just found out that one of my dogs has cronic renal disease. 70% not working.  now on prescription diet. anyone out there help me as to what is ok for treats.  i thought salt free oatcakes?  any help much appreciated. still abit in shock as my dog was fine apart from weight loss. vet intended doing x-ray & scan but due to poor kidney funtion couldnt take the risk.

have a check on the prescription diet and check it's got enough protein in as a lot of them are far too low in protein... when my girl had renal failure I had to do it myself as she was allergic to rice, but these days if you check the phosphorus content of food you can pick the lowest ordinary food and that will be good for kidneys as this is the problem.... 

you could cook up some rice and fatty meat like breast of lamb or chicken legs with skin and feed that as a treat.. if you add crushed eggshells or the stomach settler - tums which is pure calcium then that will help stop phosphorus being absorbed by the dog.  Don't feed calcium tablets as these include vitamin D which counter acts the nutrient blocking, which of course is why we add it for kidney dogs.

you can also feed cottage cheese although that's not easy as a treat but butter is fine... fat isn't usually a problem, but no bones or fish due to high phosphorus content

if you feed tums or eggshells, try with one of the meals adding - vit b, c, e and whole fish oil (do not feed fish liver oil)....

rice is good as is boiled sweet potato (drain and chuck the phosphorus containing water)

my GSD lived well over a year over what the vet anticipated on a prescription diet and I lost her at nearly 14 years!

thank you penny, there is so much conflicting advice out there. you do not know what to do for the best. surely if the tinned renal food is on prescription it will have enough protein in it?

i give my girl Evening p oil. for her coat. shall i still give to her?

surely if the tinned renal food is on prescription it will have enough protein in it?

not at all unfortunately :-(  renal food was designed to sort out the phosphorus issue which it did, but the protein levels killed the dogs... case of the operation was successful but the patient died :-(

thanks pennyGC, what protein level am i looking for?

have a look what the prescription diet is, then look at what 'normal' diets are... if it's the same then it's ok... if not you need to supplement with protein... I gave up on it as my dog wouldn't eat it, I didn't worry about how much protein she was having as long as she was getting a good amount and for her it was the other side which was the problem as she didn't really like sweet potato, but she enjoyed butter & cottage cheese, then I found a puppy food with low phosphorus and reasonable protein. you may find the prescription diet is so low that it's worrying.. evening primrose oil should be ok from my recollection, whole fish oil is also a good idea, but not fish/bones or fishliver oil