Raw Feeding Opinion

[icyjay]

I started feeding Pepper my 4yr old female over the weekend a ground raw diet. She's been on Grandma Luckys Chicken and did good. A little background on Pepper, suffers from allergies and UTI's which she gets every 3-4 months almost like clock work. The vet just keep putting her on antibiotics which clears it up fairly quick. She also has had surgery for bladder stones. While on grandma lucys her scratching at her face had cleared up but the UTI's persist. So I started giving her 1000mg of Ester C and 1000mg of a cranberry pill each day and so far so good. Her last PH was 6.5. So getting back to her new diet. I made up some earlier today and it consist of 10lbs of boneless chicken breast, hand full of carrots, celery, whole cranberries, 1 package of chicken hearts and gizzards and about 10oz of chicken livers. Since there isn't any bones I added cooked oats. So for the raw feeders on the forum I wanted your opinion on the ingredients I used, would you add anything or subtract anything? I plan on grinding whole chicken on the next go around. Any input would be appreciated.

 

[RiiSi]

First, what type of stones did she have? It is very important to know, before giving any advice. There are quite a few different types stones and what is good one condition is poison for another.

 

[icyjay]

She had surgery for Urate stones and a small % of Struvite Stone. She's been peeing in a few spots starting yesterday which I know what that means, and sure enough again today she has blood in her urine.

 

[RiiSi]

Ok, then she has what my boy has, which is hyperuricosuria. My boy had stones surgically removed at the age of one. He is 4 now and has been stone free since and eating raw food.
Urate stones are caused by defected HUU gene and struvites are caused by the infection.
You need to stop giving her organs and cranberry. Monitor her urine pH and try to get it at 7. Buy a multivitamin supplement that has artificial vitamin B's. Most vitamin B's come from yeast and that is very high in purines. Multivitamins also have vitamin C, which is enough. Google "purine table" and avoid everything from the red group. In time it's good to feed at least three different types of protein. Beef hearts and gizzards are fine, but stay away from other hearts, livers, kidneys and lungs. Oats will not substitute bone, if you don't give bone you need to give some calcium/phosphorus supplement. Raw egg is great food and egg shells are good calsium supplement. I always wash and dry them and grind to a fine powder. Leafy greens are also great for HUU-dogs. Pure and freeze them before feeding.

Almost all dalmatians have this condition and you find great info by Googling...
"raw feeding dalmatians"

Also "dogaware hyperuricosuria" is great reading...

Luckily females hardly ever get obstructed....Keep us posted!

 

[icyjay]

I appreciate your advise and will take it to heart when changing her diet, since you have gone through it would you mind sharing what would you would feed to Pepper to help with the stones? I've heard hours of website on the low Purine dalmatian diet and they all seem different. Only thing I came away with is to feed food low in purines and to monitor her PH. I did order a digital PH tester yesterday since the strips I have are hard to read.

 

[RiiSi]

It can be confusing, every dog is different as is feeder. I'm in the fortunate position that I get a lot of different kinds of grind meats, with or without bone. I usually make a mixture of about 50% ground meaty bones(50/50 meat/bone) 10-15%tribe, 30-40% different meats. About twice a week I put in raw eggs. Meaty bones could be horse, lamb, chicken, turkey or beef. For meat I get the same and also deer, duck, ostrich and even llama sometimes. I also use lamb or beef hearts, tongue and gizzards. You should use the meat from 3 different animals.
To make a meal for Usko (he weights about 29 kg/ 64lbs) I mix about 50g/1,1lbs of pureed veggies and roughly 300g/6,6lbs of that meat mixture. I also add a multivitamin since he can't eat organs. Multivitamin has to have vitamin b from artificial sources, since the natural for (yeast) is high in purines) and fish oil, for omega3, since he don't eat fish. I also give him 1000mg glucosamine/day and a product called Gout care which is for people suffering gout. Nowadays I monitor his urine pH only occasionally and when I chance his diet some how. Here he is almost three years after the stone age...

 

[Miss Lola]

Hello,
we are just waiting for our pup Floyd's DNA results this week. He is being tested for Hyperuricosuria which the Vet is pretty confident he has. I did not want to have to put him on a vet commercial kibble with out protein for his whole life, I was given some advice on here from the same one giving you advice. I looked into raw and home cooking. Here is a list of foods and the purines in them. It was very helpful. Some more advice given was extra water intake, adding it to his food or some broth during the day. Also taking the dog out to go pee during the night even if they can hold it as the longer it's in them and becomes more concentrated that's when you run into problems. Good luck!

 

[RiiSi]

Urate stones hardly ever form in dogs without hyperuricosuria or affected HUU gene. Only a liver shunt could cause it too and it is not so common with bulldogs and even worse. Urinating frequently is good, but when the condition is in balance it's not necessary. Like I've mentioned most of dalmatians have this condition, but by taking that in count with their nutrition only about 30% of the males form stones and females less.

 

[icyjay]

Ok after trying a few different things what has brought her ph up to 6.5-7.0 is a vegetarian diet from natures recipe. [MENTION=3354]RiiSi[/MENTION] what is an acceptable ph range in order to solve the urate stone issue?

 

[RiiSi]

Between 6.5-7.5 is good. Unfortunately nothing will really solve the issue. There's always a chance recurance.