Dog Kidney Failure
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What Is Dog Kidney Failure |
What is dog kidney failure? A dog's kidneys are organs that filter and clean the toxins out of their bloodstream. They are also responsible for adding salts to the blood and removing excessive water from your dog's urine. When a dog's kidneys fail, their ability to remove the waste products from the blood fails to function. With this failure, comes the buildup of toxins in the blood and the onset of dog kidney failure symptoms.
Depending on the severity to the damage to the kidneys, symptoms can either begin to show themselves gradually or may come on quickly, often due to a severe infection or a poisoning. In most cases however, they symptoms will appear gradually over a few months. Even if your dog has serious tissue damage in their kidneys, it is still possible for them to function at varying degrees. This is why symptoms can often be slow to appear.
The symptoms of dog kidney failure often start with excessive need to drink water and the frequent need to urinate. As the kidney disease becomes more serious, you will likely see these symptoms begin to decrease. Also, as the toxins in their blood increase, they may begin to vomit, poor appetite, diarrhea, weakness and fatigue.
Kidney Disease Prevention |
So how can you begin to prevent your dog from suffering with kidney disease? The first and most important thing to do is evaluate your dog's diet.
Unfortunately, you can not trust what you see or read on the dog food bag because the rules allow them to mislead you by using misleading wording. So even if you think you are serving what appears to be a great chunk of meat in the form of dry dog food, you are most likely not even coming close.
Feed A Quality Dog Food |
Feeding a quality dog food is an absolute necessity in maintaining your dog's kidney health. Cheap commercial dog foods are generally filled with highly processed foods and excessive amounts of fillers such as corn.
As if that's not bad enough, you will likely find chemicals, preservatives and dyes included in commercial foods. When your dog's body has to process these poor quality foods, it can lead to the potential failure of their kidneys.
These amino acids also create urea, which is a waste by-product. Normally in a healthy dog, they kidneys would process and remove the waste through urination. However, a dog that is suffering from kidney disease will be unable to remove these waste products and they will just continue to build up in the bloodstream. In other words, your dog's body will be poisoned to death.
This is why it is so important to feed a quality dog food diet and to begin that diet as quickly as possible. Although you cannot reverse or cure your dog's kidney disease once it has begun, you can give them the proper nutrition they need to fight kidney failure and prevent further damage from a poor diet.
Choosing A Quality Dog Food |
Once you discover your dog is suffering from kidney failure, it's important to choose a quality food that is low in protein content. By reducing the protein, you lower the amount of urea that is produced. This in turn allows for the amino acids to repair tissue cells. This gives your dog a chance of at least some comfort for the remaining time of their life.
The food is not only low in protein content but includes calcium, vitamin D3 and increased availability of these same nutrients. They also cut out high amounts of carbohydrates which only increase waste production in the urine. These special dog foods also show their quality by leaving out preservatives, chemicals and fillers, unlike the commercial dog foods.
Once you understand the need for a high quality diet for your dog's kidney health, it's important to learn what you should look for in a quality dog food? For a healthy dog, use your dog's individual needs and qualities to help you make a choice, including the following:
- Age
- Weight
- Breed
- Genetics
- Activity Level
- Energy Requirements
Evaluate each of the above factors and use the information to start narrowing down your quality dog food choices. It's important to remember that commercial dog foods that are found in supermarkets should not be among your choices. These foods are almost always very low quality and will NOT provide your dog with the nutrition they need and are full of fillers and by-products.
Learn To Read & Understand |
It's also vital that you learn to read and understand the label ingredients. The laws regulating the pet food industry are unfortunately still deficient which allows for the food companies to manipulate the wording on their labels and fool you into thinking you are getting a quality product when you are not. Be sure to consider using a dog food comparison chart once you have a few selections to make sure the foods you pick measure up.
If your dog already has kidney problems, they you definitely need to make the switch to the prescription dog foods that are made specifically for a dog with potential dog kidney failure and damage. Waiting to make this change could be deadly for your dog. The following are what some of the characteristics of a prescription kidney disease dog food:
- Increased availability of nutritional ingredients.
- Supplements of Vitamin D3 which your dog's body will no longer produce.
- Increased Calcium for better absorption rates.
- Low amounts of Phosphorus to equal out Potassium levels.
- Consider adding a wet dog food mixed with the diet to increase moisture content.
Always provide plenty of fresh water for your dog in both winter and summer. This is important so that your dog doesn't become dehydrated due to the large urine output. You should also feed your dog in limited amounts throughout the day instead of one large portion.
If your dog has a mild dog kidney failure and it's caught early and treated appropriately by a veterinarian, it is possible that your dog could completely recover. Unfortunately most dogs will never recovery fully and will live out their lives with some level of dog kidney failure that will eventually lead to their death.
Dialysis is a possibility for a short term kidney problem but it is not a practical long term solution. Kidney transplants are slowly becoming available at a few vet medical centers in large areas but your dog would be on expensive transplant drugs to prevent rejection.
Save your precious pooch from a life ridden with health problems and find a quality dog food that is right for your them. The few extra dollars that you spend on a quality dog food will more than pay for itself in potential medical bills and medications not to mention the improvement of your dog's quality o of life. A quality food, can give your dog a happy, healthy and prolonged lifespan and which means you gain more quality time for you to spend with your furry friend.
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