Hello everyone. I've just joined up, so I hope I'm on the right forum here. I've also posted this onto the health forum, I hope that's ok?

Can you help? I have a ten and a half year old Golden Retriever. She is a wonderful, happy affectionate, dog and we love her to bits. Unfortunately, she's had digestive probs for many years now. We give her four small easily digestable meals a day, which her digestive system can cope with. Her occasional bouts of diarrhoea have been kept under control with metronidozol - used to destroy the bacterial overgrowth.

We've been careful only to resort to this treatment when we've been unable to quell the problem by traditional means ie starving, followed by fish and rice. Recently the problem had been getting worse and the bouts of illness more frequent.  We were unwilling to increase the dose of metronidozal until further investigations had been done so decided to change vets as we didn't seem to be getting any further with our existing one. 

Our new vet seems very good and immediately suggested a series of blood tests. The blood tests did show that our golden had bacterial problems in both the large and small intestine. Apparently metronidozole only works on one (can't remember which). She suggested that  this could probably be managed by an ongoing low dose of oxy-care tablets (apparently she has several Goldens and other dogs with the same problems).  We are happy with this as this really is a very, very low dosage and it does seem to be working, as Gertie has had no problems for the last couple of months - something of a record for her.  The blood test was repeated and the levels of bacteria are decreasing which is good.

This is just the background info, so I thank you for sticking with me so far.

The same blood tests unfortunately showed up a liver problem. Her liver function test is twice what it should be. The vet has pointed out that this could be an 'old age' problem. But it obviously could be an indicator of liver disease. We know that this could not have come about through using metronidozol as we only used this three of four times a year. She said that the only way to be sure would be to rest the liver, and to that end suggested a low protein diet.

Before all of this Gertie was on one large tin of Chappie a day (this being the only food she seems to cope with well). With a spoonful of tuna in springwater on the top, plus a handful of healthy biscuits. She also had the odd addition of other tasty healthy, low fat,  things to her meals, like grated carrot or apple. We split into four small meals. This seemed to work well, she looks healthy, is a good weight (but not overweight) and has a lovely shiny coat.

The vet has told us to cut the protein right down for four weeks, when the test will be repeated.  So the poor lass is currently on, one small tin of Chappie a day with boiled rice and biscuits - again, split into four meals.

Having read the posts on this forum and other places on the web, I'm a bit disturbed to find out that the suggestion for encouraging the health of the liver is not to cut out protein, but to give good high quality protein. Before we continue down the route that the vet has suggested, I want to make sure that we're not actually going to make matters worse. Shouldn't we be giving her something that will help the liver repair itself, not just giving it less work to do. And doesn't the liver produce some of the enzymes needed to aid food digestion? It's all a bit of a digestive minefield.

The advent of the internet has given us all the means to research these things, but there's nothing like asking experienced 'doggy' people for help and advice in my book.

I'm sorry this post is so long, and I thank you for sticking with it to the bitter end.

We would go to the ends of the earth for our chum, so I want to be completely sure that any treatment given is completely in her best interests. Of course, if the blood tests remain the same in a few weeks time, she will have to have a biopsy. But we really want to help her as much as we can before we get to that stage.

Thank you all, very much.

Annie

My understanding is that the kidney is the organ than deals with the byproducts of digesting protein but I wonder if by thinking it was "old age" that was reducing the level of liver function they are also suspecting the kidney function to be similarly impared, I'm sure if you asked your vet to explain their line of thought they would.  One thing that seems to be ringing little bells at the back of my head is that humans are advised not to eat tuna more than a couple of times a week because of the levels of mercury to be commonly found in it.  You speak of a spoonfull a day but is that a teaspoon or a tablespoon eitherway I don't really understand the full implication of whether just traces of mercury would be hard to metabolise on a daily basis so perhaps a mention to you vet as regards that would rule it out as a problem or not.
Your new vet does seem to be setting about it with some gusto and with the improvement in her digestion generally perhaps this liver function thing will not prove to be too much of an inhibiting factor to her anyway I hope things continue to improve for you :)

Hi Isabel,

Impaired liver function (which obviously can be for a variety of reasons) most commonly requires a high quality source of protein, but similarly to renal problems generally suggests only as a low % ratio of the diet.  I think you make a very good point re the tuna being added as part of the current diet and as you say should be mentioned to the OP's vet - we keep reading more and more about mercury levels but it seems to be a grey area as far as the general public's ability to know what is and what isn't safe.

regards, Teri  :)

Hello Annie, sorry to hear about your Goldie's health problems.

The liver is involved in digesting protein.  High quality protein reduces the amount of work that the liver has to do to digest it but no protein is safe to give in unlimited quantities, therefore it is necessary to moderate the amount of protein also.

I hope she improves soon.

The liver is also used to digest fat, so lower-fat food is better when the liver's under stress.

Hi this site may help you

http://www.dogaware.com/specific.html#liver

Also short term use of milk thistle can be helpful in detoxifying the liver.