Trace protein in urine of paralyzed doggie

[Precious'mom]

Hi,

My baby Precious will be 5 years old January 1, 2012, which is a milestone for us, as Precious was born with a cogenital spinal defect that left her with no feeling below her mid back, severe scoliosis of the spine, the inability to use her back legs, urine and fecally incontinent, and a splaying of the front legs. When I rescued her at 10 weeks old from a backyard breeder, most people I knew, people I met, never thought she'd live to see a year. I am so happy that she is doing so well, and turning five years old will be a huge milestone for us, which I am looking forward to! She also does very important work as a therapy dog, and ambassador to elementary and middle schools to educate kids about disability and to not be frightened or intimidated as people and animals with disabilities are no different, sometimes they just do things differently!

My concerns: Even though it has really surprised me, as all the research I had done on paralyzed dogs says urinary bladder infections are the biggest major concern for paralyzed dogs, Precious had never had a bladder infection. Knock on wood, really, because I know once they start they can be really hard to get rid of! I attribute this to my rearranging my life to accomodate Precious' needs: expressing three times a day, flexible work schedule, only traveling with her, never having anyone but myself express her as I know how to get all of the urine out and am too scared to trust this to anyone else, (I'm not willing to risk Precious' life, she's too important to me), etc. Also I have used cranberry supplement powder with antioxidants since she was a baby, which she gets twice a week. But in her last two urinalysis, done by at use home testing strips for pets showed she had trace amounts of protein in her urine. Now she just went to the vet in May, but I will be taking her in again to discuss this. Googling online said it's okay for animals to show trace amounts of protein in their urine, as long as there's no sign of infection. But, as she's only a 4 1/2 year old dog, I am worried that as she gets older, this problem might get more serious, and become a severe kidney disease. I know it's very proactive to be concerned now, and probably overbearing, but she's my baby, and as she's already lasted this long, I plan on her living another ten years, and I hope to give her every advantage possible to accomplish this. I have also read that sometimes this is attributed to a diet with too much protein. So switching to a lower protein diet may solve the problem. Precious is eating Taste of the Wild grain free lamb formula, which I believe has either 26 or 28% protein, slightly higher than I'd like for a dog like her, but it's hard to find a grain free food with lower protein. Someone had suggested Natural balance grain free which had around 22 % protein, but any others i have found are higher.

So I was wondering, did anyone else here have any experience with this they could share with me? Any suggestions as to what could be causing the trace protein? I know this is difficult as we do not have a definitive diagnosis on what Precious has, and what implications there will be in the future, but I would appreciate any input. We've never had an MRI done on Precious as we just didn't have the money for it with five dogs, three of them rescued with various health ailments, and my vet didn't think it would be necessary or helpful, as she was born this way, and nothing could be done to reverse or improve her condition. I'm thinking about doing a six week trial witha new food to see if it would improve, so if anyone has any food to suggest, I'm open to it, grain free or not, I just want the protein content to be no higher than 24%. Thanks for reading.

Also her pH was a little high at 7.0, not bad, but ideal should be between 6.2 and 6.5. I'm giving her more cranberry supplement to brind the pH down, but have heard that too much protein in the diet can cause a higher pH, so I didn't know if this could be another indication that the food just has too much protein. Let me know what you think.

Jennifer Stam

[cricketsmom]

Wow what a wonderful milestone of 5 years coming up! At this point I wouldn't be too worried. I see trace protein occasionally on the UA chem strips I do at work for pets, and unless it's paired with something else, they are usually given a clean bill of health. If it doesn't go away after a couple more weeks, and you're still worried, changing the food could give you some peace of mind. I feed my dogs Diamond Naturals Lamb and Rice formula which has 23% protein. It does contain barley. Another suggestion, although pretty expensive, is Blue Buffalo Lamb and Rice which contains 22% protein (also contains barley) or Blue Buffalo Basics Salmon and Potato which contains 22% protein.