Beagle heart heathy food

[prindjp]

I have a 5 year old Beagle that was coughing alot. Vet did xray and said there was slight heart enlagement and slight pulminary edema. Gave ace inhibitor, antibiotic and antihistamine with no change. Changed antihistamine to benadryl and cough stopped immediately. I figure that the cough was caused be an alergy but am worried about the heart at such an early age. The vet says that I should discontiue feeding her Nutro natural choice lite and switch to Hills/Science diet prescription heart. Of course this is what he sells. I looked at the ingrediants and saw corn and byproducts in the prescription. I told him that Nutro had none of this junk and he agreed but said that nutro wasn't a prescription. So does the prescription value outweigh the fact that Hills/Science diet use crummy ingrediants. I called Nutro and they said to default to what the vet recommends.

[Mom2Many]

there is no arguing that in some cases a prescription diet is needed. however - even then, it's crucial to look into differences in quality. what makes me really mad is that hill's still use ethoxyquin and other synthetic stabilizers in these diets.

these are substances that you don't want in food for normal pets to begin with, why would you stress an animal that is already very ill with them?

if i ever were in the situation where a vet would recommend a prescription diet, i'd work with a nutritionist to come up with a diet suitable for the specific situation. it's simply not the case that a particular brand of prescription food is the only thing your dog could survive on. especially animals with severe health issues would benefit far more from a home prepare diet made with good, clean ingredients, rather than a prescription diet full of fillers and byproducts. www.dogaware.com has a lot of really great resources on the topic.

[Mom2Many]

Originally Posted by Mom2Many

there is no arguing that in some cases a prescription diet is needed. however - even then, it's crucial to look into differences in quality. what makes me really mad is that hill's still use ethoxyquin and other synthetic stabilizers in these diets.

these are substances that you don't want in food for normal pets to begin with, why would you stress an animal that is already very ill with them?

if i ever were in the situation where a vet would recommend a prescription diet, i'd work with a nutritionist to come up with a diet suitable for the specific situation. it's simply not the case that a particular brand of prescription food is the only thing your dog could survive on. especially animals with severe health issues would benefit far more from a home prepare diet made with good, clean ingredients, rather than a prescription diet full of fillers and byproducts. www.dogaware.com has a lot of really great resources on the topic.

Edit to add: A supplement of taurine, 250 mgs every twelve hours has been shown to help as well.

[elegy]

the biggest concern with heart disease is the amount of sodium. i have no idea where nutro ranks with sodium but i'm sure you could look into it relatively easily.