Kidney failure

Kidney Failure by Bulldog Pete

Very often, when a dog has been involved in an accident or hurt during a hunt or battle, his kidneys can be damaged and many times, if a dog does not make it, it's his owner who accidentally helps him die by thinking he is saving him.
After his ordeal, a dog tends to urinate dark red. People think that it is blood, but it is not. What it is is waste material that has been sifted out of his blood by his kidneys. If a dog is in poor shape (i.e. is poorly conditioned) than his internal organs have to work two, sometimes three times as hard as usual. This means that they can quite easily burn up and or shut down. A kidney works like a sponge, if it is dirty and you pour water on top of it, the water takes dirt along with it through the bottom. When a kidney is failing, it is in a squeezed mode. If you pour water on top of it, then there will be no dirt (waste) sifted out of the bloodstream. You can recognise this, if a dog after his first 2/3/4 times that he urinates, his urine looks like plain water. Then his kidneys are not functioning correctly or are just barely working. Many owners, in an attempt to help their dog feed them a high % of protein, not realising that his kidneys don't work and that they are poisoning their dog. As the urea and krea levels in the dogs blood rise, they can reach such a dangerous level, that the dog dies after one, two, perhaps 3 weeks after the event. I know some dogman have scratched their heads as they have seen it happen.

Also, too many medical supplements are put into the dog too quick and this all is a strain on the dogs kidneys and instead of helping him, it delays his recovery (or worse) The golden rule is, no anti-biotic for 3 days. The only treatment should be from the outside with anti-biotic gel, no high protein feed but a top brand of kidney diet from Hills Science diet if possible. Give Neutradex to your dog from the brand Vet Surths. It is a kidney flusse used for Greyhounds, keep your dog on this kidney diet for about 2 weeks then slowly start to add some dry feed with it. This should be of a high QUALITY LEVEL but not high in percentage proteins.

A dog that has had a very tough ordeal and suffered from a kidney shutdown has lost at least 1/3 of his working kidneys for the rest of his life, Sometimes, when I have visited yards of dogman I have seen dogs that looked very bad on the chain, very skinny and dehydrated. Their owners will say "well I don't now what's wrong with him, but I feed him loads of feed and he drinks huge amounts of water and he stays that way" What they don't realize, is that their dog is suffering from bad kidneys. One of the first signs to look for is a great appetite for water, they seem to drink gallons and some are ready to drink themselves to death. These are dogs suffering from bad kidneys, should be on a kidney diet for the rest of their lives, and cannot be put under working pressure again.

Another topic that I would like to write about is the drying out technique of a dog. This is done to create thicker blood, which carries higher levels of oxygen and makes a dog able to hunt longer. This is however an old and ancient way and a compromise to get a dog in shape. A well conditioned athlete or animal stops drinking water anyway, because his system is used to the heat and workload, which helps prevent his body from running hot at all. A well-conditioned body carries no excess fat and the water level is in balance with the amount of quality work that has been put in. You will see that with a dog or other animal, which nearly stops drinking water in his tapering down days and in his rest period a couple of days before dusend touthc it at all.
I thought these two subjects might be of some help for the readers.