Hill's B/D

[DeafDogs]

As I said, one of the reasons. Cats are desert animals, who evolved to get most of their water from their prey. Consequently, cats dont hace a very strong thirst drive and do not drink enough. It's estimated that a dry fed cat spends most of their lives half dehydrated. Consequently, this is why kidney and bladder issues are so very common in cats, which are already somewhat "delicate" in that area. Lots of water flushes their urinary tract, which helps keep crystals from forming.

Dry food is also much higher in carbohydrates than canned (40% vs 6% in the brands I like best) abd as cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they NEED meat to survive, and do not need carbs, nor are carbs good for them.

Dry food for cats is a death sentence, in my, very well researched opinion.

So is Hills for dogs. I will never let that pass my dogs lips. Never.

 

[nerdrock]

This is completely off topic and not something I really have the energy for at the moment, however, I'm always up for a friendly debate so if you'd like to continue it we can either create another thread (as this one is about experiences with Hills B/D food) or we can take this to PMs. I do think we could have some interesting discussions as long as things weren't taken personally

I read some of your past comment history and it looks like we disagree on quite a few things from food to training but also do agree on some other things - no big deal as we're all individuals and that's what makes places like this so informative! We can debate, offer advice, etc and you get the opinions of people across the province, country or world. I suggest that we agree to disagree for now, given that our topic of discussion has gone from the point of the thread to another species entirely.

I will continue to update this as we try different things for Sadie to help with her dementia in case someone else in a similar situation stumbles across this but posts will be relatively few and far between - my next one probably won't be for a month or so.

I don't remember to check in very often, I use a computer all day at work so I hardly ever use mine at home and my phone doesn't alert me when something is responded to (using Tapatalk). I do get emails when I get a PM though.

 

[nerdrock]

Just another quick update.

Mid December I came home from doing kennels at work in the evening. I hadn't been gone more than 15 minutes, both dachshunds were in their x pen while I had slipped out and my partner was upstairs taking care of some work while I was gone. He didn't hear anything. When I came home, he met me downstairs by the x pen and was helping me get them out, we were going to let them out for a pee before watching a movie. We noticed that there was a huge wet spot on their bed (it's a huge round bed from costco). We thought it was water at first but Sadie was laying right in the middle and wouldn't get up. She shifted her weight a little and we saw poop. This is pretty strange for them. It was at this time, about 5 minutes from getting home, that we realized Sadie had had a seizure. I looked more closely at her and realized that her right eye was twitching and she couldn't walk - seizures were still happening!

I called the late night clinic that I work at, it was about 8:45, to let them know that Sadie had been seizing for at least 10 minutes and wasn't stopping, I was bringing her in. I had her on my lap for the drive, she stopped seizing about halfway there.

We gave her some oral valium because she was pretty much back to normal and did some blood work. The blood work was all over the place, it was interesting to see compared to blood work that was done just a few days before. We also did a quick xray to make sure that it was a seizure cause by epilepsy and not something else as she has had IVDD and bladder stones before. Everything came back normal.

She's been started back on medication again, she will be on it for life now. This was her first seizure in 2.5 years. We now have rectal valium at home in case of another one but so far she's been fine.

We're holding off on starting her on anything new for the dementia until her meds are stable for the epilepsy.

 

[GJBain]

Our last Dachshund Samantha had siezures and was on Phenobarbital most of her life, since 3 years old. It had no affect on her and she lived to be 17 years 3 weeks old. It is hard watching them go through a siezure. I miss her everyday.