More Chicken, Please

Mina ate about 3.4 pounds of chicken in less than 36 hours. She had some steamed asparagus with it and a little of some green organic baby food that she really doesn’t like but eats if it has chicken in it. I’m going to to switch her gradually, starting this weekend, to one of the low protein kidney diets I found at Five Leave Pet Pharmacy. For the record, I get all of Mina’s carcass at Whole Foods. Auntie Sue: Will you kindly ask Uncle Robin to figure out the quantities for a 50 pound dog? THANKS! Here it is:

Beef & Rice
This is one day of food for a 40 lb dog. Adjust recipe according to your dog’s weight.

1/4 pound (1/2 cup) regular fat hamburger (preferably organic, you can have the butcher grind some organic meat for you)
2 3/4 cups cooked Organic Brown Rice
2 large Organic Eggs
1/4 cup cooked Organic Carrots
2 Tablespoons Organic Safflower Oil
2 Tablespoons fresh diced Parsley
1/2 clove Garlic (if she likes it)

Mix all ingredients together and serve raw if the dog will accept it. (If serving raw, make sure you do not used ground beef, but buy a piece and dice it at home after you have washed it to avoid bacterial contamination.) Otherwise bake for approximately 20 minutes in the oven at 350F, let cool then add Dog Greens to each meal before serving.

Dog Greens are part of the kidney program that Mina will start next week (still hasn’t arrived in the mail yet). Dog Greens include Spirulina, Chlorella, Alfalfa Grass, Barley Grass, Wheat Grass, Kelp and Irish Moss.

Yesterday, Mina was perkier than she has been since starting the Baytril on the Fourth. She greeted me at the door very enthusiastically and took a nice walk to the leasing office and back. I asked Auntie Lolo if it seemed that Mina’s losing weight instead of gaining and she did say that Mina seems thin. I can’t imagine that she’d actually lose weight with all she’s eating, but she doesn’t seem to be gaining any weight. Time to change her diet to something more balanced and nutritious. She can’t live on boiled chicken.

My furry girl of long ago

So far, Vincristine week is going well. No nausea, no reluctance to eat, but a bit less energetic and that could be the Baytril or it could be the cancer. The peak days for Vincristine in her body are Saturday and Sunday so I’ll be staying close to home all weekend.

Mina’s lost more hair, too. Her face is practically bald and she has no undercoat left. I’m going to bathe her again in the Malaseb shampoo this weekend. I bought and installed a Waterpik EcoFlow shower device yesterday just so I can bathe Mina more efficiently. It uses only 1.5 gallons per minute! I also installed a Pur three-stage water filter on the kitchen sink faucet. Dr. Lundquist, the holistic vet we saw in May, Carole from Chow Now, and Amanda from Five Leaf have all recommended filtered water for Mina. I gotta say our filtered water tastes fantastic! We have very high chlorine in Manassas and our main pollutant is farm run-off, so this is something I should’ve done ages ago. I dunno if Mina can tell the difference or not but I’m happy to give her some better water.

s.

 

The Hump Day Report

I went back to work yesterday after being home with Mina for five days. I need to stop doing that because she doesn’t react well when I disappear again for the entire day. Sherrie said she refused her noon time snack, so Sherrie hand fed it to her. Someone has her Auntie Sherrie wrapped around her skinny paw!

There wasn’t any food left in her bowl when I got home with 10-plus pounds of chicken thighs and a pound of beef, in case she goes off her taste for chicken at some point. Kestrel recommended flank steak, but it was $14.99 a pound at Whole Paycheck, so I opted for something called “London broil” at about $4.99 a pound. What I know about buying carcass you could put inside a thimble, and it looked unnaturally bright red, as if it had been flushed it with carbon monoxide (even though WFM claims they don’t do that). Fortunately, I mentioned this to Mina’s Auntie Lolo who told me I have to poke this dead cow flesh with a couple of forks about a hundred times to tenderize it or it’ll be too tough for Mina to chew.

Many thanks to Auntie Sue and Uncle Robin for funding Mina’s carcass purchase this week! I owe you. Yes, I do.

So, my girl is eating well and taking all her supplements and pills in a layer of organic, natural Valencia peanut butter, but she’s very sleepy. We took walk to the leasing office when I got home, but after that she preferred just to go downstairs for pee breaks. This morning I made her walk all the way around the complex until she pooped, and she wasn’t pleased with me. It’s the Baytril that’s making her drowsy, I’m sure.

I haven’t heard anything about her urine culture so it must not have revealed anything that the Baytril can’t handle. VIMP would call me with a new antibiotic if it had been unusual. They also haven’t said anything more about the Five Leaf Pet Pharmacy kidney health treatment, so when that arrives I’ll start Mina on it. I am seriously considering putting her on a low protein diet, too. I think we’ll try the beef recipe on the Five Leaf Web site, ’cause I can’t see Mina eating beans and tofu. She might like the egg and sweet potato one, though.

We’re plugging along together. She still seems incredibly thin and bony to me, so I hope all this damn chicken is making her gain weight. No signs of nausea so far, but the Vincristine doesn’t peak until Saturday-Sunday – keep your fingers crossed that all the supplements and chicken will carry her through successfully.

s.