Your dog has Diabetes...

The dreaded diagnose that most people do not want to hear about their dog. Just before the trip to the vet and diagnose, dog owners have been dealing with a dog that has excessive thirst and is urinating in the house because it cannot hold all the water it has been drinking. (the most common symptoms)

My first thoughts when it happened to me was...

Surely they have a diabetic pill that I can give my dog daily.

Nope... the vet tells me that there is no diabetic pill that will work on a dog. Your dog is a Type 1 Insulin Dependent Diabetic. Your dog will need insulin shots every 12 hours and he will need to be fed a low carb, low fat, high protein diet that will be on a strict schedule.

Ok... So once we get him on a new diet then he will become non-diabetic right?

Nope... your dog will always be a diabetic for the rest of his life. It can be managed and your dog will start feeling better after we start him on insulin. He will stop drinking excessive amounts of water and peeing accidents in the house will stop.

Oh... How I was praying my dog Rocky would stop peeing in the house. It was not at all like him to pee in the house. I was absolutely wore out from cleaning up all the pee off my tiled bathroom floor. I got wise and bought some puppy pee pads before the visit to the vet's office on 12/28/2011. I was also wore out from all the extra trips I was doing taking Rocky outdoors. He would pee outdoors, but 20 minutes later he would pee on the bathroom floor. He was frantic at night for water... he would not sleep and paced through the house all night long.

The first thing I thought was that it came on from feeding him those chicken jerky strips that come from China. A quick search on the internet when looking up Rocky's symptoms brought me to a warning that the FDA put out about the China made chicken jerk strips. It described what Rocky was currently going through. It said stop feeding the chicken jerky strips and that there where reports that the symptoms seem to stop after stopping the feeding of chicken jerky strips. That's what I did, but the symptoms did not completely stop. I started noticing that everytime Rocky ate and in about 2 hours later the excessive thirst would come on. So it made think that maybe Rocky was diabetic. He had lost some weight but I thought it was due to eliminating all the extras from his diet. Rocky was slightly overweight (not obese, but husky) before all this started. He has always been a good eater. He was freely fed dog kibble (he would eat it if there were no table scraps that day). He was given table food and treats on a regular basis.

Rocky is a neutered male German Pinscher who was born on 1/5/06. A male German Pinscher should weigh about 30 lbs for his height. He is a cross between a Black & Rust German Pinscher and a fully Red German Pinscher. He was a rescued puppy mill auction puppy from Missouri. His face "mask" marking is too far back on his head. The rust spots that should be just over his eyes are on top of his head and the black mask that should be over his eyes is on his forehead and the top of his head. This is why he the puppy mill breeder put him up on the puppy mill auction and he was rescued by a lady who turned him over to a no kill shelter. He was about 10 weeks old when I got him from the no kill shelter. The original breeder had already cropped Rocky's ears and docked his tail, probably when his other litter mates were done.

The purpose of creating this blog is to help others who have just had their pet dog diagnosed with diabetes. Or possibly to help other dog owners to understand that you can most likely stop your own dog from becoming a diabetic. I am learning a lot about dog foods for both non-diabetic dogs and diabetic dogs. I have learned how to save quite a bit of money on diabetic supplies. How to home test my dogs blood sugar. How to cook for my dog who gets a combo of dry dog food kibble and home cooked food at each meal and why I do it.

I have also ran into many good and bad websites that have information about dog diabetes. I also also ran into some real kooks out in the online dog diabetic world. Little pods of diabetic dog owners that really cross over into the Munchausen by proxy syndrome (MBPS). (Yes, I am serious). I have ran into some that want to tell you how you should treat your dog, how you should feed the dog and they want to play vet to your dog. They don't want you to even listen to your own vet and they get rude and nasty to you if you question how they think or how they treat others inside their little group. Some of them are true narcissists with a bunch of co-dependent people who think they need these people (narcissists) who are acting like licensed vets.
No I will not mention where these people are hanging out at online but if you run across them you will know who they are. So be aware. They are friendly but quickly become unfriendly if you don't follow the kooky advise they hand out.

I will be writing about what I have learned in the last couple months about dog diabetes and what the main things are that most dog owners should know. My blog and the information it holds is not here to replace your own dog's vet.