[Dailydrool] Update on Jane and advice on home-cooked diets

[dpmcquade at verizon.net]

The good news is that Jane just loves being fed "people food." Since she's been treated with the metronidazole and Pepcid, she is once again looking for food and scarfing it up with not a problem (of course, we're not feeding her dog food, which she still might object to!). This morning she actually finished her meal before our chief scarfer, C. Dexter Haven--a real first. Usually I'm protecting Jane from his attempts to grab her food. (It's always better from another dog's bowl, of course, even if you've already eaten your own food.)
 
As I think I said before, Jane's ultrasound showed some dark spots on her liver and spleen. But when the vet heard how well Jane has been eating, she seemed much encouraged. In the bloodwork, Jane's kidney enzyme was up a bit. but the vet now says those spots could be benign lumps, which would still interfere with function, or it could be inflammatory nodules, which we could treat with steroids.
 
Right now we are just trying to let Jane's stomach settle down with the medication and get her diet right. Whatever I feed her has to take the kidneys into account.
 
That's what leads to my need for information on home-cooked diets. Since Jane obvously has something going on, I don't know that a raw diet would be a good idea. But I'd like to pick Drooler's brains about where I can get the best information on how to do a home-cooked diet, especially one that will not harm the kidneys. One of my vet's staff is helping me out for the time being, but I'd like to do some research on the subject myself, too. I'd also like some input as to people's experience about doing the home-cooked diet. Is it too hard to get the right balance of foods? Was it just so much trouble you had to stop it? Did you love doing it? Any information will be happily received. I also went on www.drharveys.com, as suggested by the vet's office. Has anyone tried this? Did it work well for you? Or do you prefer making up your own mix. Are there books where I could find a good diet for Jane? A Web site?
 
My vet's office also suggested that I could contact a local dog nutritionist, if necessary.
 
Many thanks to everyone who has slung drool in Jane's direction. Keep that Drool coming, since we really don't know just what's going on. Since we are not planning on doing chemo, at this time we are not doing additional tests. I'm not quite sure what the next step will be. I'd like to see how Jane does in the short term. Right now she seems to being doing fine. She even jumped on the couch yesterday--something she hasn't done for a while. Let's just hope that things keep looking up for her. Her daddy has been very worried about his baby--to say nothing of how I have felt.
Pam, food slave to the Dashing Bassets