JulesP

I prefer the K9+ crates for putting up and down and taking out as the catches etc are easier to use than the cheap ones, plus I like the insulated roof. I do have a cheapie from Deals Direct that just sits at home set up and that has lasted for ages.

If your dog isn't having roo on a regular basis then I would probably just try roo first rather than finding a totally fresh protein.

Some of the faults that prevent showing can be fairly superficial though. ie pricked ears in a Border Collie.

Is that as well as the Augustine products too,Yonjuro? I am liking what I am reading. A corner appears to have been turned. Horrible Herbert is not eating poop any more. Paws crossed it was just a fad. :) Yes it is :) I will say that I don't know if it is necessary but for me if it aint bloke don't fix it. The AA super boost is pretty cheap to feed anyway. Hopefully this little bit of info on what I feed won't turn into a heated debate on the merits of AA though :) That is great news that Horrible Herbert is not eating poo anymore Did I hear AA mentioned? :p

Amber's last season went for nearly 3 months She does have a liver condition which could be the cause of that though.

You should have said no to the tradie. So yes you were irresponsible. By doing that you let the dog down. Sorry if you don't like me saying that but you need to accept your own part in all this. You need to think carefully about the situations that you put your dog in.

Any more results yet?

You are very lucky that your dog only nipped the tradie. A tradie near me got airlifted to hospital after being mauled by dogs similar to yours after the owners left him working in the house. My dogs are super friendly but I wouldn't leave them with strangers in their territory. The dog was probably dumped in the first place because it has issues. I doubt they are fixable and it will just be a matter of managing the problems.

You are most welcome :) I know some people poo-poo holistic vets but I wonder if there is a good one near you that you can get a diet opinion from. I think they specialise more in diet than traditional vets? Which is all very nice but do they specialise in diets for an everchanging disease? That, as I said before, is the problem with homemade diets. They have to change as the values change. I would have though someone who specialises in diet - whomever this yes, is would be able to modify the diet according to the progress of the disease? Based on your reasoning, please tell me how a static product like K/D copes with an ever-changing condition. I haven't poo-pood KD I am simply offering suggestions. It sounds like jaybeece is certainly capable of doing the required research and also more than capable of discounting any suggestions I have made. Yes, she is. :laugh: nuff said hey? But seriously, you brought up an interesting question but seem to be contradicting yourself - how does the branded food you recommend account for an ever-changing condition? Thats a genuinely good question... The food isn't medicine. It is designed to be very easily digested so that the dog's organs don't have to work so hard. There are also vitamins etc that support the kidneys. It basically causes the less harm possible. Speaking from the view of treating liver disease - the food is static and the medicine changes as the dog's conditions change. I imagine it is the same for Kidney disease.

Amber finishes her season. Not much happens for a couple of months. Then she goes nuts digging and gets very sooky. Then her boobs swell. I can't remember how long her boobs stay swollen for, a couple of weeks I think. So the whole process takes a couple of months, just like a real pregnancy. Her first season was the most dramatic. She really looked like she had just had pups. She just had a really, really long season so no idea what is going to happen this time. I did notice that she is digging nesting holes though.

Amber has phantoms and she does have them as per a normal pregnancy, in the normal time frame. She was particularly hungry after her last season, even barking at me for food!!! It sounded like your dog had swollen boobies quite quickly after her season? Amber doesn't get the swollen boobies for a couple of months after her season and does a manic digging session before getting her milk in.

I found a letter on my council website which was to print off and give to your neighbor in a situation like this. I just did this as a neighbor's dog was barking itself hoarse. It wasn't massively bothering me but some other neighbors thought it was my dogs! So I did the letter in the letter box, didn't sign it, and things have been heaps better. I hardly ever hear the dogs now.

Have you tried the Nutro Lamb & Rice tins? No chicken. Does have rice & oatmeal. Made in Australia. Wellness have a heap of tinned food too. One of them might suit. Not made here obviously.

It doesn't sound like the dog came from a breeder?

Not from anyone that knows me. I got given shit from someone that I don't know the other week for having working dogs on a suburban block. I just said that they were show dogs which confused her.

This is how I would look at it. Your current diet hasn't caused the kidney issue. It is also acceptable for a dog with kidney issues. It is helping with the pancreatic issue. I would say that the pancreatic issue is more diet related, as in one fatty meal might immediately cause a problem. You want to avoid straining the kidneys but you aren't likely to shut them down with one meal. Your girl is also 12. When my dogs get to that age I move into a quality of life phase. So if she likes her current diet and isn't itchy I would keep her on it. You could look at adding some Omega oil & B vitamins and other things that support kidneys. Make sure she is drinking enough. A good vet should be able to give you diet guidelines. With liver & kidneys opinion is slightly divided in whether you need low protein or easily digestible protein.

Well a grain free kibble sitting at around 30% protein would probably be bad. Your meat has water etc in it so a slab of roo isn't pure protein :) You could look up kidney diets so you get your mixture of roo to veggies right.

My first 2 border collies both lived to 15.5 years old. Whilst they both came from breeders and had very flash pedigrees both breeders were what would be called backyard breeders now. Neither showed and both bred from their bitches as a nice experience. However both were mentored by one of the best breeders of border collies in Victoria (Margaret Garriock). I fed Supercoat & Natures gift in the beginning. Moved to BARF and then did a mixture of raw & dry. I was much more relaxed in general with these 2 dogs!! Moss never went to the vets apart from for injections. He had an amazing nature. He used to sit up on his back legs in a begging type position so you could rub his tummy. He did this to everyone! He went grey around his face quite early on. This is him at 15.5yo Fern was my special heart dog. She was totally devoted to me. I had a litter of puppies from her and did obedience. She snapped a ligament at about 3yo and it never healed properly which stopped our obedience career. She also broke a leg. Apart from that she was never sick. Fern at 15.5 looking after a baby Amber.

I would probably keep feeding her the same as you are. If she reacted to the RC chances are she isn't going to do well on K/D. My other dog that has food sensitivities doesn't do well on Hills.

My dog has been on Flagyl for 2 years non-stop and just had a blood test which showed normal levels of everything but her liver (which we know is stuffed).

Jules, I hesitated at replying to this, but I had a 14 year old cat diagnosed with kidney disease and given 6 months. Our vet put him on k/d and science diet which we continued to feed him until he died at a ripe old age of 21. This was many years ago when I was ignorant of many things, and I took the little fella's longevity as testament to the quality of the Hills food. But thinking back, from his diagnosis to the day he died he was very lethargic. He became very skinny and quiet, the muscles in his rear legs deteriorated, his coat was dull, and he was a shadow of the cat he was before. Fair enough he lived another 6 years and we made the most of his company, but thinking back I wish I fed him a better food - maybe it would've helped, even if he died younger. We had him put down as his bowels were giving up and he couldn't pass. It is possible that nothing much would have helped your cat. The change in my dog on this diet has been nothing short of miraculous. Apart from anything else she was having fits on a meat based diet. Trying to find another vegetarian diet that is low in sodium and has low purines was rather tricky. You might poo poo the ingredients in these foods but they are actually there for a reason. They haven't just put a bunch of shitty ingredients in a can so they could rip off pet owners.

There must be something in Holistic Select that is helping teeth. I stopped using it and Poppy's teeth went skanky. I started using it again and her teethies are better.

2 years a go my dog was diagnosed with a liver shunt. She was given 6 months to live. She wouldn't eat anything and was a very poorly dog. I had tried every super premium and raw diets. I put her on Hills K/D & L/D. I was fairly OMG about the products as I was a food snob. 2 years later my dog is still here, eats her crappy Hills food with gusto and is doing really well. It taught me to be more open minded about food and that the best food for a dog is the one it does well on. Commenting like you have in this thread is not helpful to anyone.

Dump it straight away. I might consider a fast for the dog too prior to the new food.

Jennifer you might want to clarify what this means - Meat & Meal(min 32%) including Meat & Bone Meal, Organic Beef, Organic Free Range Lamb, Fish Meal. What is the bolded ingredient exactly. At the moment I am not sure if this is just badly written or has some random meat & bone meal in it that could be anything.