If you follow my blog at all, you'll recognize this face; my best girl and frequent model, Ginger. It's hard to believe, she'll be 14 years old in August (or at least that's when we'll celebrate her birthday, as a rescue, its anybody's best guess as to when her actual birthday is). She's still pretty spry, but her eyes are staring to cloud a bit and after being a blonde bombshell for all of her life, white fur has finally started to creep in around her face a few months ago. It was hard to notice at first because it was close to her natural blonde, but one day the light hit her just right and there was no denying it; my girl was turning gray. 

Earlier this year she went to the vet for her annual well-woman exam and the blood panel indicated reduced kidney function. Not too bad, we caught it pretty early, but that meant she needed to go on a special diet right away, one that was low in protein. We've always fed our dogs a mixture of kibble and wet food and the even ratio of carbohydrates and protein has kept their weights very steady their entire lives, something our veterinarian always praises us for. We bought a mixed case of various flavors of prescription kidney food and a small bag of dry kibble. 

Ginger, who never met a meal she didn't like and has been a chow hound for her entire life, turned her nose up at every flavor of the prescription canned food except beef stew. Luckily she liked the lamb kibble we bought and hasn't lost an appetite for it as of yet. We were experiencing first hand the problem that a lot of people have with pets with kidney disease; they loose weight because they don't like the special diet.

Even though she liked the beef stew, she no longer eats with the same gusto she once did. Apart from seeing your beloved pet in pain, I don't think there's anything more stressful than to see your dog not want to eat. Mornings especially can be tough to get her to eat her entire meal. We learned a few tricks to help make her meal more appealing; parmesan cheese is a favorite but ground up freeze dried bison beats that out. I run it through a food processor until it's powder so I only have to add a half teaspoon over the top of her food to add flavor with limited protein. 

All was going well until supply chain issues meant that we could not beg, borrow or steal a can of beef stew kidney food in a 30-mile radius of Dallas. I spent an hour on the phone calling vet clinics and pet stores asking - everyone was out everywhere. So we did what anyone would do, we Googled "homemade dog food for dogs with kidney disease" and sure enough found a number of recipes.