Howie Health Update

Last week, Howie went in for his every three month urine test, to make sure we still don’t have any crystals forming and to keep an eye on his inability to concentrate urine. We realized that it has been a year since his last full checkup. He got rabies and distemper vaccines, x-rays of his front leg (he’s been limping a bit), and a blood test.
The good news is that he’s only showing a little bit of arthritis in his shoulder, none in his knee. Of course, that could mean that his limp is associate with a neck injury.
The bad news is that the blood tests came back showing his kidneys are failing. I have to remind myself that while we have only had Howie a year, he is 14 years old. This is not necessarily a surprising diagnosis given his age.
His creatinine levels are over 2x what they should be. BUN levels are also high, though not quite as high as creatinine. His urine concentration remains low (though barely under normal). What does all this mean for Howie? To honest, we don’t know for certain yet.

The good news is that he still seems to be a happy dog. He eats. He asks for loves. He wants to go with us and be an explorer dog. He is randomly grouchy, but it never seems to last long, and while he definitely loves to curl up somewhere and sleep, he’s still always up for running to the living room and jumping on the couch in order to look out the window and bark at whatever Larry and June are barking at.
To us, this means he is still feeling mostly good, and the vet says that is the important thing.
We are changing his diet to one with low levels of high quality protein and low phosphorous. In fact, we’re making it ourselves. (We bought 40lbs of yams this weekend.) We’re having some difficulties getting it to a texture Howie likes (for future reference, do not food process it all- it becomes a slurry he’s not certain how to eat), but he does seem to like the taste.
We are supplementing it with a no phosphorous doggie multi-vitamin and salmon oil to make sure he’s getting all the nutrition he needs and the extra fat (since his calories should not be coming from protein).
He goes back into the vet in a month. We’ll do a new blood test. We’ll see if his levels are stable or perhaps reduced with the new diet. And then we’ll have a better idea of what the future holds for our Howie monster.