Diabetes in dogs

[tapper47]

My dog has been diagnosed with diabetes. Her BS is about 350.
My vet wants her on high fiber, complex carbohydrates with insulin shots daily.

I want to put her on low carb, protein and fat.

Has anyone here had any success with treating a dog with PP as a way of life?:confused:

[Omlette]

It makes since to me to do a PP type diet with the dog. May need to still use insulin, but I don't see where adding carbs to a canine's diet is helpful. JMO

[Ammy]

and hasn't her food been carbs up until now? I mean isn't most dog food mostly carbs??

Ever since Max mentioned it, I've become a HUGE fan of EVO (http://www.naturapet.com/).

[tapper47]

Yes, Ammy, her diet has been higher in carbs than I would like. I was feeding her the recommended diet from the vet and yet she still developed diabetes. When I told my vet I was putting Sadie on low carb, she said I needed prescription dog food. More complex carbs and higher fiber.
I don't want to go the insulin route with my dog because she is eleven years old and is already slowing down. Increasing carbs and adding insulin doesn't make sense to me but I am not a vet.
Thanks for your thoughts on this. Yes I get the EVO also for her but she is not eating much though I did find a great food at the grocery store.
I'll post the name of it later today after I buy more.
Can't remember the name of it right now.
Okay, book over.:D

[Benay]

Because most commercial dog foods, bought at the vet or at the store, are high carb diets, I switched to a high protein raw food diet. No blood sugar problems. No dental problems. No annual teeth cleaning. Great sturdy weights, no obesity. They are basically on PP except it is not cooked. They also get plenty of raw bones, vegetables, periodic offal (heart, kidney, liver) and green tripe. Raw bones are: Beef, chicken backs, turkey necks etc. My vet and her staff have been following me and my dogs for the last 10 years and they are slowly converting to my diet.

[bluejay111]

I agree with Benay. In the wild canines and cats live mostly on protein and fat from meat. Do these animals develope diabetes? I don't think so. Because of the high carb foods ( which are cheap for the manufacturer to make) our pets are suffering the same diseases as we humans. Although giving your pet more protein,ie meat, may be an added expense, it probably won't cost any more than the insulin and vet visits and in the long run should be a lot healthier for you pet.

[tapper47]

the name of the food I started buying is called freshpet. But I did email them asking how much carbohydrate in it since the 6 pound roll does contain 2 ounces of brown rice.

[Belfrybat]

I have a friend who changed her animals to a more natural diet, including raw meat, fermented grains (she leaves them soaking for a day or two) and veggie puree. She also adds brewers yeast and other natural "additives" to even out the nutrition. One thing that surprised me is the fact dogs need a fair amount of grains and some veggies as that mimics what they would eat in the wild as many of the animals they would kill are herbivores, and dogs eat the whole critter. Cats on the other hand, will avoid the stomach contents and so eat much less a percentage of grain than dogs.

Here's a couple of websites I had bookmarked on changing pets to a natural diet:
http://www.petsynergy.com/diet.html
http://www.outoftheearth.com/natdiet.htm
http://www.barfworld.com/html/barf_diet/barfdiet_specific.shtml

[Gaelen]

I don't want to go the insulin route with my dog because she is eleven years old and is already slowing down. Increasing carbs and adding insulin doesn't make sense to me but I am not a vet.

You said the key phrase, here, tapper47--you're not a vet. Many things could affect how this works out--size and breed of dog, whether dog is overweight or a normal weight or thin, whether the dog is displaying other signs of full-blown diabetes like urinating more frequently and drinking larger amounts than usual/drinking more often, and other blood values besides blood glucose.

Vets may not get a lot of specialized nutrition information in vet school, but they do learn how to spot and treat diabetes. And you apparently have an older dog who may be full-blown diabetic, maybe even approaching an emergency state (none of us can know that because you haven't given us enough information nor have any of us examined the dog.)

You may not want to 'go the insulin route' with your dog because she's geriatric, but if she already is diabetic and you want to make her geriatric years as comfortable as possible, that may be your only option. Diet alone will likely not be enough if the diabetes has progressed and she's otherwise health-challenged by her age. You risk compromising her health further by refusing the insulin, and it won't be a quick or painless compromise. It may be uncomfortable for your dog, and will likely contribute to a faster decline for her, which isn't really necessary.

So if your vet is recommending insulin based on lab results and other symptoms, s/he's got a scientific basis for doing that. You paid for his/her medical training and advice, and s/he gave you the recommendations I'd expect to hear if I presented a knowlegeable vet with an aging, diabetic dog. You may want to disregard the dietary advice, and that's your choice--but if you choose to disregard the pharmaceutical advice, why did you bother to go to the vet in the first place?

The decision not to treat a health condition in an aging dog is one that I have made before and can completely respect...but it needs to be coupled with humanely assisting that pet to a peaceful end if the condition is life-threatening. Cobbling together some homemade dietary remedy that doesn't address the medical demands of diabetes can wind up more than a bit inhumane, unless you have some pretty serious veterinary medicine chops. If your dog is diabetic, and you only incompletely address it with your own unschooled impression of her nutritional needs, you are contributing to discomfort your pet doesn't have to feel.

My dogs and cats are dogs and cats--not little people in fur suits--but when faced with a difficult decision about their care, I do ask myself if the decision I'm about to make is how I'd manage the care of a creature who couldn't make decisions for itself and whose life I was responsible for. And if I'm comfortable with the answer 'yes', then I go ahead. YMMV.

I'm not an animal rights activist, or what those who are truly concerned with animal welfare sometimes call a "humaniac"--not by a long shot. In fact, the work I do would put me on top of that sector's 'most hated' list. But I firmly believe that when we take responsibility for a creature who can't make decisions for itself, then we owe them lives with as little discomfort as possible--especially discomfort we can prevent. I've been professionally involved with dogs and cats for over 25 years--trainer, kennel manager, multi-venue competitor, certified vet tech with a specialty in small animal methods. I actually do have the vet med chops to make the decision you're making...and what you're considering doing isn't something I'd do lightly.

y'know, the subject of companion animal diets comes up every once in awhile...and while dietary change for a young, relatively healthy pet is one thing, changing the diet of an aging pet that is already diagnosed with a medical condition like diabetes is something else.

Bluejay111, regarding "In the wild canines and cats live mostly on protein and fat from meat. Do these animals develope diabetes? I don't think so."

Actually, cats live mostly on protein and fat from meat. BelfryBat is correct that dogs actually eat their entire kills, including grasses and grains in the stomach contents of herbivores, and in the wild their diets include some percentage of non-proteins...or, horrors...carbs.

This often-repeated 'logic' that animals in the wild, whether they eat carbs or not, don't develop diabetes (or cancer, or epilepsy or immune disorders) is faulty. They do, and now that we're capable of better observing them, zoologists have observed symptoms of and deaths from all of those diseases, and more in wild canine and feline populations. If they develop after adulthood and mating, any genetic components are passed along to their offspring. But just because it didn't used to be well-documented doesn't mean it didn't happen before and/or isn't happening in those populations right now.

As with humans, although the incidence of these things in modern society humans is dramatically increased, and diet can be largely at fault, that doesn't mean there was no Type II (or Type I) diabetes, cancer, epilepsy or immune disorders BEFORE human diets and activity levels changed dramatically in the 20th century. But just because those diseases weren't recognized, treatable or well-understood by earlier medicine doesn't mean they didn't exist. Do these diseases occur less often in wild animals than in their captive counterparts fed commercial diets? Sure. But their captive counterparts are also more carefully monitored, which skews the diagnostic stats in yet another direction.

Back before border collies were an AKC recognized breed, working BC fanciers used to boast that BCs weren't subject to the host of inheritable diseases of show purebreds...and hunting dog lines in sporting breeds tend to do the same thing. Thing is, those working and gun dog enthusiasts weren't and many still aren't SCREENING their working/breeding stock for hip dysplasia, deafness, blood disorders, cardiac issues or PRA. Doesn't mean they didn't occasionally produce dogs that were deaf, blind, had/carried blood disorders, had cardiac problems or went lame. But they never thought it was any kind of hereditary problem because they weren't looking for any hereditary problems.

Hip dysplasia was where the wheels fell off the wagon--because lots of dysplastic dogs are asymptomatic until old age, when their breeder/owners would blame arthritis and a life of hard work on the lameness and not give it another thought. But BCs became popular with comptetiton fanciers who started experiencing problems and began screening their dogs from that stock...and found out that they had regular dogs, subject to all of the same diseases as any other breed of their size, and with a greater tendency to some of the more preventable diseases with genetic components than others. Just because no one looked for it or knew how to recognize it doesn't mean it wasn't there.

But back to the original question about changing the diet and skipping insulin for the diabetic dog--Tapper, you paid for your vet's advice. If you choose to ignore it, you're making a decision for a creature for whose care you are responsible. Make sure you're comfortable with that decision...and that you've got the skill set you need to make it.

[tapper47]

I said I didn't want to go the insulin route, not that I wouldn't.
Sadie is on phenobarbital for seizures and her bloodwork is checked regularly for the correct levels. And recently I have read of a study where children who have seizures have been put on a very low carb diet and have show marked improvement to the point that some children have been taken off medication entirely.
She gets all the shots she needs and takes heartworm medication every month. (I live in an area where the incidence of heartworm is very high)
Sadie's getting all the tests and we will go from there but the high fiber, high carbo diet they are talking about worries me about my dog just as it worries me about myself.
I have done everything I have been told to do for my dog's diet and as far as I am concerned vets know just as little about diet as regular doctors do.

[Gaelen]

Sadie's getting all the tests and we will go from there but the high fiber, high carbo diet they are talking about worries me about my dog just as it worries me about myself.

That's fine, Tapper, but you need to bear something in mind. You also mentioned:

Sadie is on phenobarbital for seizures and her bloodwork is checked regularly for the correct levels. And recently I have read of a study where children who have seizures have been put on a very low carb diet and have show marked improvement to the point that some children have been taken off medication entirely.

I'm going to guess that you're talking about something similar to SCD--the specific carbohydrate diet--or the ketogenic diet. You need to keep in mind that while SCD/KD has been very successful in some instances, to be successful requires a lot of dietary awareness, and that all food and fluids be measured and monitored. In addition, the bloodwork monitoring required for seizure control is not the same as the daily, often mulitiple times/day bloodwork monitoring you'd have to do to evaluate Sadie's health on a canine version of SCD/KD, or anything else you cooked up to feed her. Without that kind of really intense monitoring, you'll have no way of knowing how well (or poorly) her new diet is working, and/or if her diabetes is progressing to critical.

When a person switches to either SCD or KD, it's a huge commitment. I know--I was on SCD for about three months until I was correctly dx'd. I didn't have what the original doc thought (IBS)...I had rectal cancer, stage IV with extensive liver mets. SCD, at that point, wasn't to the point--I needed to get food in to stop the cascading weight loss, without worrying about the truly restrictive guidelines of SCD.

It was tough enough for me to do it for me.
Unless you live in a lab, where all intake is completely controlled because nothing else in the dog area(s) is edible, you might find it really tough to create a canine SCD equivalent feeding plan. Do you know what the acceptable blood glucose range is for dogs, and what is too high, and what is too low?

I have done everything I have been told to do for my dog's diet and as far as I am concerned vets know just as little about diet as regular doctors do.

I agree--but vets do know diabetes signs and symptoms.What I apparently failed to make clear in my post is that once your doc advised you to put Sadie on insulin, she's got a certain level of diabetes which may not be able to be reversed or even modified by diet and/or activity. 'Not going the insulin route' may not really even be an option, no matter what diet you're feeding.
YMMV

[tapper47]

I agree--but vets do know diabetes signs and symptoms.What I apparently failed to make clear in my post is that once your doc advised you to put Sadie on insulin, she's got a certain level of diabetes which may not be able to be reversed or even modified by diet and/or activity. 'Not going the insulin route' may not really even be an option, no matter what diet you're feeding.
YMMV
I don't think you understand. I said I didn't want to go the insulin route, not that I wouldn't. We will probably put her on insulin. That will be determined tomorrow.
The other thing the vet and I will have to discuss is the diet. At this point that is my concern.

[bluejay111]

Quote: "dogs actually eat their entire kills, including grasses and grains in the stomach contents of herbivores, and in the wild their diets include some percentage of non-proteins...or, horrors...carbs."

This is true but most dogs in the wild run in packs and the alpha male and maybe the dominate female eat first and they usually get the stomach contents. The rest of the pack gets the left overs. If their kill is a wild animal then they are getting grass fed protein. If their kill is domestic then they may be getting grain fed/ antibiotic treated protein.

My belief is that our pets are getting too much processed carbohydrates in their food and that is leading to the same maladies we humans are experiencing. I also agree that once our pet gets one of these maladies diet alone may not be the answer.

[tapper47]

Sadie is on 12 units of insulin twice a day.
We are feeding her no grain dog food which also seems to be helping her chronic ear infections. (She's a Dalmatian but is not deaf, we have had issues with ear infections for all of her life)
In two weeks we will be back at the vets to determine how this course is working.