The vet on the list, who happened to be an expert on TBD's, said it was his sincere desire that more vets would test for TBD's in the dogs with renal failure but many are not putting two and two together.
This hit home because I had a dog with Cushings who was also showing renal failure when by happenstance a substitute vet recommended a complete senior blood workup on her and the upshot was she did have undiagnosed Ehrlicha and Ehrlicha takes a huge toll on the kidneys. The snap test is unreliable in testing for tick disease. So yes, there is a lot of reasons for renal failure, but contaminated food should not be one of them.
Interesting. I don’t know much about renal disease in dogs, as I only have cats myself, and the main renal failure group I participate in is cat-specific. I do participate in another related group (re the use of calcitriol in pets with renal failure) that gets a few dog owners participating. I’ll be sure to mention that in the future when dog owners turn up on the group. I would assume that most TBDs are treatable, and that timely treatment would therefore tend to slow the progression of renal failure if the disease was at the root of, or a contributing factor to the renal failure. I know that renal failure tends to progress a lot faster in dogs than in cats, and while I think there are other reasons for this, TBDs might be part of the explanation, since nearly all dogs spend a lot of time outdoors and many are allowed to go for runs in wooded and brushy areas, while many cats are indoor-only or (like my cats) go outside a lot, but stick close to their suburban gardens where ticks are rare.
My dog who I spoke of yesterday regarding the vaccinations had Cushings. It took me several weeks and a lot of vets here to find out what was wrong with him. We did have some good results in stabilizing him with a med called Ketaconazole [sp]