Protein Percentages

[menacebear]

My OH and I have recently switched all 8 of the dogs to RAW food and they are loving it! However my old guy, Menace, has recently had a total blood analysis and the results have come back that his kidney function is deteriating(sp). His level of something that starts with a U(sorry, i've forgotten) is 9.8 and it should be 8.9. So the condition isnt serious yet but obviously these levels may continue to rise. The vet advised me that the near death level is around 27.

He has advised me to put Menace on a low protein diet like hills K/D or royal canin renal. How ever he also said i can look around and see if i can find another diet that is low in protein. From the way he was talking the most important thing seemed to be the low protein and not anything else that these foods contained.

So my question is does anyone have any advise on what i can feed him? The protein level needs to be below about 17%. Bonnie has an old dog food that is very low protein but i'm wondering is there any raw food he can still eat? Someone advised me that chicken legs and thighs are around 13% protein. Is this correct? Does any one know? If so would i be able to keep him on the raw food?

I don't mind buying him the expensive food if it is the only thing that will increase his lifespan, however if it's not really going to do anything i would prefer to keep him on raw. I'll feel bad feeding him dry while everyone else is tucking into their bones!! Opinions please

[MolassesLass]

This site has a quick table of proteins in meats.

This site is much more comprehensive but also complicated (use the top right search box to find what you want and it will list the protein amount in the nutrition table).

Sorry I can't be of any more help.

[Cavandra]

Basically I wouldnt be changing from a raw diet....Commercial products are abnormally high in low grade quality Proteins.......A raw diet is already lower protein than these fake food diets if you get my drift. I would be consulting a homeopathic Vet, and giving large amounts of purified water..

It sounds like you have only begun a raw diet, so the benefits are not yet to be seen if this so, as it takes along time to detox a dog from all the toxins & junk in comemrcial foods & Veterinary drugs such as Vaccines & top spot treatments etc..............

Extract from here

As Dr. Pitcairn says in his book Dr. Pitcairn's complete guide to natural health for dogs & cats

"...Chemicals in food (like preservatives, coloring agents and artificial flavoring agents) and in the environment (contaminated water, air and soil) are directly stressful to the kidneys and probably play a role in the development of the condition. In addition, lack of adequate exercise and diminished exposure to natural environments compound the problem of inadequate elimination and a sluggish metabolism."

Exercise of some kind is important to keep all the body's systems functioning. If your pet really can't walk (briskly is to be hoped for), see if it will hold still for being bounced gently on a trampoline (this is very good for flushing the circulatory systems) or, second best, rocking in a rocking chair. (My dogs like "trampolining".)

The skin, playing a part in elimination, also is linked to kidney troubles. More from the Pitcairns: "...Long-term skin irritation and eruption often seem to precede eventual kidney failure in old age. If the skin disorder is repeatedly suppressed with doses of cortisone or related corticosteroid drugs, the relationship seems especially true." (A good reason to rely on a natural healing modality like homeopathy for skin disorders!)

This book, by the way, has recipes for canine and feline "kidney diets", recommended herbs (alfalfa and marsh mallow), homeopathic tissue salts, and natural kidney crisis therapy. I highly recommend making sure it's in your home library.

Food and drink are so basic... And most commercial pet food has all kinds of crap in it. Here's an article that elucidates what some of it might be:

http://www.wholisticanimal.com/commercialfood.html

Then there are other toxins in the environment. You know some things that are bad: tobacco smoke and exhaust fumes are big ones that come right to mind. If your pets are being exposed to these, see what you can do to limit those stressors. This is taken from "Dr. Mike's" online question-and-answer page with a bunch of discussions on kidney-related issues (http://www.vetinfo.com/dkidney.html):

"Toxins that are known to affect the kidneys: lead, mercury, arsenic (usually arsenicals used to treat heartworms), cadmium, chromium, thallium, ethylene glycol (antifreeze), carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, pesticides, herbicides, solvents, snake or bee venom, possibly mushrooms, vitamin D toxicosis from rodenticides." Look around!

Also from that article is this information on diet for dogs (my italics):

"It is still recommended that a low total protein, but very high quality protein, diet be given to dogs with...chronic renal... The reasoning is that administration of high protein levels doesn't help because they aren't conserved and that there may even be increased damage from the increased protein passing through the kidneys. It is also good to provide a low sodium diet to decrease hypertension which may be damaging the kidneys and low phosphorous since it appears that phosphorous may actually be a major cause of damage in deteriorating kidneys."

[Sheridan]

It depends on the type of renal problem that he has as to which food is best as they do different things. The diet needs to be low in protein but what protein there is should be very high quality. The U would probably be Urea (called BUN - blood urea nitrogen in the US). Urea is a waste product normally removed by the kidneys – too high a level shows urea is being retained. The level it's at (the 8.9) depends on how it's measured. At IDEXX labs, urea is measured between 2.5-9.5. Anything above 9.5 is too high (my dog had 56.1 when first measured).

Hills K/D is good as is the Royal Canin Renal. One to consider is the Hills Ultra Z/D, which hydrolises the protein so it's easier to retain.

If you want a natural diet, do not not not! continue just to feed raw without consulting someone who knows what they're doing. Certainly, do not take the advice of people from DOL. A renal diet should be in consultation with a vet. There's a holistic vet in Sydney and there's one that I posted about in a previous recent renal diet thread who consults over the net and does a diet according to what the test results say.

Edited January 15, 2009 by Sheridan

[menacebear]

It depends on the type of renal problem that he has as to which food is best as they do different things. The diet needs to be low in protein but what protein there is should be very high quality. The U would probably be Urea (called BUN - blood urea nitrogen in the US). Urea is a waste product normally removed by the kidneys – too high a level shows urea is being retained. The level it's at (the 8.9) depends on how it's measured. At IDEXX labs, urea is measured between 2.5-9.5. Anything above 9.5 is too high (my dog had 56.1 when first measured).

Hills K/D is good as is the Royal Canin Renal. One to consider is the Hills Ultra Z/D, which hydrolises the protein so it's easier to retain.

If you want a natural diet, do not not not! continue just to feed raw without consulting someone who knows what they're doing. Certainly, do not take the advice of people from DOL. A renal diet should be in consultation with a vet. There's a holistic vet in Sydney and there's one that I posted about in a previous recent renal diet thread who consults over the net and does a diet according to what the test results say.

I would be considering using the Royal Canin diet as it comes in a 14kg bag and being a large dog he will go through it quite quickly. It was Urea that the vet was talking about. He said that Menace's kidneys aren't filtering waste product as effectivly as they should be. It's currently at a level of 9.8 so higher than it should be. The vet said that 8.9 was as high as you would want it to go. What did you use to help with your dog? Did it increase the life span or have any effects that were noticable to you?

They have only been on the RAW diet for a couple of weeks but Menace weighed 36.4 on the day he had the test done and weighed in at 37.7 6 days later. The vet was no help at all in regards to a natural vs commercial diet. He simply advised low protein but even said that i could look around at different diets, including senior or normal food, as long as the protein level was below 18% Something like Bonnie lite and white is much lower protein that 18% but surely food like that wouldnt be good for him?

This matter confuses me utterly and thoroughly. I just want to do what is best for him. If a commercial diet is not going to increase his lifespan (as the science diet claims to do) then I'd prefer him to just stay on food he at least enjoys.

[Sheridan]

Well, the size of a bag and how quickly a dog goes through it wouldn't be my first consideration. In fact, it wouldn't even be a consideration.

The vet who does over the net consults is Dr Remillard at Pet Diets. She bases a diet around what the dog's test results say.

My dog was pts three weeks after he was diagnosed. To my mind, urea of 9.8 is only slightly over the top of the reference range (as stated my dog's urea was 56.1). What were the other results, such as UPC?

[menacebear]

The size of the bag is only a consideration as he will go through a 4kg bag in no time and as i am getting it through my work I dont want to piss the vet clinic off by getting it every week for him. Plus I have heard that some dogs refuse to eat the K/D diet.

He had one other level that was slightly higher than normal, I'm not sure which it was. It had to do with his kidneys though. The full blood and urine analysis showed the only thing wrong with him at all is the kidenys. His back legs are also starting to fail on him (He's an approx 11 year old rescue GSD X Rotty) He has no muscle on his hind legs and I wonder if that has something to do with his body not processing the protein properly. All the dogs including him were on Bonnie working dog food before the RAW and it has a level of 22% protein.

Thanks for the link to the website. I'll go check it out now

[BrunoBella]

High protein levels do not cause kidney disease, they are just a natural way to reduce the urea and creatinine levels. Lowering protein levels does not stop the disease getting worse, it just lowers the symptoms. I have treated humans with kidney disease for 15 years as a nurse.

In humans you don't get any symptoms of kidney disease untill your kidney function is down to 5% (for humans they have a creatinine level of > 500 which is really, really high). If your dog is 11 he might never show any symptoms before he dies of old age but I'm not sure how fast the symptoms move in dogs.

As Sheridan said, their dog was not diagnosed till the Urea level was 56.1 so this might be the level that dogs start showing symptoms.

Could you ask your vet (who should have told you already) how fast he thinks the kidney disease is going to get worse (he should have told you that already though)?

Hope it all goes well

[menacebear]

The thing that led us towards running the test in the first place was unexplained weight loss coupled with incontinence(sp?) The vet told me that there is no way of repairing the damage that the kidneys have already recieved only that you can improve the kidney function with the lower protein diet.

I'll be taking him back on wednsday for his next cartrophen injection so I will try to speak more to the vet about it then. The hardest part is that the vet clinic doesn't seem to know a great deal about raw diets so is unable to help me in that department.

[BrunoBella]

Weight loss is definitely a symptom.

You'll have to do some research. Steer clear of fads though....... kidney disease has been around for a long time so there should be lots of information.

I was looking at some of list of a foods protein content. If you have a calculator, one percent = 1gm per 100mls/gms.

So to get food less than 13% means it has to have less than 13gms per 100mls.

Don't forget that other foods count as part of the 13%. So beef at 23% can be mixed up with a non-protein food to equal 13%.

[Diva]

You should also be aware that raw fed dogs may typically have a slightly higher normal blood urea and red blood cell count than cereal-based kibble fed dogs. Below is an excerpt from an article I have by Jean Dodds. You may be able to find it by google but I don't have a link. I bolded the last sentence, not the author.

'Raw Food Diet Study:

In collaboration with Dr. Susan Wynn, we investigated the basic clinical laboratory parameters of 256 healthy adult dogs of varying ages and breed types being fed raw food diets for at least 9 months. The same laboratory (Antech Diagnostics) analyzed the samples from 227 of the dogs. From this group, there were 87 dogs fed the classical BARF diet of Dr. Ian Billinghurst, 46 dogs were fed the Volhard diet of Wendy Volhard, and the remaining 94 dogs were fed other types of custom raw diets.

There were 69 dog breeds represented, including 233 purebreds, 16 crossbreds, 1 mixed breed and 6 of unknown breed type. The predominant breeds represented included: 28 Labrador Retrievers, 21 Golden Retrievers and 21 German Shepherd Dogs, 10 Whippets, 8 Shetland Sheepdogs and 8 Bernese Mountain Dogs, 6 Rottweilers, 6 Border Collies, 6 Doberman Pinschers, and 6 German Pinschers, and 5 Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, 5 Australian Shepherds, 5 Borzoi, and 5 Great Danes. Most of the dogs were neutered males (73) or spayed females (85), whereas there were 31 intact males and 32 intact females. Another 6 dogs were of unknown sex. The mean age of the group was 5.67 ± 3.52 years (mean ± SD); and the mean length of time fed a raw food diet was 2.84 ± 2.54 years. The data from this group of dogs were compared to the same laboratory parameters measured at Antech Diagnostics from 75 healthy adult dogs fed a commercial cereal-based kibbled diet. Preliminary statistical comparisons of results for the raw and cereal-based diets found them to be essentially the same with the following notable exceptions:

• Higher packed cell volume (hematocrit) in all raw diet fed groups (range of 51.0 ± 6.6 – 53.5 ± 5.6 %) versus cereal-based kibble (47.6 ± 6.1 %).

• Higher blood urea nitrogen (BUN) in all raw diet fed groups (range of 18.8 ± 6.9 – 22.0 ± 8.7 mg/dL) versus cereal-based kibble (15.5 ± 4.7 mg/dL).

• Higher serum creatinine in the Volhard raw diet group only (1.20 ± 0.34 mg/dL) versus cereal-based kibble (1.07 ± 0.28 mg/dL).

While a more detailed analysis of other parameters has yet to be completed, initial results indicate that dogs fed raw meats (natural carnivores) have higher red blood cell and blood urea nitrogen levels than dogs fed cereal-based food (obligate omnivores). Thus, the normal reference values for dogs fed raw food diets should probably be revised.'

[Sheridan]

True, but I'd be interested to know what the other raised level was. Creatinine, for example, or UPC.

ETA: Menacebear, I would be surprised if there was only one other raised level. Do you have a copy of the results?

Edited January 16, 2009 by Sheridan

[BrunoBella]

That's very interesting DIVA. This is one of the reasons I don't like normal ranges for test results cause they are always changing....

Edited January 16, 2009 by BellasPerson

[menacebear]

Finally have had time to post. The other level that was raised was Creatinine i believe (it was directly under the Urea on the results) It was at a level of 25 and since the

higger end level was 24.9 that also was only very mildly raised. The odd thing is that since starting him on a raw diet he has gained 3 kilos in the 3 weeks since his

inital blood test.

I have started him on a diet of Royal Canin early onset Renal and chicken carcass. He is having 2 cups of the renal food and 300g of carcass. I have decided to keep him

on the chicken also as he has been gaining weight on it ans the protein level of carcass is quiet low. I also want him to get some enjoyment out his meals and would like to keep

his teeth in good condition (the dry food is ridiculously small pieces) I'm going to try him on this diet for around 6 weeks and then i will get his urea level tested and see where \

it is at. If it is high then he will go straight onto plain renal food.

At 11 years old, and a rotty x GSD, there is a good chance his hind legs will give out on him before his kidneys do so I will just try to do the best for him that i

[Sheridan]

Sounds great, Menacebear. The main thing is to keep that weight on and to keep him eating!

Just ETA that on my dog's results the reference range was 0.06-0.16 mmol and his creatinine level was 0.61. The specialist in the disease he had said she'd never seen such bad bloodwork results.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Sheridan

[Silverblue]

I found this site helpful

http://www.iris-kidney.com/

and this one, good luck.

http://www.vetprof.com/clientinfo/KidneyDi...nDogs/index.htm

Edited January 26, 2009 by Silverblue