Homemade dogfood?

[mamaluv321]

Well, my dog Marz is 13 and she has started leaking pee, and have been told to try homemade food before steroids or other meds. Somethng about lowering phospherous or something... Can't remeber rite now. But wastold to mix chicken, barley, rice,oats, sweet tatoes, beets,ect into a stew and see if there is any improvement. Thought I'd dig around on the inter-webs first...

Have you had any vet work done to find the cause of the incontinence? Hormone-responsive? Bladder polyps? Bladder tumors? Neurogenic? Kidney failure? Lesion on the spinal cord? Urinary tract infection? Polyuria?

The advice you were given is for struvite bladder stones, of which incontinence is not a symptom.

I am 100% for raw dog food as an advocate for my dog's health. However, there are too many times that raw diet can do more harm than good - especially when someone tries to treat an unknown condition by manipulating macrominerals. That can lead to serious health problems!

I haven't had any labs done yet, we're a bit finacially strapped at the moment and was hoping changing her diet a bit could help, and honestly didn't think it would hurt. If you have any suggestion that are a bit cheaper (ie free! ); checking stools for certain color/consistancy ect I'd greatly appreciate it! I kno she prolly needs to see the vet, but right now unfortunatly we just can't afford it.

 

[tortoise]

Well, my dog Marz is 13 and she has started leaking pee, and have been told to try homemade food before steroids or other meds. Somethng about lowering phospherous or something... Can't remeber rite now. But wastold to mix chicken, barley, rice,oats, sweet tatoes, beets,ect into a stew and see if there is any improvement. Thought I'd dig around on the inter-webs first...

Have you had any vet work done to find the cause of the incontinence? Hormone-responsive? Bladder polyps? Bladder tumors? Neurogenic? Kidney failure? Lesion on the spinal cord? Urinary tract infection? Polyuria?

The advice you were given is for struvite bladder stones, of which incontinence is not a symptom.

I am 100% for raw dog food as an advocate for my dog's health. However, there are too many times that raw diet can do more harm than good - especially when someone tries to treat an unknown condition by manipulating macrominerals. That can lead to serious health problems!

I haven't had any labs done yet, we're a bit finacially strapped at the moment and was hoping changing her diet a bit could help, and honestly didn't think it would hurt. If you have any suggestion that are a bit cheaper (ie free! ); checking stools for certain color/consistancy ect I'd greatly appreciate it! I kno she prolly needs to see the vet, but right now unfortunatly we just can't afford it.

The most common cause of incontinence in old female dogs is reduced estrogens affecting muscle tone. If it was my dog AND I was not able to get vet care, I would add flax seed to what it is already eating.

Flax has similar phyto-estrogens to soy, but does not have the toxic/anti-nutrient affects that unfermented soy products have.

Ground flax seed is used in commercial dog foods and in homemade raw diets. Most raw feeders that use ground flax would say "just sprinkle it on the food" I would mix 1/4 cup into a soft food you know your dog will eat. Plain yogurt is a winner here.

Also, if you do decide to go to raw feeding, plain yogurt for 7 - 10 days will begin to prepare your dog for the switch to raw.

 

[freemotion]

Free, I know before you said you grind up the bones for dogs and add it in the food. What do you use to do this? and if the bones are cooked really well, they can't be given to the dogs as is, or can they? i was always under the impression thatonly raw bones for dogs.

I do make my own dog food, the cooked version (actually i just go t done making a batch.) i haven't tossed the bones yet.......

I don't feed any cooked bones to my dogs, but I know others here do. I feed the crumbly bones left from broth-making to my hens.

You can grind up the raw food, bones and all, if you have a good grinder. Either way, it is best to skip the weight-bearing leg bones....legs are too meaty for dogs, too rich. I tried grinding a wing....once! I decided eight years ago that my dog would have to grind it himself!

One chicken back per day, five days a week, is what my 30 lb older dog gets and my 18 lb young dog gets, too. I try to give a smallish one to the older dog and a biggish one to the younger, smaller dog....the one is chubby and the other is slim. If we run out and need something fast, we pick up wings and they each get two. Or we get a pound of hearts and gizzards and they split that....on occasion...it is very rich. On Wed and Sat they get ground up veggies, yogurt or kefir, raw egg yolks, etc.

No grains at all, and no carbs, other than an occasional bit of sweet potato off our plates. My older dog has yet to need any dental maintenance.

 

[DianeS]

I haven't had any labs done yet, we're a bit finacially strapped at the moment and was hoping changing her diet a bit could help, and honestly didn't think it would hurt. If you have any suggestion that are a bit cheaper (ie free! ); checking stools for certain color/consistancy ect I'd greatly appreciate it! I kno she prolly needs to see the vet, but right now unfortunatly we just can't afford it.

If what you're looking for is a cheap solution to "leaking" in an adult dog, I can recommend one. A single plain Sudafed tablet. If the dog is 20lbs or more, a whole pill. 10 lbs or more, a half pill. Don't know if there is a safe dosage for a smaller dog.

Now, you don't know me at all, so you'll have to use your own sense to decide whether to try that. I can tell you that we did it all the time in working with the foster dogs I housed for a dog rescue, and it was successful in more than half of the cases - especially successful in older female dogs or dogs with submissive piddling issues. When I was first told about this, I wasn't sure it was safe, so I consulted my own vet and was told she had no idea if it would help, but a single pill would not hurt.

It's just a weird side effect of Sudafed. It seems to help tighten the sphincter muscle that holds the urine in the bladder.

If the one pill seems to help some, or help temporarially, then you can give a few more. I never used more than one every third day, total of four doses. If the first pill had no effect, then further ones didn't seem to affect anything either.

And I do mean the plain Sudafed - no letters after the name, no extra ingredients, no "non-drowsy". Just the plain old fashioned ones.

Take it or leave it, you don't know me so you might leave it, or at least ask your vet. I wish you success!

 

[big brown horse]

I wanted to welcome you to sufficient self DianeS!

 

[tortoise]

It's just a weird side effect of Sudafed. It seems to help tighten the sphincter muscle that holds the urine in the bladder.

There isn't a sphincter muscle for the bladder in dogs. The ureter enters the bladder at an oblique angle. As the intravesical pressure rises, the ureter is compressed.

The bladder muscle is detrusor, to squeeze and empty the bladder when the pressure rises sharply, creating the urge to urinate.

Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) is sometimes recommended for STRESS incontinence in women. Stress incontinence is a small leak when coughing or sneezing, for example.

Pseudoephedrine works similarly to phenylpropanolamine by stimulating urethral closure. The urethral submucosa has veins that form erectile tissue to aid in continence.

 

[tortoise]

I checked up on this and it appears psuedoephedrine is indicated for treatment of urinary incontinence in dogs. However, clinical trials have not been done.

A single plain Sudafed tablet. If the dog is 20lbs or more, a whole pill. 10 lbs or more, a half pill. Don't know if there is a safe dosage for a smaller dog.

The 240 mg tablet?

 

[DianeS]

Thanks for posting all that, tortoise! I have no idea of the science behind it, I only know what I've been told (which is partly wrong if dogs truly don't have a sphincter muscle there) and what I've seen.

And it's the 30 mg tablet. They call it "Sudafed Congestion" now. I had to look it up. The small red round pills. The ones that contain only pseudoephedrine HCl.

Thanks for the welcome, big brown horse!

 

[freemotion]

You're new?????

Oh, yeah, we've chatted on byh!

 

[tortoise]

Thanks for posting all that, tortoise! I have no idea of the science behind it, I only know what I've been told (which is partly wrong if dogs truly don't have a sphincter muscle there) and what I've seen.

No problem. I learned something new too. I had never heard of the sudafed thing before.

The dose you gave didn't match what I found, but it wasn't above what I found.