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Originally Posted by MyFairLacy  I don't know a lot about disease-specific diets and of course want and need to learn more. I know liver-diseased dogs need a low-protein diet and diabetic dogs need a high-protein diet. Is it also best for a diabetic dog to have a small to no amount of carbs in their diet? Also, is it because Lady is diabetic that she can't have raw or is it because of her other health problems? |
Diabetics are immune compromised and can't handle the extra bacteria that can be found in raw foods. Lady gets chronic uti's from bacteria normally found in the GI tract like E-coli. Not only are they more prone to infection, it's really hard for their body to fight an infection.
Lady is doing really well with a high protein, low carb diet. Not only is her diabetes well controlled, it's so much better for dogs not to eat all those carbs as I'm sure you know since you feed Lacy raw. As my vet explained, diabetes in pets, especially cats, was almost unheard of until we started feeding our pets commercial kibble loaded with carbs. Being carnivores, their bodies are not equipped to metabolize carbohydrates which turn to sugar. We've been lead to believe that high protein is dangerous when the real reason commercial kibble doesn't have much protein is that carbs are much cheaper.
I joined a forum for diabetic dogs when Lady was first diagnosed six years ago. There is only one other dog still alive from the ones that were diagnosed around the same time. He gets home cooked food. All the rest of Lady's group were fed prescription diets, mostly w/d. They all died years ago. I really don't think that is a coincidence.