Mary Allen
Which treats are suitable for dogs and cats with kidney disease? Can dogs with kidney disease get chewing bones? Read here what you can give without interfering with the kidney diet.
Can Dogs and Cats with Kidney Disease be Given Treats?
The answer to this is a clear “Join!”. In principle, animals that are dependent on a kidney diet should not be given normal treats or chews, as these can impair the effectiveness of the kidney diet. However, the thought of having to withhold their sick pet from rituals and rewards that they have come to love hurts the soul of many pet owners – and that doesn’t have to be the case:
If you know what to look out for, you can find ways to treat your four-legged friend to Gutzi without endangering their health.
Treats for Kidney Patients: The Safest Solution
The easiest and safest solution is to give part of the daily feed portion as a treat. Kidney diets are high in fat and tasty (since many kidney patients are fussy). So there you have a real “Naschi”, which in this case is also the healthiest reward for your animal.
If you find that your pet needs more variety, you can use another manufacturer’s kidney diet as a snack. For example, Royal Canin Renal, Hills k/d, and the kidney diet from Specific (CKD for dogs and FKD for cats) are very suitable.
If you want something more individual, you can also bake biscuits from the kidney diet yourself. To do this, either take the corresponding canned food from the kidney diet or make porridge from dry food and water that you can shape into biscuits. Even healthy Christmas cookies can be conjured up for dogs and cats with kidney disease.
Baking instructions for kidney-healthy treats
- Suitable are e.g. Royal Canin Renal or Hills k/d dog or cat food
- Form biscuits about 1 cm thick from the canned food and spread them out on the baking tray lined with baking paper.
- At 180°C in a preheated oven (top and bottom heat) the biscuits are ready after 30 minutes.
- Please turn the biscuits halfway through the baking time.
- Biscuits made from dry food mash may be thinner and therefore ready a little faster. They can be removed from the oven as soon as they are crispy.
The homemade cookies should be kept in the fridge and used within a week. Since baking changes the vitamin content etc. of the food, the snacks should only make up a small part of the daily amount of food.
Treats for kidney patients: what to look out for
Are decisive for whether a treatment is suitable for your animal with kidney disease
- the phosphorus content,
- the protein content,
- the protein quality and
- the salt content.
The effect of a kidney diet is based, among other things, on the fact that it contains very high-quality protein (high digestibility, high biological value) and only as much of it as is absolutely necessary. The reason behind this is that when there is an excess of protein in the diet and when poorly digestible proteins are fed, degradation products are produced which can cause “uremia” (uremia) in animals with poorly functioning kidneys. In addition, kidney diets contain significantly less phosphorus than normal animal feed, since kidney failure impairs phosphorus excretion, causing phosphorus to accumulate in the blood. This accelerates the progression of kidney disease and can lead to softening of bones and hardening of organs (osteogenic syndrome).