Met someone with a 9 months golden retriever today asking for advice. The pup has had all the tests, scans etc and the diagnose is renal disease. On vets advice she is on half puppy food and half renal support food plus medication. She drinks gallons and pees gallons but other than that you wouldn't know there was anything wrong with her other than a bit on the lean side. Her test show that the kidneys are working much at all and now it is a case of wait and see - but you would wonder to see her.

Something she would like to know is there anything she can do or give her because she pees so much she smells of urine and she can't keep washing her fur she would be damp all the time.

Anyone have any ideas?

Hi Yappy
I haven't got any experiance of dogs with renal impairment, but I have got renal failure myself, so working on the assumption that dogs kidneys are basically the same as human kidneys, I would be rationing how much the dog is drinking. I would ask the vet whether you should be limiting the fluid intake, the more the dog drinks, the harder the kidneys have to work putting pressure on remaining function left in the kidneys, the less the dog drinks the less work the kidneys are doing, therefore hopefully extending the capacity of the kidneys to carry on functioning.
If she's thirsty all the time and wants to drink, then you could give her ice cubes to play with, and try and limit her to frequent sips of water, rather then gulping lots down at once.
But definately ask the vet about balancing her fluid intake and output, if only for her comfort, its no fun running to the loo every five minutes because you've drunk too much water.

All the very best

Robert

Is this congenital renal disease she's suffering from, or as a result of another illness? If it's congenital the breeder needs to know. Also is it in the acute stage or chronic?

"Veterinary Notes for Dog Owners" says that drinking water should always be available, the dog should eat a low-protein diet (preferably non-meat) supplementation with Vitamin B, phosphate binders (eg aluminium hydroxide gel) to prevent absorption from the intestine, and possibly long courses of anabolic steroids.

It seems like your vet is doing everything possible for her. Sorry I can't be of more help. Good luck.

To keep her clean and dry I think you may have to keep the hair around her vulva, and possibly her feathering as well, cut short so that it doesn't get wee'ed on.

Is there a reason for being on half renal support food and half regular dog food, as I would have thought that any regular food is still going to give the kidneys that bit more work to do, and as chippygonemad said drinking all that water again would do the same. If the dog will eat renal support food then why mix it, or why not mix it with rice this would be better than regular dog food. I have quite a bit of experience with renal failure. My husband had a kidney transplant 2 years ago, so I know a fair bit about what is good and bad for humans to eat, and my dobe unfortunately died of kidney failure at Christmas, i guess the advice would be pretty much the same for dogs as people, the problem we had with Jaffa was we couldn't get her to eat the renal food, and she just got thinner and thinner, still quite energetic though up to about a week before she died.

Hi Yappy

We have an 18 month old Boxer with congenital Kidney failure when it has got to the stage when the symptoms show it is too late to do anything for them other than make them as comfortable as possible. Ours will not eat the renal diet but we have had great results using wafcol senior which is formulated for elderly dogs with kidney problems we add vegetable oils etc to boost the calorie values and she has perked up no end and we finally have weight on her. Our vet is amazed and says he will try this on others who may not take to the renal diet.

She is given a steroid shot every 5 weeks and the vet gives us powder to put on her food to absorb the phosphorus through the gut (you can use calcium carbonate or ant acid tablets) so the kidneys do not work too hard. This has dramatically reduced the amount of drinking and urinating as her kidneys now have less to deal with. Under no circumstances restrict drinking this is the only thing stopping her system being poisoned. Ours will actually fret if the water bowl is empty, even if she is not thirsty she still checks it.

By all means inform the breeder on the congenital problem but this does not mean it is hereditary just that they were born with it we had a litter of 8 and all others are ok.

It is probably the high protein phosphorus and sodium in the puppy food which keeps her so ill and I know it is sad to say but if she only has a short time I would get her on to a more kidney friendly diet she will probably gain weight as ours did and with a good multi vit will definitely be no worse off.

I know our Boxer only has a short time but I like to think I did everything possible to ease her suffering, the vet said her blood results were so bad he would have only given her weeks now he is optomistic we may make the year.

Was just thinking about your girl the other day, glad she's doing OK :-D
Anne

Thanks Anne, she amazes us every day you just wouldn't know she was ill until a few days before her steroids are due when she takes a downward turn, we're just keeping our fingers crossed that she remains as pain free as possible.

Debbie

Debbie,
Can't remember if I said my Siamese had steroids for kidney failure, she was an old cat but had a good quality of life on them for over a year. I could see the change when she was due an injection. How did you get on looking for a diet for her
Anne

Anne

We have had quite a few suggetions for home made foods which sound good, at the moment we are getting good results with the Wafcol senior with added suppliments which we tried in an attempt to get her to eat something as she was starving herself to death, she loves it, so the vet advised we stick with this for a while as the improvement is so obvious, if things deteriorate then go for the really low protein home made diets.

Debbie

Hi Yappy, do you have a water softener installed ? We have had to go to our vets a lot lately and yesterday we saw the practice owner. She advised that she had a labrador that had kidney failure and she had done all the tests etc and was preparing for that final decision to put her dog to sleep when someone mentioned that the problem could have something to do with a water softener. Our vet advised that she immediately disconnected her water softener and initially started to give her dog bottled water with as low a salt content as she could find. The dog recovered in full from its kidney problems and went on to live a happy and healthy life for another 3 - 4 years. I would never have known that a water softener could cause problems if I had not spoken to my vet. This may be the cause of my dogs problems which I have posted previously. Needless to say, as soon as we returned home yesterday from the vets we disconnected the water softener although this may get us into trouble as we are only renting the property we are currently in but our dogs health comes first. Fingers crossed we will start to see an improvement shortly.

When there is a water softener in the property doesn't there have to be a minimum of one tap connected straight from the mains?

I honestly do not know. We are renting the property we are in at the moment as looking to relocate to another part of the country. No one from the letting agents warned us that there would be any problem with drinking the water from the taps but we have disconnected the water softener so no longer have that problem. Unfortunately we are going to have to wait at least a week before we know if the water softener is the cause of our boys problem. Logically, if you think about it, the salt in the water softener dissolves and has to go somewhere but having never had a water softener before it is not something we even thought about.