High protein grain free food

    • Bronze

    High protein grain free food

    Hi everyone! I'm new to the board but I joined hoping to get opinions about this type of diet for my dogs. I currently feed them all Solid Gold- barking at the moon kibble. Now, I've always tried to feed them this "raw" grain free food and it always agrees with them. Before feeding Solid gold I started them on Innova Evo then found that petco offered wellness core so I switched them to that. They have been on the wellness for about a year when I found that one of my dogs developed crystals in his urine. Great right? So I had an urinalysis done on all of my other guys and the other 2 were fine but my vet suggested changing the food. My dogs are grazers so I changed them all to the Solid Gold because it had a lower protein count than the Evo. Now here's my delima... I keep hearing that the higher protein foods can lead to kidney damage in dogs. I've also heard that this is entirely untrue... So hearing all these conflicting opinions is frustrating. I was hoping to hear anyones opinion and/or stories about their dogs diets or past experiences. Thanks in advance for the help!
    • Gold Top Dog

    High protein diets do not lead to kidney damage.  They can, however, put added stress on an already damaged kidney---the biggest factor for kidney issues is phosphorus.    I will say that a fresh diet is best for a dog with kidney stress---We had our kidney compromised dog on a home prepared and raw diet formulated by our vet, who also happenes to be a nutritionist.  Here is a great resource for info;

    http://www.dogaware.com/health/kidney.html

    ...and a nice article written by a canine nutritionist:  http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=protein_myth

    • Bronze
    So you're saying if my dogs have no Kidney issues that the high protein diet is fine?