Raw Diet and thyroid: a pain in the neck?

We've had some ups and downs in Luna's Adventures in Hypothyroid... Some potentially related to her raw diet... A bit of a long lead up, but I'll get to the connection, I promise.

AS I think I've discussed here, Luna had developed some crazy behavior that we believed was linked to her low thyroid. It showed up mostly as fear of all sorts of things she was previously unafraid of-- the kitchen, the car, her harness, loud noises, the agility tunnels... You name it.

Once we got her on Soloxine (.4mg BID), those issues sort of melted away. Kitchen was no longer an issue, she harnessed up and rode in the car with no problems, and she became an agility superstar...

Protocol is generally to monitor the thyroid levels periodically, since they change as the dog gets older. We didn't do the full panel this time-- just an in-house SNAP test. And she tested just above normal. Not a LOT above normal, but enough that her vet wanted to see how she would do on the next dosage down (.3mg).

Within a couple of days, she seemed a little more skittish. Over the next few weeks, she didn't seem quite right, but I thought I was probably imagining it.

In the heat of this August, we bought a couple of sprinklers for the pups to play in out in the yard. Andre took to it right away. He loved it.

Luna stayed in the background barking. Finally, she decided to attack the sprinkler. It was pretty funny to watch. But her focus on the contraption was way too much. WAY too much. Too intense. Too obsessive. TOO. MUCH.

To make a long story less long, the intensity over the sprinkler was the last straw in a list of Very Exciting Things in Luna's day and it seems that she snapped. She and Robin got into quite a fight. Puncture wounds, a broken tooth, and hurt feelings. And keeping the two of them separated while we work on lots of classical conditioning and desensitization and allow everyone's hormones to reset.

And while we allow her thyroid medicine to kick back in. As many of you may know, a low threshold for aggressive behavior is one of the behavioral signs of low thyroid. The vet agreed to put her back on the higher dose, and as long as her behavior is ok and she's not losing weight, we're going to be happy with it, "Tests be damned," as he said.

And she is better. Much less fearful. Calmer. Happier.

So what does this have to do with her raw diet?

Well!

I started trying to figure out why her numbers were higher than they were the last time we tested over the winter.

One thing that might be contributing is the spirulina supplement. That has some iodine in it.
The other thing I came across was this study from the Journal of Small Animal Practice. Basically, this study looks at a number of cases of dogs who exhibited symptoms of HYPERthyroid and were fed a raw diet. Turns out, they received higher quantities of neck material-- beef gullets, etc.-- in their diet, which contained, in some cases, the thyroid itself, and almost unavoidably thyroid hormone and other material.

This winter, we pulled Luna off of chicken and began using turkey as her primary bone source. Necks are the cheapest and boniest cut for us. And they frequently get a mix of gullet and tripe. So she's received a lot of neck material lately.

So what does that mean???

Don't worry. It doesn't mean that we will be stopping the raw diet. And no it doesn't mean we're getting rid of necks altogether. And it also doesn't mean that this necessarily had anything to do with her higher numbers. She's a young dog. Frankly, she probably should run a little high.

But it is an EXCELLENT reminder to diversify the diet. We're adding in more turkey legs. I'm also researching sources for duck frames and rabbit backs. And we may revisit chicken for her. It was kind of a random stab at seeing if she's sensitive to chicken as one of her allergies. And I've increased the amount of plain tripe that I buy and less of the mix with gullet.

It's also a good reminder that adding supplements to a diet willy nilly has the potential to cause some unintended consequences. While iodine is really important, when you're trying to balance the thyroid medically, pharmacologically, adding things like additional iodine can skew all of that and put it higher than it needs to be. Alone, adding iodine wouldn't be enough for her. So she needs the soloxine. So it's possible that me adding the spirulina put her over the top. I am still giving it to her. I think its benefits are good ones. But if we still have trouble after diversifying the diet, I might rethink the spirulina at that time.

An unexpected twist...

Yes, Luna Bird-- we're talking about you...

I'm learning a lot of lessons these days.

With Luna's persistent yeast issues, we started adding Animal Essentials Green Alternative. It has spirulina, nettle, garlic, and some other stuff that helps keep yeast in check. I think it has made her very soft, so I've started incorporating it in with the other dogs' food in place of some of the other supplements they get.

If you recall, Luna is also low thyroid. She takes .4mg of Soloxine twice a day. It has turned her around completely. She is muscly again, and all the inexplicable weird fears she had developed have melted away.

She went in this week to have a routine test of her thyroid levels. We opted to just do the in-house test since things have been going just fine, for the most part, and we'll do a full panel at Michigan State or at Hemopet if there are problems.

So I did what I'm supposed to do. I gave her a pill first thing this morning, fasted her, and took her in 5-6 hours after the dose for the blood draw.

And it was high. Her levels were high. Not just high-normal (which is what we want in a dog her age), but high.

So we've taken her dose down to .3 twice a day. The only thing I can think is that there's enough iodine in the spirulina to aid in thyroid function. We'll see. I really, really, really hope we don't backslide.

The supplement is literally the only difference I can think of. I pulled her off of kelp when we started using the Soloxine, even though Dr. Dodds (a canine thyroid expert) says it's ok if the dog is being fed a homemade diet.

In addition to all of this, I'm supposed to be getting a small bottle of Herbsmith's Clear AllerQi in the mail today to try for Luna's still itchy paws. I do believe I'll be double-checking all the herbs and how much they might contribute to thyroid function before I dive on in...

And last but not least, I think I've found a supplier for duck necks (and perhaps rabbit), so I'm hoping to add those to the mix, and maybe even try those for Luna instead of turkey.

Just need to choose one thing at a time so I'm not changing everything at once...

New Ailments and Updates

That's perhaps a bit misleading. These aren't new ailments. More like a new perspective on existing ailments.

But first, the good news. Andre has been successfully moved to a homemade diet of ground turkey necks and legs, beef heart, beef tripe, beef trim, pork heart, and a variety of pork and beef organs. It takes the cost down from $3/lb for premade to more like $1.65/lb. I can live with that. Huzzah!

The only thing I've seen is a few lbs lost, but I think that's due more to the summer burn. We've upped his rations by a couple of ounces.

But this little nugget. This is my itchy girl.

Such a big day. Scratching is exhausting.

Her itchiness is miles better than it was when we found her a few years ago. We've had her on benadryl, then claritin, and now zyrtec. We've removed chicken from her diet, and the itchiness seemed to improve a tiny bit. She stays pretty well grain free (save the odd treat from the people in the drive thru).

About 6 months ago, she was diagnosed with a low thyroid. Twice daily Soloxine has done a lot for her. Her whole attitude and demeanor have improved. Her fur feels better. Her muscle tone has returned after she had become fairly suddenly flabby.

But she still licks her feet. Because of the thyroid, I give very little kelp, which I think was previously helping her allergies. And recently, her left rear paw has had a lot of cracked and split nails. Like all of them. She tore a paw pad on her front right foot. And was stung by something on her front left foot. And we just got back to agility, so the timing COULDN'T BE BETTER.

And she's had some itchy ears lately, as well.

We discussed all this with her vet. He felt like her rear paw definitely had a major overgrowth of yeast, and possibly a bacterial infection, and that this was likely making her nails brittle. Makes perfect sense. We are currently treating the infections.

Now, I had always assumed these were allergies. But something in the back of my mind popped up and I recalled reading that hypothyroid dogs frequently have chronic and/or systemic yeast infections as a symptom.

Maybe... just maybe this is what we've had all along. Not allergies per se, but overgrowth of yeast due to low thyroid. It's improved, not because we removed chicken, but because her hormones are leveling out finally. But it's systemic and I've pared her diet down so much that her body's flora just isn't balancing.

So we are on a major gut flora refresh. She'll complete the antibiotic treatment and antifungal treatment. Meanwhile, I'll continue her on probiotics, increase the amount and frequency of kefir, and add in some other things that are known combatants of yeast or are immune supporters: coconut oil (we started slacking on this one), spirulina (since we do very little kelp), nettle, MSM. I'll be trying out Animal Essentials Green Alternative, which contains several of those herbs. And we are tapering off the zyrtec.

Then maybe I'll begin reintroducing chicken.

Anyway, fingers crossed. Puts a whole new spin on her itchies.

A dog, a grinder, a plan

Apologies for abandoning the blog. Life's been a little nutty. Vacation, hypothyroid, moving... Just... a lot.

When we all try very hard, these three can be such
patient little customers. They want to know, though,
why I'm taking pictures and not finishing dinner. 

My next post was going to be about equipment, and I'm actually glad I've held off. We are probably going back to grinding at least some of the meals. I'd love to get out of debt, and while recently time had been more valuable than money, that's changing. :) I got a great deal on buying 100lbs of a pre-made grind (beef trim, liver and tripe with chicken frames, hearts and liver) for $1.65/lb. I can use this for morning meals when I'm in a hurry. Our evening meals can be chicken thighs and other organs, hearts and gizzards. This should get us to around $1.30/lb. If I go back to chicken leg quarters, I can get it closer to ~$1.10/lb if I need to cut costs even further.

And Andre's Bravo is now $3/lb, even when I buy with a case discount, so I'm revisiting the prospect of making his food. Even a mid-range home grinder will not handle turkey, so we'll have to purchase a commercial grinder to do that, and I'll go through our decision process on that. I may get one anyway to up the speed on processing day-- if I can make Andre's food by buying lots of Thanksgiving turkeys and grinding them myself, it will pay for itself quickly. If I use it to do a lot of grinding with the chicken thighs/legs, it will pay for itself, too, just less quickly. I love the grinder we have and it was perfectly reasonable when I was grinding for 2 dogs. Three or even four dogs, and using a grinder that small and slow, means I never want to do it and it's easier for me to be lazy.

We've also discovered that Luna has some thyroid issues, and I am still working out what I need to be doing for her dietarily-- will post on that sometime soon, too.

Let me begin by saying that Andre is 60+lbs-- up from a low of 41 or 42. He's energetic, happy, and he's had only mild flare-ups in recent months. Nothing major at all. And he starts intermediate obedience classes in January. We've done his basics at home, but it's time for him to work around new people and dogs. And learn not to obsess over toys.

Park is Hell. All those tennis balls
behind the fence...

He couldn't handle the salmon oil for his omegas, so he gets Missing Link vegetarian formula, which is primarily flaxseed plus a little kelp. He's tolerating that very, very well.

He also can tolerate coconut oil well.

My first step here is to see if Andre can handle grocery store turkey, including dark meat. I bought some ground turkey necks from our supplier and a tray of turkey drumsticks. Both meals on Sunday and Monday morning, he had 2 ounces of his 10 replaced with 25% necks and 75% drumstick meat cut up with poultry shears. Tonight he got 4 ounces replaced; tomorrow morning I'll give him a break and do all Bravo. If we can get to 50-75% of his meals homemade, we'll be in great shape. I'll need to add in some veggies.

Next step will be to try some different (not chicken) proteins. Turkey livers/hearts/gizzards are hard to find in bulk. So I'll try beef and pork hearts and livers, kidneys, sweetbreads and see if he can handle the organ meats from them. Our supplier also makes a turkey drumstick/pork liver blend at $2/lb that we could perhaps try for his morning meals.

We can't sustainably pay these prices for Andre's food if it's going to stay more than twice as much as the others'. That said, it's still cheaper and easier than having him constantly having problems, having surgical procedures, constantly trying new foods... We'll keep going til we find something more workable. Hopefully that will be soon...