Dog diabetes has exploded in recent years – why?
More and more in this age of processed dog food, our dogs are falling prey to dog diabetes symptoms, a condition well known to us humans, where insulin is not being produced in enough quantities to regulate blood sugar levels in the body.
With the economy being squeezed that much harder in recent years the multinational food manufacturers have cut their dog food budget. While they are essentially a waste food management operation using the cheapest ingredients found anywhere – food waste – cutting even 2% from a multibillion waste food operation saves millions in costs and keeps the profits up. And this is likely the reason why dogs are becoming sick with dog diabetes at the fastest rate in history – it has become an epidemic in 2014.
Processed Dog Food is Full of Sugar
Dogs do not need sugar in their diet yet processed dog food is rife with the stuff. We know that sugar is bad for us but we like it and continue eating it as part of many styles of food including convenience fast food. However we can decide how healthy we want to be and cut back on sugar through diet and exercise but what about our dogs?
Luckily we decide for them and stopping their sugar intake is as easy as changing their diet.
How Do I Know If My Dog Has Diabetes?
At this time, there is no standard classification of diabetes in dogs. Commonly used terms are:
- Insulin deficiency diabetes or primary diabetes, which refers to the destruction of the beta cells of the pancreas and their inability to produce insulin.
- Insulin resistance diabetes or secondary diabetes, which describes the resistance to insulin caused by other medical conditions or by hormonal drugs.
Dog Diabetes Symptoms
Normally there is a steady onset of the disease over several weeks, and it may go unnoticed for a while. The main symptoms are:
- Excessive water consumption – polydipsia
- Frequent and/or excessive urination–polyuria–possible house “accidents”
- Greater than average appetite–polyphagia–with either weight loss or maintenance of current weight
- Cloudy eyes – Cataracts
It’s likely that the illness may not be noticed until the dog has symptoms of ketosis or ketoacidosis. When finally diagnosed, about 40% of dogs have elevated ketone levels and some dogs are already in diabetic ketoacidosis when first treated for diabetes.
Most dogs tend to suffer from insulin resistance and while vets will say it’s not curable I have experiential knowledge of dogs recovering their health enough to come off the insulin injections. Poor diet is the cause in the vast majority of cases and exacerbated by the use of steroid medications. Returning to non-diabetic status depends on the amount of damage the pancreatic insulin-producing beta cells have sustained.
The Dog Diabetes Diet Proven to Work
If you have a dog with diabetes, starting them on a fresh natural wholesome diet of fresh raw food will immediately begin to alleviate such a condition by re-building your dog’s immune system which in turn helps the insulin producing pancreas to self heal. This is the essential part to get right first because your dogs immune system is their defense mechanism – we have one too – and it has been compromised by years of ingesting chemical laden and processed dog food to the point it can no longer function properly.
However it’s important to implement diet change in combination with your veterinary treatment plan to monitor insulin level adjustment. And depending on how far the damage was allowed to go on for and with good fortune the condition can be healed over time.
Watch the video below for how you can heal dog diabetes with an economical natural diet and save yourself and your dog from paying dearly for something that does not need to happen.
Get the free report below and save your dogs health before it gets worse and too late for recovery – you must act now if you want the best outcome for your dog.
About Dan
Hi My 11 year old Shia shu was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and the vet has recommended insulin shots twice a day. If I change her diet to a raw diet, can I avoid having to inject her with insulin?
Thanks for you help
Hi Jan, a raw food diet will help immensely in many ways, boosting her immune system to disease and fortifying her with sound nutrition. However it cannot replace insulin injections in the short term to balance out her blood sugar levels. It’s possible over 6 months that a raw food diet will help the pancreas to heal itself and return to productive levels again and thereby cancel out the need for insulin injections.
I would stabilize her blood sugar levels with the injections, begin a raw food diet, monitor the situation over 3 months, keep checking her levels and hopefully the need for insulin injections amounts will drop until the all clear in 6 to 12 months. For the diet, my book will help with all you need and I’ll be on tap to answer your questions. Hope that helps you and your dog now that she needs the power of fresh food for healing.
I have a 14 YO GSP and it seems he has developed diabetes and I cant understand why. I have fed him a raw/freeze dried food for most of his life. Is there something that I missed? I have fed raw chicken that I bought at a nearby farm and I have also spent lots of money on SOJO’s and The Honest Kitchen freeze dried foods. He gets sardines because he loves them and all the other things you mentioned here, but he still has come up with diabetes and he cant see or hear very well either. I’m wondering why I spent so much money for these diets and he still gets ill. 🙁
Hi Barbara,
Somewhere along the line your dog was eating something else in the diet to have developed diabetes as it’s extremely remote for a dog on a balanced raw food diet to suffer diabetes… in fact I’ve never heard of it as theres simply so little in the way of blood sugar imbalance.
You have stated in another posting that you sometimes resorted to ‘high end kibble’… how long and how much? What about treats, the soft squidgy treats are really bad for sugars for example!
Stay focussed on a strict raw food diet from here on in to help balance blood sugars in line with the insulin shots, that way the shots will be minimal.
My 11 year old Yorkie was diagnosed with diabetes. We are in the process of regulating his insulin levels. I would love to feed him a raw food diet but my vet says she completely disagrees as yorkies have very sensitive stomachs and the raw chicken and bones can “reek havoc with their pancreas”! Is this diet a bad idea for yorkies. He hates the prescription diet he’s on!
Hi Pamela, Unknown to 9/10 vets, fresh food is indespensible to all dogs including Yorkies and bones can be minced with the meat so no panic there. It’s raw food that boosts adogs immune system to then help the body to full health… it’s literally living medicine for dogs and I have first hand experience of this for 30 years! Get my book and well keep in touch by email to set up the best diet for your yorkies recovery.
My 6 yr old toy poodle was diagnosed with diabetes in May. The vet started us on 3u of insulin twice per day and was told to keep using the same kibble (Black Hawk – Chicken & Rice). There was no difference in his condition as he is constantly hungry, kept on urinating and drinking excessive water. The vet said that was normal until we regulate him. His insulin was increased to 5u his diet was changed to a high fibre prescription diet (Hills) and is now 4.5kg. i am really worried as he is virtually anorexic. I have seen some info about the raw meat diet and want to find out if there is any further information you can give to assist. It would also be great to hear if there are any other parents out there who had results from changing the diet. Can changing the diet wipe out diabetes altogether?
Hi Denise, to help your dog it’s better to get the diabetes regulated thats for sure. As for diet, it’s an imperative that your dog get fresh food into it’s diet as it’s the kibble’s that led to diabetes in the first place, so kibbles sure arn’t going to help, regardless of using the word ‘prescription’ in front of them.
Getting started early on sound nutrition will always help but there’s no definite answer as to wether it can cure the diabetes and get the pancreas active again. If it was my dog I get started on fresh raw food for my dog. Just today a customer wrote me that their diabetic ‘old dog’ re-gained much health and enjoyment of life for what they believed was an extended 18 months before passing recently. I get many dogs on diabetes and all of them seem to be put onto Hill’s because it’s the vets main sales of pet food, not because it works, it does not!
When you read this, get my free report on the top right and read it through, it will answer many questions you may have. And then feel free to email for further help and I’ll do my level best to help you.
Hello
My 13 year old Parsons Mavis was diagnosed with diabetes a week ago and commenced in insulin. She is really hating the needles and I haven’t yet managed a blood glucose on her. She is great in her walk but sleeps a lot otherwise. She is being fed Chappie kibble and our own home produced very very lean braising steak. Is there any advice you can offer please
Hi Sue, I recommend lowering the Chappie by 50% and replacing with fresh foods like the steak you mention plus eggs, canned sardines (In water), and part cooked and blended veggies. Add this probiotic: https://amzn.to/3yoURqU and these live enzymes: http://amzn.to/2ksvlx1. Don’t feed any carbohydrates of any kind because of the diabetes or use drugs, vaccines, flea&tick, dewormers etc and low stress levels. I personally would go to a full raw food diet for Mavis as it’s the best for diabetes. So the foods I mention, use raw. I’ve made two videos concerning diabetes that I think will help you: Natural medicine for diabetes in dogs and How to keep your diabetic dog healthy. All the best.
Helo. My 13 year old Parsons JRT was diagnosed in February with Diabetes. She has insulin twice a day and at present is on 9.5ius twice daily. We cannot get a blood glucose from her ear, she absolutely hates it and gets so stressed I can’t see that it helps her levels at all., so I can only test her wee and we never any better than the 2nd to the end glucose reading. She is fed a mixture of Chappie kibble (chicken) and Tails.com and some of our own 2% fat cooked mince. She also has our own mince dehydrated for jerkie as a treat after her insulin. I hate all this stuff and would dearly love to get her off the insulin. We have a small supply of our own offal and beef so if i could do something with that it would be amazing. To the outsider she is a happy healthy dog. She has dieted down from 14kgs to 11.7 which i think is probably spot on for her.Thank you.