"Caramelo was diagnosed with CKD (stage 1-2) in 2022, at the age of 7 years old, and all of the vets in Greece, where we were living at the time, told me that I should prepare myself for him to get to stage 4 (kidney failure) soon after and then die.
Someone even told me that he had 200-400 days of life expectancy.
Luckily, I am a researcher with long experience on animal care so I didn’t accept what I was told. I went on Facebook groups for vegan dogs since Caramelo was already on a plant-based kibble sice 2018, and asked others if they had experience with such a condition to share with me.
Someone told me to never accept life prognosis from mainstream vets, and she was so right since Caramelo is still here and thriving!
Caramelo eats millet and fava beans, along with tofu or tempeh, and boiled fresh veggies of course. I add algae oil for omega 3 in his food which is so important for kidney function, and many supplements such taurine, L methionine, vitamin C, L carnitine, B complex and spirulina.
I also add pea protein into his food. What really keeps his SDMA and creatinine levels low though is cordyceps sinensis, a medicinal mushroom that a Greek Practitioner of Traditional Chrinese Medicine recommended to me back in 2022.
Whenever I did the mistake to quit adding it in Caramelo’s food, both values in the blood test have risen. So, I never stop giving it since I started using it.
Caramelo is now 10,5 years old and arthritis has come along with ageing. This has been the trickiest part because a dog with CKD can’t have glucosamine (which I did give him in 2023 for 6 months when our vet in Greece recommended it after the x ray that showed some malfunction in his back legs) because using it in the food can damage the kidneys (so I quit giving it, when I saw his SDMA risen after 6 months of taking it).
For the same reasons, I can’t give him golden paste, nor Devil’s claw (products that I was giving to my older dog, Misoy, which helped him with his arthritis symptoms), because they can also damage the kidneys.
I couldn’t take him to the chiropractor in Greece because he always has many dogs around and Caramelo is a reactive dog so he can’t be calm if he is surrounded by other dogs, he gets very upset. We tried Librela injections which only lasted 2-3 months and I didn’t want to do it again, mostly for ethical reasons, but also because of some allegations that I read against the product.
I found an alternative!
He is now getting the Zoomy MegaHyaluronic Acid product recommended to me by Just Be Kind, the first and only cruelty free food supplement for dog arthritis, so he is taking that for now and he seems to feel better.
We also found a very nice chiropractor here in Sweden and she even told us that for his age, he is in a very good shape! I praise the homemade plant-based diet for that, because I know that in humans this diet helps with arthritis so it must be the same for dogs.
Misoy lived more years than what dogs of his size are expected to live and Caramelo has proven every vet’s prognosis wrong, and I owe this to the home made plant-based food that we prepare for him with love, daily" - Elisa and Caramelo
Thank goodness for Caramelo's Mum Elisa choosing to put him onto a plant-based diet straight away and sharing in all of these details with us as she really has saved her adored Caramelo.
