# Home cooked food for diabetic dog?



## virraszto (Jan 4, 2007)

My dog was just diagnosed with diabetes. She is very ill and weak right now after just being discharged from the hospital. The vet sent me home with Hills prescription canned dog food. I am supposed to give her 1 1/3 cans twice a day. My dog will NOT eat this!! Vet said for the time being to make her boiled chicken and rice. She is eating this very well. 

I know my dog will refuse the canned prescribed food, so what are my options?
I have lots of meat in the freezer I was going to donate ( beef heart, kidney, liver). I wonder if I could use regular lean meat and either rice or pasta to feed her, instead of the canned food?

I will talk this over with my vet, but I'm sure she is going to try to get her to eat the canned, and I'm sure it won't work. I don't want to play around with forcing her to eat so she can get her insulin. I don't mind making her food.

Anyone with a diabetic dog that you cook for? I sure could use some advice.



V.-


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 22, 2008)

virraszto said:


> Anyone with a diabetic dog that you cook for? I sure could use some advice.


I am not a vet nor to I have direct experience with diabetes. I do know (I think  ) that diabetics don't produce insulin therefore sugar gets too high in the diabetics body. Knowing that, it makes sense to me that you don't want to feed your dog sugar. You mentioned pasta. Pasta turns to sugar in the digestive process. Carbs are sugar.

I suggest feeding a prey model raw diet to your dog. I have known dieabetic dogs on other lists that have done very well on this diet. It is a diet of raw meat, bones, and organs from a variety of animals. Mostly meat, some bones, and some organs.

You mention that you have on hand some beef heart, liver, and kidney. These are a great part of a prey model raw diet. You won't feed them in the beginning but in a couple of months, they will be great to feed. I feed heart several times a week and liver or kidney about once a week.

Anyway, I won't go into great detail here but please check out http://www.skylarzack.com/rawfeeding.htm for my suggestions on how to begin a raw diet. If you have questions (and you will) you may come back here and ask them or email me directly. 

I've been feeding my dogs this diet for 6 years and they never eat carbs so it appears to me that would be good for a diabetic dog.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

High protein will stabilize her blood sugar, carbs will make it spike (I don't have experience with diabetes, but the opposite, an insulinomic ferret....but it's the same concept---keep the blood sugar stable!). I currently have my ferrets on EVO ferret food and they're doing well. If you can't feed raw, give EVO a try.


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## Stelladog (Aug 18, 2008)

I know so little about this, I shouldn't even be replying. But there should be some pretty solid info out there on the web somewhere about diets for diabetic pets. 

Now some of it may depend on the terrible question of how long you expect your dog to live. If you see 5+ years, that may be a different diet than if you are trying to squeeze out a couple final happy years. If many years, then you may need to worry about the kidneys. In humans, being a diabetic will strain the kidneys as can a high protein diet. No human diabetic should be on an Atkins diet (regardless of what Atkins people may say). I'm pretty sure this applies to dog also, so a very high protein diet is something to avoid in the long term.

A raw diet sounds like a lot of work to me. So I would probably start with lean ground beef until strength is regained they try mxing with different quality foods until an acceptable mix is found. Alternatively look at Honest Kitchen dehyrated raw.

Wierd tip: If you are testing blood sugars, my previous dog has big calluses on her elbows from sitting on a hard wood floor for years. These calluses turned out to be a painless and easy area to get a bead of blood from (after some practice).


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## virraszto (Jan 4, 2007)

Since she wouldn't eat the canned diet food straight I went ahead and made a mixture up and she's been eating it fine.

3 c. dry brown rice--6 c cooked
3 chicken breasts
2 scrambled eggs
1 c. broccoli
3/4 can of the diet dog food.

Mixed that all up and she's eating a little over a cup of it, twice a day. I found some diabetic dog recipes online and am going to use those. She is getting stronger every day.

Thanks for the advice and insight.


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