Advice on feeding

notfromhere

Hi all,I have two dogs a lab cross(Piper) and a cocker spaniel(Skye) both 5.Last week, Skye was diagnosed with kidney disease,I have gotten a small bag of renal dog food for her, at the moment i am trying to switch her over to it.The problem i have is trying to feed them in the morning, before i go to work, before i used to leave both bowls out and they would eat away,Now with two different foods if they dont eat when am there i cant leave the food out.I am just trying to get food into the Skye before i go to work.Any advice on this or having a dog with kidney disease would be much appreciated.

tk123

Ah sorry to hear about your dog - I lost my girl to kidney disease at Christmas TBH I wouldn't be feeding a dry food at all because it's extra work for the kidneys - a wet, raw or home cooked diet would be better imo. If she's happy to eat the dry and you're happy to feed it I'd maybe try a treat dispenser like a kong wobbler etc to get her excited and she might eat it faster. Zooplus do a few renal foods which are handy to have for when she goes off what you're feeding now. The Rinti one was Lucy's favourite and I ended up getting the Intestinal one instead of renal as there's only 0.02% difference for phosphates - this meant I could feed it to my boy if she went off it rather than it going to waste. I actually have a few trays left as I bought a shedload to allow for xmas post/delays lol
This is a link to the zooplus foods .. Price wise their most expensive Concept is pretty much the same as Rocco so don't waste your money on it. I rotated integra, Rocco and Rinti but she favoured rinti most.
Dogaware.com also has a kidney section with information on feeding raw or home cooked : http://dogaware.com/health/kidneydiet.html

notfromhere

Thanks very much for the reply,to be honest, am not to happy with giving her dry food i will look into getting her some wet food from zooplus, was looking at that dogaware it is very good, there is so much information out there that it is a little overwhelming,One site says do this another says do that,I think at the moment am getting stressed out over the eating and the kidney disease.

tk123

Yes I was the same tbh. What stage is your girl at? Lucy was late stage 2 - stage 3 when diagnosed. She had none of hallmark systems and was otherwise fit and healthy - my only inkling was that she was lagging behind on walks and she was ever so hesitant eating - we actually thought it might be her sight because it as hesitating for a few seconds and then she'd eat! No excess weeing/drinking/weight loss.

My biggest regret is getting so caught up on her food and not letting her have all the treats she loved - all the jerky type stuff that was suddenly banned. And I was terrified of feeding the wrong things. The protein debate is there too with different opinions on how much they should/shouldn't have.

It's very tough emotionally and just over whelming trying to decide what advice to follow. I would advise NOT joining FB groups on it - it's just post after post of pets dying and can make you feel even more hopeless

PS if you're using Ipakatine - it's much much cheaper online. I used to get a few at a time from here : https://www.feedmyanimal.com/vetoquinol-ipakitine-pulver-dose.html

notfromhere

Yea i had a look at the FB groups and there not great, Am not sure what stage she is it I was only told last week and i did not even know that there were stages. The vet was giving me a lot of information about the results and a lot of it went over my head to be honest. She is getting back to me next week with more results so i will find out then. It really has been a rollercoaster since late August, this all started of as a eye infection for which she was given drops for, after about a week with no improvement she started to walk into things in the house, and if was off lead would look lost,Went back to the vet and he give her some tablets and referred her to a eye specialist in Cork, who told me that she was blind in one eye and had some vision in the other, but her bloods weren't really showing the cause of it. She then put me in touch with Gilabbey in cork,But because of covid and a backlog i could only get in last week.She was there for two days and the ultrasound pick up the kidney disease.
The treats break my heart i got rid of must of them, but still have some for the other dog have to sneak them out to Piper when Skye is not looking.

tk123

I used to get these ones :
https://www.petfooddepot.ie/shop/product/12083-tribal-apple-mint-ginger-natural-dog-treats-56235
https://www.petfooddepot.ie/shop/search?query=Whimzees&channel=pet-food-depot&sid=8uHk7z5wFbpq17I2Giw4YrLw0n0ABk

Also air popped popcorn is ok too lol

notfromhere

thanks very much for you help