Kidney issues are one of the more common problems that we address in veterinary medicine. It is unfortunate that we often only discover the kidney issue when the animal starts to show symptoms.
Early kidney compromise can be caught before damage is done if the patient has blood work and urinalysis done annually. Our modern veterinary diagnostic laboratories now have blood and urine tests that can detect kidney irregularities before damage has set in and before your pet starts showing symptoms.
As veterinarians, it can be difficult to explain to pet owners what the kidneys do and how to keep them healthy and prevent damage.
| Understanding Kidney Function – “Joe and John” Analogy Imagine that you are the water cleaning officer for the Yellow River. Your name is Joe Kidney. Your brother John Kidney lives on the other side of the river and he has the same job. There is a rather primitive village (your pets body) upstream from your water cleaning plant. The villagers dump most of their waste into the river. It is your job to filter and clean the river water before it enters into Bladder Lake. Some days your job is easy; the villagers are eating good healthy foods and not creating very much biological waste. Maybe they are also not throwing too much garbage into the river, so the Yellow River is minimally polluted on those days. On other days they eat a lot of poor quality foods and they throw an abundance of garbage into the river. The river then becomes very polluted and your job is very hard on those days. The best way to minimize stress for Joe and John (the kidneys) is to try to keep the river running as clean as possible. The best way to keep the river running clean is to keep the village (the dog or cat’s body) clean. |
How to Support Kidney Health:
- Feed clean fresh, minimally processed foods. This will result in minimal waste products and adverse chemicals in your pet’s body.
- Feed a moist diet. This will minimize the concentration of biological waste in the blood stream. More water means more dilution of waste and happier kidneys.
If the kidney compromise has been discovered after your pet is showing signs of illness, then we need to provide extra support for them to keep working.
If you are able to change foods and add kidney support supplements to your pet’s diet we might be able to stabilize the kidneys. You should be prepared to check in on “Joe and John” periodically to see if your efforts are working. You should plan to check blood and urine samples regularly to ensure that what you are doing is helping. How often you need to monitor will depend on the severity of the illness and what your veterinarian advises.
DO NOT change the food too fast.
DO NOT buy all the supplements you can find and then start them all at once.
DO start slowly with one or the other, food or supplement, then gradually add more. Make sure that the bowl of food you are offering your pet is mostly food, not mostly supplements.
If your animal does not want to eat because of too many supplements this is as detrimental as doing nothing. They need to eat and ideally enjoy eating. You might consider fewer supplements or make the supplementing a separate event, like “treat time.” Or choose supplements like those made by Standard Process. This company makes all their supplements from natural foods which usually makes them palatable to pets.
A list of foods and supplements for kidney health is available as a separate website posting.
