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Yogurt, lasagne, meatloaf: If it’s not one thing, it’s another

By Gina Spadafori

September 25, 2011

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(Cross-posted from my personal blog at GoodFaithRanch.com)

A few weeks ago my 14-year-old Sheltie, Drew, started to increase his drinking and decrease his eating. Shortly after, my veterinarians confirmed my sad suspicion: My dog’s kidneys were shutting down.

As deaths go, kidney failure isn’t a bad one. A couple years ago my father faced the choice of dying of kidney failure or liver cancer, and after being completely informed about them both, he chose the former and refused dialysis. He passed peacefully at home a few days later, and I’m still in awe of his brave decision to choose the time, place and manner of his demise.

Of course, that’s what many of us do with our companion animals, and I’ve seen enough people bungle the decision to know how difficult it is. Over the years I’ve made the decision for all of my own animals and a few belonging to friends and family. I’ve come to believe that I won’t personally make a Hail Mary pass for myself or anyone else, animals included, and that I would rather help an animal to the other side a week early than a minute too late.

That said, I truly believe in hospice. For people and for pets.

I recently wrote for Vetstreet about the hospice movement in veterinary medicine, focusing on Nancy Hurley, a woman who had cared for her own 14-year-old Sheltie for months after a diagnosis of cancer in the dog. She and her husband had to have Savannah euthanized on the day Drew entered a state of hospice, a situation which I found incredibly powerful, as if Savannah’s fight had moved across the country to my own dog.

Hospice is often about managing pain, and I’m glad that I’m not having to do that with Drew. I went through it with my retriever Heather a couple years ago, and it wasn’t easy for either of us. Like Savannah, Heather had cancer, and like Savannah, I had to let Heather go when we couldn’t control the pain any more.

For Drew, hospice is considerably less stressful. Every morning he gets 500 ml of IV fluids, delivered from a bag hung from my dining-room chandelier through a needle to a spot under the skin and over his shoulder blades (top picture, but you have to squint a little to see the clear IV bag). Drew usually falls asleep on a towel on the table while getting his fluids, a process which, thanks to a nifty product called a pressure infuser, takes just a few minutes. A couple weeks after starting with daily fluids, Drew’s kidney values are normal. It won’t last, I’m told, but it was very good news indeed to get last week.

While Drewbie doesn’t mind the fluids at all, we are having one hospice difficulty: Getting him to eat. Pets (and people, for that matter) with end-stage kidney disease typically don’t have an appetite, and not eating can hasten their deaths — rather quickly, I’m told.

Drew is on a prescription appetite stimulant, but it doesn’t seem to help much. He is also getting a little medicinal marijuana (legal here in California), which appears to help with nausea but not with appetite, at least for Drew.

Typically, he’ll eat a little of something really yummy for a couple of days, then stop. Rare roast beef, deli turkey, yogurt with peach slices, beef lasagne, pasta with beef balls, cheese, baby food, apple slices with peanut butter … I’ve been rotating through them all. I’m afraid the other dogs and I will put on some weight snarfing down the leftovers when Drew walks away from something he ate happily the day before.

Friday night, my housemate (Ed Murrieta, who’s a writer and a trained chef) made him a special meatloaf, after Drew showed enthusiasm for store-bought meatloaf from the Whole Foods takeaway counter. That’s a picture of it. It’s made from ground turkey, Honest Kitchen‘s Embark dehydrated raw food and Nuzzles treats, eggs, and my friend Jill Gibbs’ JillCookies, chopped fresh tomatoes, grated apple, and cheese.

Today, Ed’s experimenting with some sort of baked liver puree.

So far, so good …

Filed under: animals: pets — Gina Spadafori @ 4:24 pm

51 Comments »

  1. I’m very glad you are still finding things for Drew to eat ! If he goes off the meatloaf, try making it into meatballs instead. For some reason they look at them like a treat from your plate ! You may have to give them on/off during the day instead of a bowlful, but it usually works.

    Comment by original Leslie K — September 25, 2011 @ 4:35 pm

  2. Beautifully written. Peace be with you both.

    Comment by mare — September 25, 2011 @ 5:07 pm

  3. I am in awe of this veterinary hospice movement, and pet advocates turning to new or novel solutions to health issues. There is so much to be done for our ailing or aging pets. Thank you so much for this post, I’m sure the process is difficult, but thank you for sharing.

    Comment by jen — September 25, 2011 @ 6:43 pm

  4. So sorry about Drew. So great he gets to make the best of it! So awesome of you to experiment with yummy goodies to get him eating.

    We had a period when Jasmine didn’t want to eat anything. I was chasing her around with fresh steak and she still wouldn’t want it. I was very upset and dreaded mealtimes.

    Fortunately things turned around for her. Now one has to watch their fingers :-)

    Loving thoughts for Drew.

    Comment by Jana Rade — September 25, 2011 @ 8:23 pm

  5. When did the blogroll disappear? Or is it just my computer?

    Comment by C.L.H. — September 25, 2011 @ 8:52 pm

  6. I used a product called SeaCure, a hydrolysed fish protein created for malnourished children, in both my cancer and renal failure dogs. It provided necessary protein and a very concentrated and pre-digested serving, and could even by syringed into them if needed. It was expensive, but gave us several more quality months of comfortable living. Discuss with your vet of course….and research yourself as I’m typing the info on this stuff from memory :o))

    Comment by Wendy — September 25, 2011 @ 9:39 pm

  7. oh yes…another thing. W. Jean Dodds commented in a conference that italian seasoning was an appetite stimulant. You can sprinkle it on while cooking, or in this case buy the preseason Italian frozen meatballs. Good luck!

    Comment by Wendy — September 25, 2011 @ 9:40 pm

  8. http://seacure-propernutrition.blogspot.com/

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — September 26, 2011 @ 5:28 am

  9. Seacure is wonderful — we’ve used it with our geriatric corgi, who has many health challenges — but it has been unavailable for quite a while. See the info on the Seacure blog.

    Comment by Cindy R — September 26, 2011 @ 6:33 am

  10. Everything from the left column is gone including the search and our bios! Not sure what the issue is!

    Comment by Christie Keith — September 26, 2011 @ 10:34 am

  11. That happened several days ago. I just figured it was another step in the journey towards this blog’s demise.

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — September 26, 2011 @ 12:32 pm

  12. I’ll get it back. :)

    Comment by Gina Spadafori — September 26, 2011 @ 2:01 pm

  13. Jillcookie meatloaf? LOL Hmmmmm, Meatloaf Jillcookies…..may have to look into that. Did he eat it? If not, did you??

    Comment by Jill Gibbs — September 26, 2011 @ 3:16 pm

  14. Thank you Wendy for the tip on Italian seasoning! My 17 year old is also in renal failure and (not) eating has definitely been an issue. Tonight I made tiny meatballs with no salt Italian seasoning in no salt butter. She ate them all! She’s hanging around her dish looking for more, but I dare not overdo it - she didn’t eat at all yesterday (except for what I syringed into her), so we’ll wait a while before offering her any more.

    Don’t know if her attraction to them will last, but for now, we’re very pleased.

    Thank you again!!!

    Comment by mikken — September 26, 2011 @ 4:21 pm

  15. Any hints out there on keeping older horses on their feed when they have teeth missing and they have had an episode of choke (blockage in their esophagus from senior feed)? We have the rocks to put in the feed pan (like the raised bumps in dog food bowls to avoid bloat) and have the info on wetting the food but any other help would be great. Thanks for keeping the dialogue going. I also have an old Lab and these have been great ideas that have been shared.

    Comment by Connie — September 27, 2011 @ 4:38 am

  16. Glad there are pet owners out there like you who take such great care of their pets through thick and thin. Drew is lucky to have to have you. I hope you two are able to spend many more days together.

    Comment by Laura Potts — September 27, 2011 @ 7:26 am

  17. Connie- If your horse will eat wet food, a pelleted or extruded feed, watered down to the consistency of gruel, sometimes works well. If your horse likes dry food, use of a grazing muzzle will dramatically slow intake down. Both of these methods work best using a large, shallow feed tub, which limits the depth of the feed and forces the horse to lick and/or chase the food around the tub while minimizing gulping.

    Comment by Rori — September 27, 2011 @ 12:59 pm

  18. I Lost Amazing Grace my sweet Airedale in March to kidney disease- in the last month she started craving an increasingly vegetarian diet- she always loved apples, carrots, and sweet potatoes- in the end she just couldn’t handle protein- The hardest thing for me was to not project where we were in the process- UC Davis told me she was in decline two years before she died- I put her on kidney diet and took her to a holistic vet- she got Chinese herbs and acupuncture- and had a lovely two years- She was deaf too- I let her retire and have it be all about the love- Ahhhh I hold the life span of dogs against God-

    Comment by Lisa Stallings — September 30, 2011 @ 2:29 pm

  19. Gina, my dog was diagnosed when she was a month short of 13YO and lived to see another 3 years that she wasn’t supposed to see. Did your vet recommend Azodyl along with the SQ fluids?

    Comment by Deanna — October 3, 2011 @ 6:40 pm

  20. Drew is just gorgeous. I’m sorry he’s going through this right now, but I’m inspired by his strength and by your loving kindness too. I hope he finds more yummy food he likes.

    Comment by Peggy Frezon — October 10, 2011 @ 9:17 pm

  21. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....05483.html

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — October 11, 2011 @ 3:43 pm

  22. Plainville makes a super low sodium deli turkey that is really working for my old girl right now. It’s pricey ($12 a pound!), but apparently better than anything *I* can cook for her…

    Today, she LOVES the deli turkey. Tomorrow, who knows? But we take it one day at a time.

    Comment by mikken — October 11, 2011 @ 5:24 pm

  23. I’m going to look for it! Thanks. :)

    Comment by Gina Spadafori — October 12, 2011 @ 9:00 am

  24. Gina please keep us updated on this site about Drew.

    Comment by VJ — October 12, 2011 @ 2:45 pm

  25. Gina or Christie please update us on how Drew is doing, please.

    Comment by VJ — November 30, 2011 @ 8:54 am

  26. This place is pretty much dead. RIP PetConnection. What a pale joke of a replacement the sellout called “Vetstreet” is!

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 1, 2011 @ 3:38 pm

  27. I really miss it here !

    Comment by Lesliek — December 1, 2011 @ 5:23 pm

  28. I miss the information. I don’t miss getting piled on.

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 1, 2011 @ 5:49 pm

  29. To the Other PAT - I too, miss the information. I check the other blogs but don’t find any information like we had at Pet Connection. I do enjoy Christie’s updates on her dogs. Since I don’t use Facebook or Twitter, I’m lost.

    Comment by VJ — December 2, 2011 @ 8:53 am

  30. Did you see where Facebook got slapped by the FTC over privacy violations? Here’s one blogger’s take on how much - if any - improvement is likely to follow:

    http://informationweek.com/new...../232200477

    But I’m afraid their record is still too tainted with me to make it likely that I’ll EVER trust them enough to sign up for their services.

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 2, 2011 @ 12:28 pm

  31. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who still checks PC. Gina’s mentioned Drew a couple of times on her blog, http://www.goodfaithranch.com/.

    Comment by Grahund — December 2, 2011 @ 5:24 pm

  32. Her most recent comment there was on October 9. Looks like that’s another one to add to the “Dead Blogroll”.

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 3, 2011 @ 8:58 am

  33. The OTHER Pat - Perhaps we should send out a message to ANY one who used to be a regular contributor/reader of PC that if they tweet or facebook, would they ask Gina to either update her GoodFaithRance website or check PC and give us an update on Drew and also Faith. PC was way so informative. I miss it every day.

    Comment by VJ — December 3, 2011 @ 3:48 pm

  34. I miss all the information in one place. I tried going to all the blogs and even Facebook but there still wasn’t the info I was used to getting.

    RIP Pet Connection. It is sorely missed.

    Comment by rheather — December 6, 2011 @ 7:46 am

  35. Ha! It feels the same as when an old, dear friend has moved far, far away. :(

    Comment by Rori — December 6, 2011 @ 1:22 pm

  36. It really doesn’t matter if you FB or twit. There’s no section I can click on at the “other” place and get real time news. It’s divided into dogs and cats. Huh, mine all live in the same house. Apparently there’s no “rush” to transfer anything like the PC blog over to vetstreet, and probably never will be. It was all a smokescreen to hijack Dr. Becker and Gina. So here’s a pet food recall due to aflatoxin for those still playing along.
    Iams Proactive Health SMart Puppy:
    http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm282506.htm

    Can’t even post this on Usenet as I had a computer crash, got a new computer and there’s no inhouse email or NG reader. Thunderbird refuses to sign me up. Bah. I want a section in stores labeled Old Technology.

    Comment by CathyA — December 7, 2011 @ 5:23 am

  37. Cargill Animal Nutrition today announced a voluntary recall of two regional brands of its dry dog food – River Run and Marksman – due to aflatoxin levels that were detected above the acceptable limit. The affected products were manufactured at Cargill’s Lecompte, Louisiana, facility between Dec. 1, 2010, and Dec. 1, 2011.

    http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm282753.htm

    Comment by CathyA — December 7, 2011 @ 12:02 pm

  38. IAMS has been pretty weird on this one. Here’s a post on Yes Biscuit about it:

    http://yesbiscuit.wordpress.co.....od-recall/

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 8, 2011 @ 12:51 pm

  39. Just got notice of a recall from the FDA on something called “Dog Power” dog food. You can find it over at the FDA. When I got the notice on Iams, I KNEW it wasn’t going to be isolated. Here we go. I looked at Vetstreet.

    Comment by C.L.H. — December 13, 2011 @ 7:53 am

  40. Nothing on the Vetstreet homepage. I did a specific search on “aflatoxin” just for the heck of it and got 2 hits, but neither newer than four days old. And someone who didn’t know to specifically search for “aflatoxin” would never find even those two outdated articles. Yeah - that site is a total waste of bandwidth, IMHO.

    So here is a bit more comprehensive list from YesBiscuit:

    http://yesbiscuit.wordpress.co.....aflatoxin/

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 13, 2011 @ 8:26 am

  41. That was a sentence I thought I had completely deleted. It was a comment on Vetstreet and the fact that there was no information about the recalls there. I’m with you, that website is fairly useless. I didn’t want to be negative. I thought I had completely deleted the sentence. Hooray for “Yes Biscuit.”

    Comment by C.L.H. — December 13, 2011 @ 7:33 pm

  42. Okay - I thought she said she hated the name “Pet Connection” and was leaving it behind, yet here ( http://www.petconnection.com/column.php ) are articles dated as recently as December 19 (yesterday). And they’re reprinted on other sites around the web, so the “Pet Connection” name continues to be quite active, apparently.

    I guess it was just the BLOG she wanted to be rid of. What a shame. All that good (non-pablum) information shared on a daily basis, and now it’s gone.

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 20, 2011 @ 7:40 am

  43. Thanks for the information The OTHER Pat. You are so absolutely correct concerning all the good information shared on a daily basis. I sure miss that. How did you happen to find the website. Also, does she mention anything about Drew? Since I have a 14 yr old American Eskimo who now has an enlarged heart, I’m quite concerned how Drew is fairing.

    Comment by VJ — December 20, 2011 @ 3:07 pm

  44. They’re just generic articles, of the type that go into places like Sunday Parade magazine or Vetstreet.

    I’m sorry to hear about your Eskie with the enlarged heart. I will tell you that when my Papillon developed a heart murmur and then an enlarged heart in the last couple years of his life, adding salmon oil to his food seemed to help (he actually went through a few checkups where the heart murmur “went away” for a while!)

    He finally succumbed to congestive heart failure at the end of October (I miss him SO much!)but I really think the salmon oil, the watching of his weight, and keeping him on an Honest Kitchen-based raw diet (Preference) really helped add to the time that I had him.

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 20, 2011 @ 4:52 pm

  45. Oh Pat, my heart goes out to you. I’m so sorry for your loss. I can understand how much you loved him and that you tried what you could to help him. A huge hug to you.

    Comment by VJ — December 21, 2011 @ 7:40 am

  46. Thank you. I’m not looking forward to Christmas without him. He always went “visiting” with me and was a big part of the day for everyone who always looked forward to having him there. Seriously. The one year I left him home because I’d run out of time and he wasn’t freshly bathed, they jokingly told me that if I ever contemplated leaving him home again, I should just stay home myself, as well.

    And to add to things, three days after I lost him, I found a lump on one of my cats that turned out to be malignant mammary cancer. She’s now had a bilateral mastectomy and the first of five chemotherapy treatments (and so far she’s doing very well, thank goodness!).

    Yeah - I’m just not feeling all that “Christmas-y” this year . . . . . .

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 21, 2011 @ 8:42 am

  47. You’ll do fine, hon, believe me, I know all too well without trying to “one upmanship” with my losses. You will do fine. I’ll keep you and your pets in my prayers.

    Comment by VJ — December 21, 2011 @ 12:29 pm

  48. More on aflatoxin. It’s been discovered in various Chinese cooking oils:

    http://www.reuters.com/article.....JZ20111230

    The headlines keep describing it as a “carcinogen” rather than as an out-and-out toxin (which I find strange and a little sloppy on the part of the reporters.

    With the recent uptick in reports of aflatoxin in dog foods (Shirley added another one just today in her thread on YesBiscuit) it makes me wonder whether any of these dogs foods are using Chinese-sourced oils in their manufacture?

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 30, 2011 @ 11:49 am

  49. The title of the column wasn’t chosen by Gina. She inherited it, and wasn’t able to change it.

    Comment by Lis — December 31, 2011 @ 9:41 pm

  50. To the OTHER Pat - did you ever find out what happened to this site last week. Try as I might, it was totally deleted from my records and only today, 1-10, because I happened to hit the wrong key on my bookmarks page, did it pop up. Much to my delight and relief may I add. Inquiries to Christie were never answered. Guess they have all abandoned us unless we twitter or facebook.

    Comment by VJ — January 10, 2012 @ 3:36 pm

  51. Yeah - I also got a kick out of one of the discussions on YesBiscuit where people were being chastised for not knowing the “facts” of a certain situation because they were posted on Facebook and people were supposed to go over there and read the entries.

    Just one teensy tiny leetle problem - the Facebook page being referenced was only visible to Facebook members.

    Sigh. I’m afraid it’s feeling more and more like there’s a definite move afoot to “cut us off” unless we want to surrender to the “You don’t need no stinkin’ privacy!” Facebook Overlords.

    Comment by The OTHER Pat — January 10, 2012 @ 4:06 pm

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