Can food support dog kidney disease?

Diet has a huge role to play in the management of chronic kidney disease and usually has more positive impact on your dog than any medications. This is because controlling certain aspects of your dog’s diet can help reduce the workload on the kidneys. The best person to discuss your dog’s diet with is your vet who will likely reiterate the following advice:

Choose quality proteins 

Because it is the breakdown of protein that creates ammonia and urea it might seem logical that a diet which contains slightly lower levels of protein would be helpful. While it is true that less protein reduces the workload on the kidneys protein is still an essential part of your dog’s nutrition
so a focus on making sure that the protein that they do have is the highest quality
is key. This means that as much of the goodness can be extracted and used as possible
reducing waste that your dog then needs to process and excrete.

High-quality protein tends to come from meat sources that are minimally processed. This is why raw feeding can be great with no high-temperature cooking or unnatural processing affecting the protein quality.

Discover our raw dog food range. 

Keep salt levels low

As the kidneys become less able to control the salt levels within the body, watching intake via the diet is advisable. Salts of note include sodium and phosphorus.

Encourage drinking 

Hydration is key with kidney disease. Keeping up the fluid intake not only helps replace the fluid that is being lost faster but also helps dilute those toxins in your dog’s blood. Our broths, diluted are a great way to help encourage dogs to drink more as they are so delicious!

All of our raw dog foods contain human-grade high-quality protein and many have protein levels at a moderate total percentage of the overall diet as recommended for dogs with kidney disease and similar to that of many specialised canine ‘kidney diets’.

Many of our raw dog food products are also low enough in salt to support dogs with kidney disease..

You should always discuss the ins and outs of your dog’s nutritional requirements with your vet
to establish which diet is best for them.

Kidney disease in dogs guide.