hemangiosarcoma/diet ?

[jb777]

I should change the topic to Pancreatitis/Kibble to be more accurate. I made the mistake of not researching diet 12 months ago. It was the kibble that definitely compromised my dog's Pancreas. I know that for sure. I just didn't realize all kibble would be bad for her to digest. This I know for sure from experience of bloody stools. It just took longer for that eventual event to happen. She did died of a ruptured spleen tumor. I should have been wiser. And labels should have been on dry food explaining not for dogs with Pancreatitis. Go ahead and call me wrong, maybe this thread will give warning to someone with a BC in the future. I realize dogs die from the same stuff on other diets, but this dog, it was the kibble. Sorry if you want to not hear this information. I'm glad your dogs are fine on kibble. But mine is not here to go for our walk today. All I can do is educate myself for the future dog. I'll stop blaming myself and educate myself at least. I'm not trying to tell anyone to change their diets. I'm just making a point for anybody that may have the same problem out there. To find a wet food to save their dog. Mine might be here with the right food from 12 months ago. There is a possibility she would.

 

Thanks

[Olivia]

Then if your point is that dogs with pancreatitis should not be fed dry food then why shouldn't a possible future dog be fed dry food? Chronic pancreatitis is not common and I would think it very unlikely that you would end up with a second dog with the same disease. Therefore you should research diets and pick the diet that will work best for you, your dog, your pocketbook, and your lifestyle. I think you are beating yourself up and looking for an answer that doesn't exist. Medicine is rarely black and white, where one cause = one effect, ie. dry kibble = death from pancreatitis/cancer or smoking = lung cancer. There are many factors that contribute to diseases and disorders in animals and people.

 

Feeding a good responsible raw diet is not easy and I think, since it has become such a fad, I have seen it done badly more often than not in the vet's office where I used to work. Feeding a good quality kibble is not a death sentence for dogs but I have seen it almost be one for badly raw fed dogs.

 

FWIW I feed dry kibble to my dogs and have never had an issue with my 4 personal dogs (the oldest is 13) nor the many fosters who have been through my house. I simply do not have the inclination to feed raw correctly so I do not do it. I supplement with raw bones and raw bits and pieces here and there that they enjoy though!

[Maralynn]

Pancreatitis has to do with fat content. I can absolutely see how Eukanueba played into that. But often pancreatitis pops up in a dog that gets a sudden influx in fat (i.e. eating a couple stick of butter or getting into turkey skin around thanksgiving) And there is a huge variance in fat content between kibbles - from less than 10% to more than 20%

[Liz P]

Once again you are stating something that isn't true. Dry food (in general) does not trigger pancreatitis unless you suddenly switch your dog to a very rich (high fat content) dry food that it's not used to eating. Do more research before crying wolf next time.

[jb777]

How do you explain my dog not getting sick with real food then as in boiled chicken? And then when I switch to dry kibble she dies. How do you all explain that? How do you explain that even Canidae gave her bloody stools? 5 years on real food she was fine. Then I switch to Acana dry, and she dies 11 months later. Seems pretty obvious to me what was bad for her. I had more damn problems with dry food than anything else. I so regret it! I could scream.

 

I'm done posting.

[Liz P]

My family member went to China for a business trip. After he had been there for awhile he started feeling ill. We theorized that maybe it was the change in diet upsetting his stomach, or even a "bug" he picked up there. He came home, but was still feeling off despite getting back on his regular diet. Finally, he went to see his doctor and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Based on your logic, eating Chinese food causes pancreatic cancer and kills.

 

What really happened is he had a genetic predisposition to pancreatic cancer.

[juliepoudrier]

This will be my last post on the subject, and I'm not even bothering to address it to the OP, who is clearly convinced that s/he knows absolutely the cause of his/her dog's pancreatitis, hemangiosarcoma, or whatever. But since the OP now claims to desire to educate others, here's some science-based information on the causes of pancreatitis, straight from the Merck Veterinary Manual, which is a trusted source for medical information for animals (for all but possibly the OP that is).

 

"Most cases of pancreatitis in dogs and cats are idiopathic. However, dietary indiscretion is believed to be a common risk factor in dogs. Severe blunt trauma, such as can be sustained during a traffic accident or in cats with high-rise syndrome, can cause pancreatitis. Surgery has been considered another risk factor for pancreatitis; however, most postsurgical cases of pancreatitis are now believed to be due to pancreatic hypoperfusion during anesthesia. Infectious diseases have been implicated, but the evidence for a cause and effect relationship is weak in most cases. In dogs, pancreatitis has been reported with Babesia canis infection."

 

The entire article can be found here: http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/digestive_system/the_exocrine_pancreas/pancreatitis_in_small_animals.html?qt=pancreatitis&alt=sh

 

For those who don't know, idiopathic means of unknown cause. Dietary indiscretion, as Mara points out, usually means ingesting a bunch of something with an extremely high fat content.

 

I know several owners of working dogs locally who feed (and have for years) Eukanuba. It's not a food I'd necessarily choose, but those folks aren't losing dogs to pancreatitis. Maybe it's because they are working dogs and so have greater fat requirements than the average pet dog. But as I've often stated on this forum when it comes to questions about what to feed, dogs are individuals and what doesn't work for one dog may well work for another.

 

Generalizations usually are pretty useless when one is trying to decide the best type of care to give their own pet.

 

ETA: Except now it's apparently the Acana that caused the death.

 

I'm glad the OP is so sure of the cause-effect related to his/her dog's death. Maybe when the next dog dies from a poorly researched/prepared raw diet (because you know, boiled chicken is a well-balanced diet), we'll be treated to a "raw killed my dog" thread. It's just as likely that a lifetime of eating a poorly balanced homemade diet predisposed to the dog to illness and death but of course since that death happened only after a switch to kibble, it MUST be the kibble. Thank goodness most of the world looks for real evidence-based answers to life's problems....

 

Liz, you're analogy is a good one, but you're wasting your figurative breath here.

 

J.

[Shetlander]

How do you explain my dog not getting sick with real food then as in boiled chicken? And then when I switch to dry kibble she dies. How do you all explain that? How do you explain that even Canidae gave her bloody stools? 5 years on real food she was fine. Then I switch to Acana dry, and she dies 11 months later. Seems pretty obvious to me what was bad for her. I had more damn problems with dry food than anything else. I so regret it! I could scream.

Boiled chicken is extremely low in fat and would be a good thing to feed a dog with pancreatitis. Otherwise, I have no possible explanations for the health problems of a dog I never saw. Plus I am not a vet. If you only feed "real food" to your next dog, please do research on nutritional requirements of dogs.

[OurBoys]

5 years on real food she was fine. Then I switch to Acana dry, and she dies 11 months later.

If she was doing fine on "real food" why did you switch her to Acana?

[rlwzgd]

You missed that part - she wasn't fine but losing weight/muscle rapidly. After we decided that probably did not cause death, it became the kibble's fault. I feed raw, but I guess that's beside the point, so I'll stop confusing this situation with facts that don't align with the op's view.

 

In other news, I wish I was so sure about how to avoid cancer - in humans especially - there's a lot of money and probably a Nobel for that...

[Maralynn]

My version of the OP's story - I started adding The Honest Kitchen food in with my dog's regular raw and 8 months later she was dead from cancer. She actually did really well for 7 years on kibble but 5 years after I switched her to raw and subsequently added bit of THK she was dead from cancer. So should my conclusion be to NOT feed your dog raw or THK because it will lead to cancer?

[jb777]

Let's have some respect for each other please. Especially at a time of loss.

[OurBoys]

Let's have some respect for each other please.

 

I agree, jb, so why don't you respectfully answer my question? If your dog was doing fine on "real food" why did you switch her to Acana?

[mickif]

I have had a couple of friends who's dogs have died from this, one was fed variations of raw his entire life with minimal vacs, he was the best dog ever!, was not discovered until too late, and then I am sure that nothing could have been done anyway.

 

My girl (aussie), only 5.5 years old, died of Leukemia. One day she was the healthiest she'd ever been, within 3 weeks she was gone. Never fed kibble, never had vacs after initial puppy ones, titered, ate variations of raw, no toxins in yard, healthy lifestyle. She was my best friend. I beat myself up over this for 1.5 years, wondering what I could of done to prevent it, to still have her with me. I now have times of peace believing it was her time to go, she had other things to do, might sound strange to some. I also believe that genetics play a large role.

 

I have a BC pup staying with us now, She was raised on LOW quality kibble, in my opinion had way too many vacs and poisons, where she comes from all dogs have the same... low quality food, over vac'ed, once monthly ivermectin and yet the older dogs are still going strong.... so I still feed and handle my dogs the way I believe, but have learned that there is no definitive answer for what works best for all.

 

Life is a crap shoot, sometimes it's wonderful and sometimes it sucks.

 

To the OP, Acana is an excellent food, I think you are reaching for an answer you may never get. You will find some moments of peace... or acceptance..., but it will take some time.

[jb777]

There was a brief time where she was losing weight while eating her regular meals (5 years of The Honest Kitchen plus boiled chicken). I should have gone to the vet, but I chose to try a different food. I found Acana dry and it seemed different than the food I previously tried in her lifespan. The difference was it said "no grains", and the other ingredients were chicken & potato. What I should have done was have blood work done. Research diet again on a dog with a history of Pancreatitis. This way I would have tried a WET food, and maybe get some digestive enzymes. But instead I made a hasty decision with giving a dry food another chance.

 

The Acana dry seemed to be working. She gained weight. Too much weight. I believe it overworked her organs and fed the tumor with all the added CARBS.

 

Obviously this won't happen to all dogs. But it had a negative impact on mine over time. But it's still possible she would have died. I believe a low fat, no carb wet food would have extended her life. As those ingredients don't feed tumors like CARBS = SUGARS do. But I will agree not all dogs will suffer the fate that mine did.

[Smalahundur]

So tumors eat sugar...interesting...

Ah well, enough of this nonsense. Time to go to bed.

[Maralynn]

Cancer cells need glucose more than regular cells. Studies have shown that higher protein/lower carb diets will slow the growth of tumors

[Maralynn]

Cancer cells need glucose more than regular cells. Studies have shown that higher protein/lower carb diets will slow the growth of tumors

[Hooper]

There was a brief time where she was losing weight while eating her regular meals (5 years of The Honest Kitchen plus boiled chicken). I should have gone to the vet, but I chose to try a different food. I found Acana dry and it seemed different than the food I previously tried in her lifespan. The difference was it said "no grains", and the other ingredients were chicken & potato. What I should have done was have blood work done. Research diet again on a dog with a history of Pancreatitis. This way I would have tried a WET food, and maybe get some digestive enzymes. But instead I made a hasty decision with giving a dry food another chance.

The Acana dry seemed to be working. She gained weight. Too much weight. I believe it overworked her organs and fed the tumor with all the added CARBS.

 

Do you even know what CARB content of Acana is compared to Honest Kitchen? I don't know which THK formula you fed, but at least the couple I looked up had sweet potato and potatoes the second and third ingredients. Pretty much like Acana. So, for all you know, the evul CARB content of Acana might not even have been any different than what you had been feeding. I have never used either food, and I have no vested interest in defending either one. But, I'm sort of a fan of critical thinking, and that seems to be sorely lacking in your certitude that because you fed X and your dog got sick, X caused the sickness.

 

Your entire "research" seems to be based on one vet's unsubstantiated claims on the internet. I know that peer reviewed results of scientific studies published in elite journals like Nature don't have the same gravitas as a series of informercials on youtube, but here's a summary with a link to the original paper that indicates that 11,000 years of selection to survive as scavengers of human garbage has indeed altered the digestive physiology of dogs compared to wolves.

 

http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2013/01/diet-shaped-dog-domestication#disqus_thread

 

There is plenty of room for legitimate rational evidence based debate about how much CARB is too much for a dog (or human) diet, but the role of CARBS in dog diets is way more complex than dog-descended-from-wolves-and-wolves -don't-eat-CARBS,-therefore-dogs-shouldn't-eat-CARBS.

 

There's even less support for this weird idea that dry food is somehow worse than wet food. Just because a vet hawking $18 recipe books and enzyme capsules at $0.50 per dose on youtube infomercials declares it to be true doesn't mean it is. Sure, being chronically dehydrated is not good for dogs or humans. So, add some water to the kibble. And provide adequate drinking water. And if a dog goes from 32 to 52 lbs (the equivalent of a person going from 160 to 260 lbs) in 7 months, apparently without you noticing it until you had her weighed, you might want to consider that the quantity of food was too much or maybe she was hypothyroid, rather than assuming that removing CARBS from the diet will magically cure pancreatitis, cancer and obesity. Dogs and humans can become obese, develop pancreatic disorders, and die of cancer if they over eat high protein or high fat diets too.

[jb777]

Yeah but I read if you add water to kibble, there could be some bacteria that is released. Maybe that is for a cheap kibble though?

 

She never gained weight from THK like she did from Acana. THK was in an unprocessed state, where as Acana was processed and cooked to hold a hard texture. Starches are added to hold kibble together on top of what is already in it.

 

All I can can say is this. It was like feeding my dog SUBWAY and she stayed lean to feeding her WENDY'S cheeseburgers and getting fat.

 

How the hell did I even get in this position of choosing the damn kibble is beyond me. I had already wrote if off for years, and then I fell back into it thinking this brand was different.

 

Not all dogs will die like mine did. It's just a warning to anybody that encounters a similar situation. I've talked to tons of people that feed kibble. And they're dogs are fine from what I hear.

 

I fed her the right amounts of food by the way. She just blew up.

[jb777]

I'm just gonna try and bow out of this topic now. I've stated all the info on my dog's diet. I appreciate the kindness and sharing of info.

 

I really wish I could get that dog back. It was a magical experience, and I hope to connect with one again like that.

 

I really don't know for sure if what I fed my dog killed her (Acana Dry). I do know it didn't seem to help the situation.

 

I will stick to wet or fresh food though next time. Although some will disagree, I didn't think it would be such a touchy topic on here.

 

Thanks.

[Smalahundur]

Although some will disagree, I didn't think it would be such a touchy topic on here.

It isn´t. The more negative reactions you got have more to do with how you put your opinion,than with the nature of the topic.

[jb777]

opp

[Blackdawgs]

I'm very sorry about the loss of your dog.

Please know that she likely would have developed cancer regardless of what she ate or what you did or did not do.

[rlwzgd]

Hey, my dog was running with the others until 2 days before he died - no indication that anyone I know saw. You will connect with another dog. It won't replace the dog you lost, it will touch you in new ways.

 

I'm sorry if you felt, but what others have said is correct, it's not the subject, it's your decrees. I personally make a huge investment in raw and have no interest in kibble, but saying kibble killed your dog is way out of line with scientific reasoning.