Kidney failure diet

Question
Hi,
I have a 14yr old staffy bitch who was diagnosed 4 months ago with kidney failure. She was put on the Hill's prescription diet food and until a few weeks ago was wolfing it down. Now, however she is turning her nose up at it and has gone for the entire day without eating a thing. After a little internet research i have started mixing it with boiled chicken or green tripe and she has again started clearing her bowl. The problem i have is that i'm not sure if it's wise to mix these together. Should i be feeding her either the Hill's or a home made diet? If so, what else can i give her beside the tripe and chicken. I'm scared of making her condition worse, but as loss of appetite is one of the symptoms and she really doesn't have any excess weight to lose i'd rather she was happily eating the wrong stuff, than starving because she won't touch the food that's good for her.

I hope you can advise me
Kind Regards
Sara

Answer
Hi Sara,

I'm sorry to hear about your girl, but the good news is that a home made diet can indeed be formulated to meet the specific requirements of a senior dog with renal failure. We can use much more wholesome ingredients than Hill's while still using a similar nutrient profile. The problem with a home made diet is that it's way out of the league for an average dog owner to put together and very few consultants I know of are trained and experienced in the method. It would be irresponsible of me to post a diet without knowing much more about your dog, but I can tell you that protein may need restriction depending on the stage of the illness; she needs to stay hydrated; minerals definitely need restriction; medications can help bind phosphorus in food and with nausea; CoQ10, Bvitamins, wild salmon or other fish body oils can help, as can specific herbs. But please, contact me privately for more detail. I would be delighted to put together a diet and supplement plan for you, but it's beyond the scope of AllExperts, I require a detailed profile of your dog. At the very least we can have a phone chat about it. My home email is catlane@thepossiblecanine.com. There are a couple of good Internet resources as well, but many not-so-good, and it can be hard to know which to trust.

Stay on the Hill's for now. I know it's horrible but it IS formulated to control the disease. A lot of added meat may exacerbate it(tripe's ok for now).  I'll wait to hear from you.