple of weeks but for now I suppose we just have to read as much as we can and do what we can.

Thank you all so much for your input

dillodaffs

i totally feel your pain, our little schnauzer is only two and a half years old and was just diagnosed with Amyloidosis, its early days for her yet. it is so so difficult.

they are such a part of our family, i just feel so useless and feel that i should be doing more for her. i hope your doggy (and mine to) rally and come through this, i really do.

Wisco

Good luck OP- I'll be interested to hear if her values (especially urea/creatinine) come down on the diet. And yes, much of the time, the diets really do work.
There is also the option of doing things like taking her into the vets for fluid therapy (i/v fluids) for the day to help the kidneys out and then taking her home after the day if her values go up. I've seen a few people who've done this when their dog has taken a bit of a turn for the worse, but then improve a lot after the fluids and with the diet so they only needed a day or two of fluids every few months.
Obvioulsy quality of life does come into your considerations at some point, but it sounds like so far you're lucky and your dog is in good form, so so long as that continues, I'd be pretty optimistic you may have a while left yet. It also sounds like your vet is pretty on the ball with regard to treatment and advice.
Good luck- a diagnosis like this is never easy, thinking of you.

Skillie

DBB wrote: »

Skillie,
I'm so sorry that you got a bad diagnosis with your dog, hearing such news is just spine-chilling, I really feel for you.
I'll also go along with what Carwash and Boomerang have advised about diet: the trick now is to give her liver and kidneys as little work to do as possible, which will mean really getting purity into her diet, and taking out anything you can which gives the main organs work to do.
I'm not sure if there's a better way to do this that to get her onto a natural diet, providing her with a balanced mix of meat, veg, nuts, and perhaps certain supplements. Whilst I feed my own dogs semi-natural now with a view to going fully-natural, I'm no expert on it, so I'd suggest you have a goosey at Tom Farrington's (homoeopathic vet) blog, which also links to the foodie bit of his website:

http://tomheals.blogspot.com/

I think the natural food approach is fab, but I will admit to not being a huge fan of feeding raw meat. Dogs prefer it cooked anyway! But Tom advised me to lightly cook the food for a liver patient, so worth asking about a kidney patient. Try to make contact with him, he's really good and although he's a conventional vet, he can also see thigns from another angle with alternative remedies and support systems.

The very best of luck with your Retriever, I hope you can get her stabilised and find a way to keep her healthy for as long as possible:)

Is Tom still based in Cork? When we got our Newf he had been treated by Tom as he got Junior Pyoderma at 4 weeks old but i thought i remember our breeder telling us afterwards that he was leaving or something.

We have had both ours on BARF for the past 2 years and thought it was great if feeding raw is better for the kidneys too then we will deff do that. The worry obviously is that we've been feeding raw for 2 years and still ended up here so maybe the raw just slowed it down till we reached this point, who knows

DBB

Skillie wrote: »

Is Tom still based in Cork? When we got our Newf he had been treated by Tom as he got Junior Pyoderma at 4 weeks old but i thought i remember our breeder telling us afterwards that he was leaving or something.

You know Tom!:)
He went off to the US for a while, but he's back now!
He's concentrating much more on the alternative human and animal therapy since he got back. As you're a client from the past you shouldn't have too much bother getting him on board to help you, if this is a route you want to go down.
The very, very best of luck:o

Skillie

DBB wrote: »

You know Tom!:)
He went off to the US for a while, but he's back now!
He's concentrating much more on the alternative human and animal therapy since he got back. As you're a client from the past you shouldn't have too much bother getting him on board to help you, if this is a route you want to go down.
The very, very best of luck:o

Well we'll try to get him on board but we've never been clients it was our Newfs breeder that was seeing him with our guy before we got him. hopefully we can get to see him and work out a plan anyway. thanks

Skillie

going to see Tom Farrington tomorrow, so fingers crossed he can help with the management of the condition for as long as we can keep her happy and healthy

DBB

Skillie wrote: »

going to see Tom Farrington tomorrow, so fingers crossed he can help with the management of the condition for as long as we can keep her happy and healthy

Looking forward to hearing how you get on, you're fortunate to have access to such a good vet! The very best of luck with your dog.

Skillie

The visit to Toms went well. we spent 2.5 hours with him and the amount of information was hard to process. He feels she is sicker than her results indicate and the main thingnow is her diet and the fact that she isn’t drinking as much water as you’d expect with a kidney failure.

She was barely eating any of the prescription food either the wet or the dry or combinations; and lost further weight, down to 30kg the other day for a dog that has always been around 34 to 35 its horrible to see her like that. He gave us a wealth or supplements and homeopathic medicine to give her and prescribed a diet of irish stew for now to get her eating and get lots of fluid and veggies into her. We made a batch yesterday and so far shes loving it anyway and its great to see her eating and enjoying it. We will just have to see how the next few weeks go now but we are adamant that we just want her happy for as long as possible and want her to enjoy the time she has left rather than drag out her life for the sake of it it has to be about quality of life for whatever time we have her.

Still so much reading and dietary research ahead of us now but we’ll get to grips with that too. thanks

boomerang

Thinking of you guys. She's very lucky to have you!

DBB

That was some consult!
I sympathise completely with you Skillie. I was in the same situation with my GSD earlier this year, but it was liver cancer with her. It was all about prolonging her quality of life, and keeping her from getting any worse for as long as we could.
Tom was a great support and really contributed to her having a good quality of life for the short time we had with her post-diagnosis. That's the problem with the liver... by the time you realise there's something wrong, it's too late:(
But it is important, I think, that you know you're doing the very best you can for your dog. My GSD also loved the "stew" recipe that Tom put together for her, and although it's more trouble than feeding kibble, for me it was an important part of dealing with the diagnosis, that I was investing in her quality of life by giving that extra time to researching and preparing the right diet for her.
Lots of people said to make sure to wring every last bit of fun out of each day with her, but hand on heart, every day was like that for her anyway! The only change I needed to make that could possibly improve her life was to get her onto a natural diet. She was in great form, really great form, until a matter of hours before she died, and there is some amount of comfort in that for me.
Since her diagnosis, I must admit I am very, very suspicious of the effects of commercial food on the future health of the dog. But perhaps that's for another thread.
So, I wish you well Skillie, I'm sure your heart must feel heavy today (as mine does on your behalf), but you've got to do what you've got to do to help her. And it's clear you're determined to do that. I hope you have many more happy days together, watching her hoovering up her dinner, and waiting to be fed with a gleam in her eye!:o

Skillie

Thank you very much and I think you’re right about commercial dog foods even ones sold by vets. Good to hear how you took such great care of your GSD before she passed and they are such wonderful dogs. so well done and like you say you can take comfort in the fact you did all you could.

Annoying thing is we’ve been feeding our own diet of Raw for two years now we’d already turned our back on commercial foods but even if you do all the right things you can’t be guaranteed a long and healthy life. Suppose everyone knows a story of someone who never drank or smoked was super fit etc and still died young. You just never know. Its very frustrating we see dogs all the time who are neglected and mistreated, barely fed at all let alone had their dietary needs taken into consideration and yet they are fine and with our dogs they are better looked after than most people could believe yet disaster still strikes. I suppose that’s life really isn’t it. She is in great form right now enjoying her walks and her stew and her tail was wagging this morning while I was getting her brekkie ready whereas a week ago she was hiding away from the prescription diet and not toucing a crumb in the mornings and just a little in the evenings cos she was obviously just starving. I’d rather she was happy and here for less time than to be miserable on that muck. Its not like the prescription diet can cure her anyway so its home cooked happy meals and being spoilt rotten from here on in.

DBB wrote: »

That was some consult!
I sympathise completely with you Skillie. I was in the same situation with my GSD earlier this year, but it was liver cancer with her. It was all about prolonging her quality of life, and keeping her from getting any worse for as long as we could.
Tom was a great support and really contributed to her having a good quality of life for the short time we had with her post-diagnosis. That's the problem with the liver... by the time you realise there's something wrong, it's too late:(
But it is important, I think, that you know you're doing the very best you can for your dog. My GSD also loved the "stew" recipe that Tom put together for her, and although it's more trouble than feeding kibble, for me it was an important part of dealing with the diagnosis, that I was investing in her quality of life by giving that extra time to researching and preparing the right diet for her.
Lots of people said to make sure to wring every last bit of fun out of each day with her, but hand on heart, every day was like that for her anyway! The only change I needed to make that could possibly improve her life was to get her onto a natural diet. She was in great form, really great form, until a matter of hours before she died, and there is some amount of comfort in that for me.
Since her diagnosis, I must admit I am very, very suspicious of the effects of commercial food on the future health of the dog. But perhaps that's for another thread.
So, I wish you well Skillie, I'm sure your heart must feel heavy today (as mine does on your behalf), but you've got to do what you've got to do to help her. And it's clear you're determined to do that. I hope you have many more happy days together, watching her hoovering up her dinner, and waiting to be fed with a gleam in her eye!:o

Kitschy_Cat

My dog (Goldie, a 13yr old cross between a labrador and a retriever) has been recently diagnosed with Kidney disease. I spent a few days crying and now I'm in the strong mother mode looking for ways to improve her quality of life and maintain/slow the progression of the disease. Thanks a million for this! The diet plans have been really helpful Fingers crossed I have a few years left with her yet. I can't imagine my life without her around

Skillie

So sorry to hear your news it's heart breaking. My advice is diet and subq fluids they made the biggest difference. Not sure if u can visit west cork to see Tom but he's excellent for the diet stuff I'm not a believer in homeopathic medicine myself. check out Crf dogs on fb such an amazing group there just lovely caring people with great as advice. feel free to pm me it's a horrible time but it's all about quality of life really