Recipes for Pooh

My dear friends's dog, Pooh, is 15 and has kidney disease. She doesn't like prescription kibble very much at all, so I've been looking up various recipes for home cooking for dogs with kidney disease. I'll continue to post new recipes to this column as I find them. 

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From http://www.pets.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=41330 

I found a recipe online from Dr Donald Strombeck's book "Home-prepared Dog and Cat Diets, The Healthful Alternative" when I was looking for a recipe for my ESS who has kidney failure. This recipe was in the section on Chronic Renal Failure and is for dogs:

Chicken and Potato diet (low protein low phosphorus, high potassium, low sodium)

1/4 cup cooked chicken breast 

3 cups potato, boiled with skin 

2 tablespoons chicken fat

1 1/2 calcium carbonate tablets (600 milligrams calcium)

1/2 multiple vitamin-mineral tablet

Provides 689 kilocalories, 18.9 grams protein, 26.8 grams fat.

Supports caloric needs of a 21-22 pound dog

Provides phosphorus at 45 percent, potassium at 301 percent, sodium at 54 

percent of a dog's daily needs. To feed this diet with a normal amount of

phosphorus, substitute 4 bonemeal tablets for the 1 1/2 calcium carbonate

tablets.

The important thing to remember when choosing a diet for your dog is to check with your Veterinarian to make sure the diet contains all ingredients needed to keep your dog healthy.

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From http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter/kidney-diet/

Serve food twice daily, and feed at approximately 2% to3% of the dog’s body weight daily in food. For example, a 100 pound dog would get two to three pounds of food (one cup is approximately 8 ounces, or pound). A 50 pound dog would get one to one and a half pounds of food daily. A 25 pound dog would get eight to twelve ounces daily. A ten pound dog would get three to seven ounces daily. Dogs can vary on these amounts, depending on their metabolism and activity levels.

Recipe #1

Mix 1/2 cooked sticky rice (sushi rice) cooked in unsalted butter with 1/2 HIGH fat hamburger or dark meat chicken (lower in phosphorus than white meat). Add two cooked egg whites (no yolk) per cup. You can make as large a batch as needed and freeze for daily portions. Save the egg shells, and add back one teaspoon of egg shell (dry overnight, grind in a coffee bean grinder) per two pounds of food. The egg shell is good for calcium and also acts as a phosphorus binder.

Recipe #2

Cook Malt o Meal and add one tablespoon of unsalted butter per cup. Cool, and add two tablespoons of heavy whipping cream (don’t need to whip it!). You may add a bit of meat (hamburger, ground chicken) and some gravy for flavor. I have also added chicken skin or beef fat for variety.

Recipe #3

Cook sticky rice (sushi rice) and add unsalted butter. Mix at 1/3 sticky rice, to 1/3 boiled sweet potatoes, and add 1/3 either ground pork, lamb or fatty hamburger. Add one egg white per cup. (You can substitute boiled potatoes for sweet potatoes).

Green tripe is also a pretty good food lower in phosphorus than other foods. You can buy this frozen at outlets that sell frozen raw diets for dogs, or buy it in cans called Tripett.

It is also good to occasionally add beef kidney, a bit of liver and egg yolks. While these are high in phosphorus, they do provide needed nutrients. . You can also mix either the rice or the vegetable mix with drained mackerel or salmon for variety and the fish already has bone steamed with it, so it is balanced properly for calcium. Because of the bone, fish is high in phosphorus and so should be used in very limited amounts. Do not feed tuna, as it is high in mercury.

Again, save your eggshells, and dry them overnight. Then grind them in a coffee bean grinder and add to the food served at 1/2 teaspoon per pound.

It is important to select fatty meat. So pork and lamb are also good choices to mix with the rice and they add a nice variety. Fat offers calories for energy and weight gain, and fattier cuts of meat are lower in phosphorus. Do offer a variety to keep your dog's interest and appetite hearty. More severe kidney problems can lend to loss of appetite and at these times, offering almost any type of food may be necessary.

Fish or salmon oil (NOT COD LIVER OIL!) needs to be 1,000 mg per ten pounds of body weight to be renal protective. Brown, S. A., C. A. Brown, W. A. Crowell, J. A. Barsanti, T. Allen, C. Cowell, and D. R. Finco. “Beneficial effects of chronic administration of dietary omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in dogs with renal insufficiency.” J Clin Lab Med 131:447-455 (1998).

www.ralstonpurina.com/breeders/magazine.asp?article=434

In two studies, one from 2000 and the other from 1998, dogs with induced kidney disease showed improvement when they were fed omega-3-rich fish oil supplements, compared to omega-6-rich safflower oil supplements. Results from this model of renal insufficiency in dogs suggest a beneficial effect of fish oil in protecting the kidney, whereas safflower oil hastened the decline of kidney function.

I would also give one milligram of COQ10 daily per pound of body weight. There is good research behind this that shows it can help bring down the creatinine levels.

www.illnessisoptional.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=32&z=14

CoQ10 was studied in a small pilot study involving 21 patients with chronic renal failure. Researchers administered CoQ10 to 11 of the subjects while 10 received a placebo capsule. To be included in the study patients had to have a creatinine level of 5 mg/dl or above. After 4 weeks, the subjects receiving CoQ10 had significant decreases in serum creatinine and urea while creatinine clearance significantly increased. At the end of the 4 week study the number of patients on dialysis was significantly less in the CoQ10 group. 36.2% of the patients in the CoQ10 group were on dialysis at the end of the study while 90.0% of the placebo group was on dialysis at the end of the study.

www.annieappleseedproject.org/coqbenforenr.html

Conclusions: Treatment with coenzyme Q10 reduces serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen and increases creatinine clearance and urine output in patients with chronic renal failure.

I would also include a B vitamin in the dog’s diet, as well as vitamin E. Both of these are helpful for support of the kidneys.

I hope you find this information and these recipes helpful, please email me if you have further questions.

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Review: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady (Enola Holmes Mysteries, #2) by Nancy Springer

The Case of the Left-Handed Lady by Nancy Springer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Another very smart story, it's just fun to watch her puzzle it all out. It's kind of a mix between cozy mysteries and traditional detective stories in that it's a regular girl who becomes a "perditorian" or finder of lost things. The steps she follows and the process she takes is actually very believable. She gets scared, she flips out occasionally, she's clever but not insanely so, brave but not a superhero. Yes, it's a stretch to believe she's so independent at fourteen, but she is a Holmes after all. I just really like this girl, she's a great mix of clever and vulnerable, witty but not snarky. I also like the believable way that she's discovering the world, she's very well-read but there are so many things that a young girl of her time just has no way of knowing, books she can get her hands on may mention things like ladies of the night or white slave trade, but they don't say what they actually are, so Enola is in the dark about these things still. Even now that she's living in London and has seen some of the worst the city has to offer, she's still an innocent fourteen year-old girl in many ways and seeing how she grows into her new situation is going to be fascinating.

I'm also enjoying the way the historical lessons are layered into the story without being too preachy. I think kids (and adults) will absorb a lot of information along the way while just reading an enjoyable story. It's hard as a woman not to root for Enola and her mother in their quest for freedom from society's strangling (literally) restrictions. And this book had a lot of interesting information about what was going on at the time in London regarding the labor movement. "And after we withdrew bloodied and defeated, this is what one member of Parliament had to say, 'It is in bad taste for people to parade their insolent starvation in the face of the rich and trading portions of the town. They should have starved in their garrets.'" And another good quote, "Yet one could speak the truth and still be a villain." Just coming off of a rough election season those ideas resonated through the centuries with me.

Enola is a great hero, someone you can really root for. The books are a definitely a bit dark, the London portrayed in these stories isn't glamorous, it's poor, cold, and hungry. But kids who love the Hunger Games and heroes like Katniss for her cleverness and bravery might admire Enola as well. Her situation certainly isn't quite as desperate, and there's no thrilling romance in this one. The big difference is that Enola is taking control and doing the manipulating instead of being controlled by everyone else. That's what makes her so interesting. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how she manages to stay safe and free in the next book and what mysterious puzzle she solves next.



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Review: The Kingdom (Graveyard Queen #2) by Amanda Stevens

The Kingdom by Amanda Stevens

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Another great atmosphere, spooky, enchanting, engrossing ghost story. And yes, I did stay up until 5 a.m. to finish it and that is past even my bedtime. These are not books that are easy to put down once you've started them, I'm giving you fair warning.

The thing that bugged me in the first book, the frequent overly heavy-handed foreshadowing, was not a problem in this book. But it did bug me a bit that Amelia was so hung up on Devlin. She barely spent any time with him in the first book and she keeps repeating that she hasn't seen him or talked to him in months. It just feels forced to me at this point. They have some sort of connection but that isn't a relationship, that isn't love. It's a crush. It's too romance novel insta-love. I was pleased that they weren't together at the end of the last book, I thought they were going to have a relationship that developed slowly over the course of several books, and maybe that's what's eventually going to happen, but the constant mooning over him in this book felt a bit irritating and immature, not particularly romantic. I get that maybe the author is building up a "forbidden love" story, but right now this aspect isn't working for me. Even though Amelia is 27 years-old, when it comes to relationships she's still very young because she's been so isolated for all of her life, which is another romance novel trope that I don't enjoy. I just prefer reading about mature adults in relationships that function in realistic ways. And Amelia is so great on other levels, it feels like she's being short-changed in this way a bit.

And it was a bit rushed at the end. Suddenly everyone knows the big secret, boom, she leaves town. And the big confrontation wasn't so big compared to some of the little ones in the woods earlier, which were very suspenseful.

But basically the rest of the book was great, these are really small quibbles. The characters in the town were so vividly drawn I felt like I could paint them (if I could paint). The way the author portrays the locations and atmospheres made me feel like I was there, from the lovely and calm to the haunted and eerie to the frightening and terror filled moments (they threatened her new dog!!! - anyone who knows me knows I was truly scared), it all rang true without being overdone. Honestly, I don't like to be scared so it's a fine line between a bit of suspense and actually horror for me, I can't even read thrillers, I'm that much of a wimp, but this walked the line perfectly. I know, people who read my reviews regularly know I read a lot of dark urban fantasy, but Richard Kadrey-style dark fantasy, for example, isn't actually scary, even if it's violent, and a lot of that stuff has a bizarre dark humor that lightens the tone quite a bit. This was spookier because it didn't have the humor to break up the tension. It was eerie, which created a lot of suspense.

So to make it clear, other than a few small complaints, I liked the book a lot and I'm a big fan of the series. And my big complaint about the romantic aspect might well be more due to my personal preferences about how I like romance to be portrayed in fiction than to any issue with the author's writing, it may be a matter of what you like. But definitely don't let that turn you off of the book or series either way, this is a series about mystery, history, discovery, family, love, hate, the living and the dead and more, and I really think that most of my friends who like urban fantasy would enjoy it.




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