The danger of feeding HIGH protein kibble

The "protein" dogs are biologically-designed to eat is supposed to come in the form of RAW TISSUE. Raw tissue is 70% water, and more than this, raw tissue contains natural enzymes that aid the dog in digestion. Therefore, when a dog eats raw tissue, he not only has plenty of fluids inherent in his meal, but he also has the aid of enzymes to help him process this meal.

A dog's kidneys are essentially "filters," through which nitrogeneous waste (protein waste) gets processed and excreted through the urine. When the dog eats raw tissue, the abundance of water and enzymes HELP the dog digest the meat, which in turn means there is MINIMAL waste that has to be processed through the kidneys.

Well, when we feed kibble (especially super-high-protein kibble), instead of feeding your dog what it's supposed to eat (raw flesh), you are feeding it highly cooked proteins, with all the water removed, and with all of the natural enzymes destroyed because of the cooking process. And if you add to this the fact that *most* of the proteins used in these high-protein concoctions come from "corn glutens," etc. (which the dogs can't even digest properly), this means that these high protein feeds become CONCENTRATED TRASH that your dog does NOT process fully ... and therefore your dog has AN ABUNDANCE OF UNPROCESSED PROTEIN TRASH he now has to filter out of his body via the kidneys.

In any filtration system, when you have an abundance of garbage going through the filter, and a state of not enough water to help it pass, you have the recipe for a CLOGGED filter.

And when those filters are your dog's kidneys, those kidneys will begin to labor harder and harder to get all of that excess "protein trash" out of your dog ... every day of its life that you feed this stuff ... and eventually, over time, this repeated exertion will start to clog those kidneys up.

And the signs will be obvious ...

Your dog will start drinking an alot of water all day ... and he will be trying to pee and pee and pee every other minute ... and what this should tell anyone with a clue is that the dog's kidneys are getting tied up. Sadly, however, most people have no clue.

What will then follow are urinary tract infections from the continual dehydration and effort, kidney infections, and eventually a total shutdown of the kidneys altogether.

So go ahead and feed those super-high-protein kibbles ... and scratch your head as to "why" your dog keeps drinking so damned much, and pissing so much ... but just be aware that the reason he is doing so is because YOU are killing him by feeding him way too much protein in dry kibbled form.

Just watch any dog that gets fed a super-high-protein dry kibble ... and every last one of them will be drinking a bucket of water a day, and pissing every other minute, and that is because their kidneys are being forced to work overtime every day of their lives, thanks to their owner placing them under this kind of stress with that kind of kibble.

 

Is Wellness puppy a high protein feed?

 

This explains it better than I can http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=protein_myth

 

My dog eats a "premium" high protein kibble and he has done fine. He eats this for two meals and a raw meal once a day. I figure their are alot of worse things I could be feeding.

 

I've got three on EVO RM, Boston. They're thriving. Even the little APBT who was severely underweight after being dropped off at the vet's half dead with parvo, and I've got a 10 year old GSD/wolf mix who not only has no skin issues at all - which is amazing for any dog of that age in this day with GSD blood - but even the vet can't believe he's a day over four.

 

I was feeding my dog Innova. The food was too high protein for my dog. My dog got UTIs and ended up getting a bladder stone which had to be removed. The food contributed to him getting the stone. He now eats Royal Canin Urinary kibble and he loves it and I have not had any problems since. I also have to make sure his water is filtered.

 

One thing we all have to do is make educated choices for our dogs, observe and find the right food for our particular dogs.

If one food was right for every dog, well, there'd only be one food!

 

I agree. And if your dog is expending the protein by conditioning, then go for the high-protein kibble. My dog is off it for the winter (from EVO to Merrick).

 

They're probably MORE active during the winter than in the heat of summer, lol. Favorite conditioning sport is bed wrestling :rolleyes: It can get interesting when I'm already in bed!

 

True my dog still runs around like a maniac but instead of running on grass he is pushing through snow that is chest deep. I deffinatly think he burns alot of calories in the winter.

 

I've been feeding raw chicken for a few years now to my dogs and I love it. Wouldn't feed them anything other than whole raw chicken. IMO they are healtyer happyer stronger and look 100x better plus the poop turns to ash in about a day so there's hardly ever any poop to scoop on the chain spots.

 

I was told this before about high protein food....Does this apply to grain-free feed? Ask this question because in a grain free formula would have a higher percentage of protein because of the absence of grain...

 

Diet and the Older Dog

by Mary Straus
Article published in the Whole Dog Journal, December 2006
We all want our dogs to enjoy the highest quality of life for the longest possible time. Proper diet, adequate exercise, weight control, appropriate supplements, and good veterinary care can all help our dogs remain active and vibrant well into their senior years.
Nutrition can make a significant difference in how long our dogs live, and how healthy they remain as they age, but there are a lot of misconceptions about what type of diet is best for older dogs.
Fundamental principles widely accepted in the past have been discredited by research done in the last 15 years. This research has revolutionized what we know about canine nutrition and profoundly changed our ideas about what older dogs need, not just to survive, but also to thrive and be as healthy as possible. It takes time, though, for this new knowledge to filter down into the veterinary, pet food, and pet owner communities. Protein for senior dogs

Here’s a quiz: which of the following are the most important reasons for feeding a lower protein diet to senior dogs?

a. Senior dogs need less protein than younger adult dogs.
b. Lower protein diets help to protect the kidneys, especially in older dogs.
c. Replacing protein with carbohydrates helps to prevent older dogs, who may be less active, from gaining weight.
d. Carbohydrates help dogs being fed a lower calorie diet feel full, so they won’t be hungry and crave more food.​

Answer: None of the above.

The truth is that there is no reason to feed a lower protein diet to senior dogs. While lower protein diets have traditionally been recommended for senior dogs based on assumptions such as those above, we now know that a protein-rich diet is especially important for older dogs, due to the fact that their systems are less efficient at metabolizing protein. Recent studies show that healthy older dogs may need as much as 50 percent more protein than their younger adult counterparts.
Protein is valuable for many reasons: it supports the immune system and the central nervous system, contributes to wound healing, helps build lean muscle, and is required for skin and coat health.
When dogs are not fed enough protein, their bodies will break down their own muscle tissue to get what they need, leading to muscle wasting and other serious problems. Even mild protein deficiency can significantly impair immune function. Dogs who get too little protein are also more susceptible to stress, including stress from injury or infection.
But what about the kidneys? Doesn’t a low protein diet lessen the workload on the kidneys and help protect older dogs from kidney disease?
Again, the answer is no. Research done on dogs has now proved that protein does not damage kidneys, and feeding a lower protein diet does not protect them. In fact, senior dogs fed high protein diets live longer and are healthier than those that are fed low protein diets, even when one kidney has been removed. Studies conducted at the University of Georgia in the 1990s demonstrated that feeding protein levels of 34 percent (on a dry matter basis; see sidebar, below) to older dogs with chronic kidney failure and dogs with only one kidney caused no ill effects.
These same studies did raise the issue of whether low-protein diets may cause harm. The mortality rate was greater for the dogs fed 18 percent protein than for the dogs fed 34 percent protein. Another study done on dogs with only one kidney showed that protein levels up to 45 percent of the diet had no harmful effect on the remaining kidney. My own dog Nattie, who was diagnosed with early kidney disease at age 14, actually improved over the next two years on a diet that was more than 36 percent protein on a DRY matter basis, before I lost her to problems unrelated to kidney failure. More myths busted

The same is true of liver disease. Although low protein diets were recommended in the past for dogs with liver disease, recent research has found that protein is required for a healthy liver and a low protein diet can be harmful to dogs with liver disease. The only time that protein needs to be restricted is when hepatic encephalopathy (neurological problems caused by excess ammonia) is present.

So, if a lower protein diet is not necessary or desirable for health reasons, what about weight loss? Won’t lowering protein and increasing carbohydrates help prevent an older dog from becoming overweight? Doesn’t a diet high in carbs, such as grains and vegetables, help a dog on a low calorie diet feel fuller?
Once again, the answer is no.
Protein and carbohydrates supply exactly the same number of calories: 4 calories per gram. Replacing protein with carbohydrates does nothing to reduce calories, but it does reduce nutrition. Dogs have no nutritional need for carbohydrates, as even the veterinary textbooks admit. Diets high in carbohydrates contribute to inflammation, which increases arthritis pain, and can cause medical problems, including obesity and maldigestion.
It is far better to feed protein, which dogs efficiently convert into energy as well as muscle, than to feed carbohydrates, which are more likely to be converted to fat.
In one study, 26 English Pointers ranging in age from 7 to 9 years were fed either 15 percent or 45 percent protein over several years. The dogs fed the high protein diet maintained a higher percentage of lean body mass and a lower percentage of body fat.
It is also likely that protein - helps to satisfy the appetite more than carbohydrates do. Several studies done on people have shown that high protein diets reduce appetite, and a recent study found that meat, eggs, and cheese trigger a protein that makes us eat less.
While the pet food companies have added indigestible fiber to “bulk up” their foods so the dogs would supposedly feel fuller on a lower calorie diet, this turned out not to be true. A study done on dogs by the WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition concluded that the addition of soluble or insoluble fiber had no beneficial effects on satiety (feeling full), nor did they increase weight loss.
In Canine and Feline Nutrition, authors Case, Carey and Hirakawa state "Diets that contain increased levels of indigestible fiber and reduced levels of protein are not recommended for weight loss or for long-term weight maintenance of sedentary dogs and cats. If a diet is simultaneously high in indigestible fiber and low in fat and/or other nutrients, it is possible that long term feeding may result in nutrient deficiencies in some animals". A family of Chows

Southern California resident Mindy Fenton, owner of the SeniorRawFeeding list on Yahoo, has raised several Chows, a breed that normally lives to between 10 and 12 years of age. Of Mindy’s last three dogs (none of whom were related to each other), two passed away while still extremely healthy at age 14 (one due to pet sitter negligence and the other to an embolism following surgery for a broken leg). The third dog, Maggie, lived to age 16 before passing away gently and naturally on her own.

These were not dogs who were simply “existing” in their very advanced years; they had clear eyes, perfect hearing, and far more energy than many dogs half their age.
Even in their last years, these dogs had tremendous vitality, still racing around the house, jumping on furniture, and pulling to go faster during their walks. At the beach, Mindy and her husband could hardly keep up with the dogs, who would still run with the wind. People who met Mindy’s senior dogs could never guess their age. We should all be so lucky in our advanced years!
Mindy attributes her dogs’ ongoing vitality to feeding a high-protein raw diet. While we sometimes see dramatic changes in younger dogs who are switched to a raw diet, she believes the real payoff comes during a dog’s senior years after having been fed a raw food diet for many years. Common sense tells us that when a dog has eaten a lifetime of species-appropriate food, inherently his body is going to function better during those latter years.
Even dogs who are switched to a raw diet at an older age will also benefit. Maggie, the Chow who lived to be 16 years old, was nine years old when Mindy originally began feeding a raw diet. My oldest dog was 13 when I made the switch in 1998. While he lived only one more year, he became completely allergy-free during that year, after suffering from environmental allergies most of his life.
Mindy fed her senior dogs exactly the same diet as her young adult dogs. Specifically, her dogs eat a wide variety of proteins including chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, venison, buffalo, tripe, ostrich, quail, and duck. She use a mixture of ground raw food (meat, bones, and/or organ meat) and whole bones, extras such as eggs and dairy, plus organic vegetables that consist of no more than about 10 percent of the overall diet. Needless to say, her dogs eat a very high protein diet, which is consistent throughout their lives. [See Balancing a Homemade Diet for more information on feeding your dog a raw or cooked diet.]

http://www.dogaware.com/seniordiets.html

 

Is the only way to tell how much protein is too much is by how often they urinate and how much water they drink? What should the actual grams of protein intake/pound of body weight be, e.g., 1/1lb?