Dog with kidney failure - urgent

[equationgirl]

poor doggy - if the antibiotics take care of the infection his kidney function may improve. All is not lost yet.

Dogs love eggs - my dog used to love egg and crumbled oxo over her dinner.

thinking of you and your doggy and mr s, scumbalina.

 

[geminisnake]

At 70% failure, which is unlikely to be reversable, there's really only dialysis that even might be an option. Even so, you're only buying more time and depending on how your dog feels about regular visits to the vet for this, you have to ask yourself is it worth it?

Dunno if dialysis is available for dogs but if it is please don't do it. I watched my mate disintergarate (literally) at that stage of kidney failure and it's horrid

(((Scumbalina & Mr S)))

 

[lynne8]

thinking of you, I hope things get better for your doggy.

 

[scumbalina]

poor doggy - if the antibiotics take care of the infection his kidney function may improve. All is not lost yet.

Dogs love eggs - my dog used to love egg and crumbled oxo over her dinner.

thinking of you and your doggy and mr s, scumbalina.

Thanks The vet said to put an oxo cube on the prescription food he's got (as he won't eat it ) but the ones we get are really high in salt (not allowed) so I'm gonna try get some from a healthfood type place. He won;t eat anything, not even egg, or freshly cook lamb mince Am about to try chicken and swwet potato, fingers crossed.

 

[Strumpet]

*crosses everything*

 

[scumbalina]

Dunno if dialysis is available for dogs but if it is please don't do it. I watched my mate disintergarate (literally) at that stage of kidney failure and it's horrid

(((Scumbalina & Mr S)))

Nah,. I think if it gets to the point where he'd have to be given lots of horrible treatments and was in a lot of pain we'd have to make the decision to...you know. Although we keep thinking its at that stage he keeps just coming back from the edge - feel like we're hanging on by our fingernails here
If we can just get him through this infection, eating again, get his meds sorted (thinking of changing vets as not very happy with the stuff they've been insisting on prescribing, it looks like there's much more effective stuff available) and get his levels down then I think we've got a fighting chance, it's just hoorid all this waiting. It's hard to get on with or think about anything else at the mo

 

[scumbalina]

Chicken and sweet potato for the win!!!!!

 

[blues]

I don't know what "levels" you're wanting to get down? but have you talked to the vet about feeding him meat and eggs? High levels of protein + kidney failure isn't a good combination. Unless building him up generally is more of a consideration than the kidney issue, you might want to go for rice and sweet potato mixed in with the prescription food instead.

 

[scumbalina]

I don't know what "levels" you're wanting to get down? but have you talked to the vet about feeding him meat and eggs? High levels of protein + kidney failure isn't a good combination. Unless building him up generally is more of a consideration than the kidney issue, you might want to go for rice and sweet potato mixed in with the prescription food instead.

It's the levels of the different things they test for, creatine and urea I think are the most important ones. Yeah, we're trying to minimise the proien rich foods, but it got to the point where he wouldn't eat anything at all and the vet said it was alright to give him a bit of meat and egg mixed in with the rice/pasta etc - I tried mixing it in with prescription food but he won't have it all and he wouldn't eat plain rice- at the moment it's more about getting him to eat anything. General consensus that I can find online is that protien is okay (except for when in a bad crisis, like we are now) as long as it's high quality, ie fresh meat instead of the stuff in dried dog food.

It's really hard to know what to do, I've made sure the meat he's having is the lowest protien/phosphate possible, and am avoiding egg yolks, but at the same time he has to eat something. The other (mean) vet I spoke to yesterday said to only give him the prescription food, but I don't really see the point of prolonging his life so he can slowly starve himself to death. I dunno He wouldn't eat anything else after his bit of potato n chicken earier, so I had to blend some food up with all his medication and smear it on his gums.

Maybe I'll try some different veg instead of meat, or soaking and blending the food they prescribed and then mixing it with some protien free stuff.

This all fucking sucks.

 

[equationgirl]

Hang in there scumbalina, he'll eat something.

 

[scumbalina]

Thanks, it's not looking good though, he's really sedate and I can't tempt him with anything, I've got the blender and a measuring syringe ready if it comes to it

I've been on a really good site for canine renal failure and they seem to think our vet is made of pants, if they've been giving us shit advice which caused things to get this bad I'm not quite sure what I'll do

 

[blues]

Mixed veg & potato with gravy is usually irresistible no matter what else you put in it (Just watch the gravy for salt etc obv)

 

[scumbalina]

Mixed veg & potato with gravy is usually irresistible no matter what else you put in it (Just watch the gravy for salt etc obv)

Thanks, will try, if that works I'll jump through the computer screen and give you a massive hug

 

[scumbalina]

No hug for blues

 

[blues]

Christ, I can get anything into any dog with that one! Is your dog particularly cat-like in that he knows you've "doctored" the food so won't touch it? The two options for that one: Keep a bit of your dinner uneaten on your plate and "slip it" to the dog (with meds slipped in) preferably by throwing it so the dog catches and eats without checking it first***. It sounds like yours isn't going to be interested in "catching" a titbit thrown though, so option 2 is to put med in dog's mouth and syringe a bit of milk in the mouth through the side. It's messy, but very hard for them not to swallow.

*** I'd like to point out that I don't advocate feeding pets from your own plates, but this is hardly the time to be worrying about giving the dog the wrong message!

 

[scumbalina]

Christ, I can get anything into any dog with that one! Is your dog particularly cat-like in that he knows you've "doctored" the food so won't touch it? The two options for that one: Keep a bit of your dinner uneaten on your plate and "slip it" to the dog (with meds slipped in) preferably by throwing it so the dog catches and eats without checking it first***. It sounds like yours isn't going to be interested in "catching" a titbit thrown though, so option 2 is to put med in dog's mouth and syringe a bit of milk in the mouth through the side. It's messy, but very hard for them not to swallow.

*** I'd like to point out that I don't advocate feeding pets from your own plates, but this is hardly the time to be worrying about giving the dog the wrong message!

Thanks, we finally got him to eat!!!! It was the stuff you suggested, with a bit of chicken, I started by getting the smmothest bits, and putting them under his lip/next to his gum so he had to lick it off, like I did with his meds earlier, after a while he got a bit interested and started licking the spoon and my hand, and then the bowl when I slipped it under the spoon. After he'd finished that lot (leaving the peas the cheeky bugger) I got some mashed sweet potato with a bit of chicken and did the same, also managed to get it quite watery so he'd have some liquid. He only had a bit of this, but I reckon with all the little bits through out the day (gonna try again in a bit too) he's actually not done too badly.

 

[blues]

Does that mean my laptop screen's about to have a "scumbalina" shaped rent in it

Nah - that's great to hear. Was thinking the worst when the usual recipe wasn't happening.

 

[scumbalina]

Does that mean my laptop screen's about to have a "scumbalina" shaped rent in it

If he keeps going at this rate, I'd keep an eye out for it! Gravy seems to have got him going, I got a low salt one, had forgotten how much he liked it. It's good cos I can really water it down so he's getting lots of fluids too, and his appitie seems to have picked up quite a lot since he started eating. He seems to quite like lying on the sofa being hand fed, I'm sure he could get up and go to the kitchen if he wanted to

 

[blues]

I'm sure he could get up and go to the kitchen if he wanted to

And how is your other dog handling all this "special attention" being given to the hand-fed one?

 

[scumbalina]

And how is your other dog handling all this "special attention" being given to the hand-fed one?

Very much not impressed...meaning I'm now breaking all the rules of the last 10 years and giving him the odd titbit when I'm feeding the other dog.

Training has gone out the window

 

[blues]

See my disclaimer a few posts ago re feeding pets "human" food

 

[scumbalina]

Just to say that my boy passed away on Wednesday morning, thanks to everyone for their thoughts on this thread

 

[Badger Kitten]

Oh, so sorry Scumbalina.

 

[blues]

Awwww sorry to hear Scumbalina but you did what you could to make him comfortable and happy.

(((Scumbalina)))

 

[moomoo]

Oh, Scumbalina, I'm so sorry.

 

[Chairman Meow]

I'm really, really sorry to hear that.

 

[scumbalina]

Thanks all for your kind words. Felling brave so I'll say what happened.

We finally decided we really weren;t happy with our vet and took him elsewhere on Tuesday night, and saw a fantastic guy, who gave us a lot of hope and said that he didn't feel our other vets had done things right either, We went home with him, due to take him back in the morning to begin treatment, he was breathing a bit funny and he said to cal overnight if we were worried, but he didn't want to keep him in as he'd be all alone. His brething got a little maybe a little bit more strained towards the morning but we thought we'd wait until he was going in at 9 as we didn't want to disturb him. We were up during the night regularly cuddling him, and our other dog curled up close to him throughout. Mr S got up in the morning, gave him a cuddle and went and got dressed and came back to take him to the car -and he was gone. We thought we felt a heartbeat and rushed him to the vets incase but it was just wishful thinking, so we bought him home so our other dog could see he body and say goodbye as we were told it would help him understand, then took him to Mr S's parents garden (we haven't got one at the mo) and buried him in the spot where M S does the BBQ's in Summer so he's always close.

I'm really struggling to cope and feel so heartbroken, being at home without himfeels awful and walking our other dog alone is so hard - I hope things
get easier in time. I didn't realise just how muc of our daily routine revolved around the boys, doing things in a different order feels strange,and the past few weeks had revolved around him 24/7. I'm worried about our other boy, I don't think he really understands. I'm glad it's raining here, as hopefully it's washed his scent away, it must be confusing for our other boy when we walk him and he keeps looking for him, but then so do I

I'll never know if we made all the right choices, maybe we should have taken him back during the night, we should definately have followed our instincts about the vet. But I would have been heartbroken if he'd died alone at the vets and am comforted by the fact he went at home, on his own bed with us He passed away a few minutes before he was due to go to the vets to be put on a drip - I like to think he held it together through the night so he could be with us, then choose to go before he had to continue his struggle - maybe he'd just had enough and wanted to be at peace.


I keep thinking I should be feeling okay and everyone must think I'm nuts as he was just a dog, but I don't think I've ever been so heartbroken over a human, he was so special and I miss him so much

 

[Orang Utan]

That just made me well up - a beautiful tribute to him
You're not nuts - something you loved had gone away and of course you are sad

 

[ChrisFilter]

I sympathise. My cat, Monkey, who disappeared, is very unwell. Since she got back she couldn't jump well, but just assumed it was part of the recovery. But then on Thursday she seemed to be on death's door. She wasn't responding when you wave your hand in front of her eyes, just lay there staring into space. At 2am I took her to the emergency vets in Streatham. Vet said it wasn't kidney failure (they felt swollen, she was straining on the loo) but she was very unwell, anaemic, very high temp. She's had anti-biotics and anti-inflamatories, but she's still in a really bad way. On the plus side, she's eating and seems to have perked up a tiny bit.

I'm so sorry mate It's truly devastating.

 

[moomoo]

I keep thinking I should be feeling okay and everyone must think I'm nuts as he was just a dog, but I don't think I've ever been so heartbroken over a human, he was so special and I miss him so much

You're not nuts. The first time I ever saw my husband cry was when he had to have his dog put down. They are as much part of the family as a child and it's heartbreaking when they go.

Have a good cry, it will help.

(((((scumbalina and family)))))