Liver Failure Reversal Diet

 While I completely agree that homecooking is wonderful for a dog's health when done correctly

 all of the commercial dog food is bad for the health of our dogs 
 
....is simply untrue.

In any case, it is wonderful that homecooking worked for your dog - sounds like you went through a lot of hard work and got rewarded for it :) Liver issues can be terrible things. Milk thistle is great stuff too! I'm glad it's gaining popularity.

I'm sorry, when I said "our dogs" I meant it literally.  While commercial food may be fine for many dogs, I have seen our dogs' health improve so significantly that I can only conclude that diet is what made a difference since nothing else changed; environment, exercise, etc.  Our male Golden is the female's son and may be predisposed to her conditions but all of our dogs had allergy issues, which have since resolved.  So I should have made myself clearer, I apologize.  I'm convinced that commercial dog food is not a good option for our own dogs.

Thanks for sharing! What an amazing story. I have to ask though, are you sure this is safe for a long-term diet? It seems to me that there are a lot of potatoes, and I'm not sure there's enough vitamins.

I agree with you that homecooking is probably the best for our dogs, but I've always seen that there are a lot of supplements that need to be given as well and everything has to be balanced. I've never seen anything as simple as what you are feeding for long-term health. I'm not an expert, but I'm sure there are more of certain vitamins in this diet that would repair the liver, but are there enough different vitamins to sustain long-term health? I just want to make sure you looked into that so you don't end up doing any damage to any other organs.

 That's great! My little Emma did exceedingly well on that diet, too. Monica Segal has altered it, slightly, to make it balanced for long term use. Google "Monica Segal" and you should be able to find it. She is a canine nutritionist, and specializes in custom diets for special needs dogs, like my Emma and your Powder.

No, this is not for long term but to resolve specific issues.  Once they are resolved, you can start supplementing what they need but I don't want to advise on that as each dog is individual.  Our other 2 dogs don't eat this diet alone. It makes up half of their diet with the remaining still being home-cooked food but they both were on this soley for about one week to resolve their allergy issues.  Our Powder is still on it fully and will have supplemental food added very slowly.  You also don't want to suddenly switch to this diet unless your dog is in end stage liver failure like our dog was.  For a liver cleanse, you will want to do this very slowly by only replacing about 1/4 of their food, then half, then full.  Once you see that the stools are remaining firm, you can move ahead.  Also, you need to be careful if your dog takes potassium or sodium bromide.  No one should just switch to this diet without checking with your vet first.  This is only meant to be a suggestion you can give your vet or as in our case, there was nothing else to try and no time to waste.

Also, this food should not be given as one meal but in small frequent meals, 3-4 times a day.  It's very rich to be digested all at once if your dog is used to eating once a day.

Oh thank you for the google suggestion!!!!   I'm interested to see if her modification is any different from what our vet suggested.  I still want to keep our dogs on the home-cooked food and continue their good health.  For Powder, I just can't take a chance with commercial dog food any longer and since I was cooking up this food anyhow, I decided to try it with the others.  Now I would like to stay away from commercial food for all of them since they all have issues, though the others are minor relatively speaking. 

How wonderful that Emma is doing so well too!  I'm happy to hear that it worked for another little friend!

Monica Segal is great - lots of expierence.

Casey eats kibble, but one day I would like to have him on a homecooked diet. For now, he's doing very well on what he's eating. I will def. go through Monica when I do make the transition over to homecooking for my animals.

 That is so wonderful!  I totally understand what it's like to hit on something as simple asa  change in diet and change a dog's life completely.  I've experienced it a few times now and I'm always so grateful and humbled to see what nature can accomplish when allowed to.

Just this last week Lynn went on her new diet, switched from kibble with fresh and raw supplements, to 100% homemade.  The difference is so amazing, though not nearly as dramatic as your experience, of course.

Good luck as you continue with your dogs!

 

 Emma was dying, when I stumbled across this diet. She was 10 months old, and recently diagnosed with "what must be microscopic shunts". Her numbers were so terrible... we put her on Denosyl, and on Lactulose. My vet suggested milk thistle, and cooking food with "no protein" for her. I started doing research. Lots and lots of research. Emma got down to 12.5 lbs. The bloodwork got worse. She wasn't expected to see her birthday.

Now? She's a lean, well muscled 20 lbs. She's 4 1/2 years old, and very active. She spent all day today out, with me, advertising my grooming shop. We papered the town with my flyers, then went and played at the beach. She competes in AKC obedience and rally o. Her bloodwork is perfect. 

Her bloodwork is perfect.

Now, she's on a widely varied, raw diet. She's done even better with this than with the homecooked, but it took us a LOOOOOONG time to get here. I waited til her bloodwork was good before I started to transition. Liver troubles don't need the added complication of pathogens in raw meat, IMO.

There can be a huge difference between liver FAILURE and liver INFECTION.  I had a sheltie mix that got into some bacteria laden stuff and darned near died in short order.  We took him immediately to an e-vet (this happened literally in a matter of a couple of hours), and that vet wouldn't listen to me when I told him I **KNEW** he'd gotten into bacteria.  Nooooooooooo "liver failure -- put to sleep"

 no way!

I finally convinced them to put him on anbiotics.  Much against their better judgement they did and he began to rally.

I home cook -- I simply did a bit more research and enlisted my holistic vet's help to do even more liver-friendly stuff and Foxy recovered 100%

AND he was 17 1/2 when he got SICK!! He lived almost two more years!!  Not too shabby for an OLD dog to start with.

Not just milk thistle -- but my holistic vet (who is not only an acupuncuturist but also uses Chinese herbs) used an oriental blend called "Ecliptex" that is sort of milk thistle to the 3rd power and it also is specifically FOR hard hitting stuff like infections.

There are easy diets for the liver and easy diets for the kidneys.  Learning to use diet to help health is great!! 

 and btw -- http://www.monicasegal.com -- she is awesome.  I have learned so much from Monica over the years!!

PS but I wanted to draw attention to this with a separate post.

PLEASE folks -- give Monica Segal a try.  She will write a diet specifically for YOUR dog (and she will work with your vet as well) for around $100 US.  (she's Canadian)

She will work with you for a couple of months until you get the diet implemented and are comfortable with it and you wind up on her newsletter as well. 

If she recommends herbs, she carries a line of wildcrafted herbs that are super high quality.  You don't have to use hers -- she simply believes so strongly that "wildcrafted" is best that she wants to be sure they are available for folks who want them.

She is actually a dog dietician... she knows her stuff and is a well-published well-thought of author.  She's easy to use -- she will take a hugely detailed history on your dog (things you didn't even *know* were important!)

Not just arthritis, but she's just awesome at most any problem -- from cancer to liver, kidney, IBD, etc.  She has a Yahoo group that is really helpful as well.

That sounds great!  $100 is little to spend when it comes to the dogs' health.  I think I will give it a try and see what she comes up with for my dogs.  My vet has been wonderful but I still remember how he was too ready to write Powder off when I first brought her in for this.  He told me to face the huge possibility of euthanasia but after sobbing for a few hours, I buckled down to find help for her. 

While some dogs won't be affected, it was mentioned that commercial food has preservatives that may contribute to my dogs' allergies.  Goldens are prone to "hot spots" and usually we fight those all summer.  But now they don't have a single spot and are not licking their toes all day.  It's great to see so much support for home-cooked diets and to read how other dogs were helped to recover.  Many of us consider our dogs to be family members and wouldn't do any less for any other member of the family.

Rescuedogs

No, this is not for long term but to resolve specific issues.  Once they are resolved, you can start supplementing what they need but I don't want to advise on that as each dog is individual.  Our other 2 dogs don't eat this diet alone. It makes up half of their diet with the remaining still being home-cooked food but they both were on this soley for about one week to resolve their allergy issues.  Our Powder is still on it fully and will have supplemental food added very slowly.  You also don't want to suddenly switch to this diet unless your dog is in end stage liver failure like our dog was.  For a liver cleanse, you will want to do this very slowly by only replacing about 1/4 of their food, then half, then full.  Once you see that the stools are remaining firm, you can move ahead.  Also, you need to be careful if your dog takes potassium or sodium bromide.  No one should just switch to this diet without checking with your vet first.  This is only meant to be a suggestion you can give your vet or as in our case, there was nothing else to try and no time to waste.

Also, this food should not be given as one meal but in small frequent meals, 3-4 times a day.  It's very rich to be digested all at once if your dog is used to eating once a day.

Thanks for clarifying! That's important to know if someone just stumbled across your original post they might think it was ok to use all the time. I'm so glad it worked for you.

You're right, I got so caught up in telling my story that I left so much out.  I focused on wanting to share the diet so others may want to try it for similar situations and didn't think how unclear the post was.  Thank you for reminding me to proof posts as others would read them!   I certainly wouldn't want anyone to harm a dog by just jumping into this diet without all of the facts.  Just like we should consult a physician before starting a diet, but don't most of the time, we shouldn't do that with our dogs either.  We have free will but they can't choose their own food so we have to be even more careful.