My mom’s dog has diabetes. He’s an 8 year old poodle mix. She has to give him shots everyday. She doesn’t have any trouble with giving him shots. What she doesn’t know is what to watch for as far as too much, too little, that sort of thing. She has blood sugar problems herself and knows when she is low or high plus she can take a blood test real quick. But she doesn’t know how to tell whether things are right with her dog.
If anyone knows what kind of things to watch for or how to tell if his blood sugar is too low or high, I’d appreciate anything y’all come up with. He lays around most of the time anyway, so it’s hard to tell if he’s ok and just sleeping or if something’s wrong.
I said y’all were the smartest people in the world and y’all’d come up with something.
[sub]not to put you on the spot or anything[/sub]
Sorry to hear about your mom’s dog, Jim. I don’t have any personal experience with canine diabetes, but I did come across what looks like a very informative website at http://www.petdiabetes.org/ .
One thing they suggest as a way to tell if your pet’s blood sugar is high or low is to get a home testing kit. They discuss several of them, weighing the benefits of each, here: http://www.petdiabetes.org/home_bg_testing.htm (and they also tell you which ones not to get).
The general symptoms she should watch for, though, would be excessive urination, excessive thirst, excessive appetite, weight loss, lethargy and, as the disease progresses, anorexia, depression, and vomiting.
Don’t know if this helps, but a friend of mine has a small poodle/spitz mix named Peaches with diabetes. Peaches eats a low-fat dog food and gets insulin shots. Peaches is maintaining on that regimen. She couldn’t tolerate a glucose-controlled dog food (which is what the vet prescribed), so low-fat was the next best thing.
Thanks, Spider Woman. Chrome, I’ll pass along the diet info.
Shayna, you seem to have hit the spot. That’s what I was wondering about. They do have home test kits just for pets.
Her problem with using her home blood test kit is how to get the blood sample. But it looks like they have methods that are less shocking than the pin prick.
I’ll be looking into it today deeper today.
Thanks, y’all.
Jim