Elevated liver enzymes - What to feed?

We were at our yearly vet-check monday morning. As Luna's no longer a young dog (turned 9 in april) we also take a blood sample and check everything's allright.

This year everything was NOT alright Her liver enzymes are elevated. We will draw a new sample in 2 weeks.

Meanwhile I'm looking into new food for her, as we are to avoid red meat, pork and lamb, its gonna be a bit difficult to continue rawfeeding.

I'm just confusing myself now. Does anyone in here know how low or how high the fat% is allowed to be? And the same with proteine %?

I've found a danish produced food, where its 26% proteine and 12% fat, but its not very cheap, so I was trying to find something I could buy in UK or Germany. But I cant find one with those numbers, so I am trying to figure out, how much I can go down or up in fat and proteine contents

I'm sorry to hear that Luna didn't get a totally clean bill of health. I can only presume that this is fairly common in older dogs as I googled "raised liver enzymes in dogs, recommended food", and there were lots of questions/answers regarding recommended food. Basically saying low sodium (salt) and easily digestible protein, so I would have thought that raw feeding would probably be easier with chicken etc - not that I'm an expert on raw feeding, but I do know that cheap dry food often has quite high sodium levels. Your vet should be able to recommend a diet.
Good luck and I hope when Luna is re-checked things are back to normal.

Thanks Jenny

The reason why I don't want to continue 100% on raw, is that I believe in variation, and I think that's gonna be quite hard with only chicken and turkey

Tilly has recently been undergoing tests for the same thing. A pre op blood tests showed raised ALP (?) levels. Out of 5 tests, 3 have been high and two normal. The specialist has put this down to age related changes as no clinical signs or positive test results for any illness! My vets are just going to keep an eye on it but they haven't recommend any dietry changes so far so I would be interested to know if a low fat diet will make any difference.

I am sorry to hear that Luna has some abnormalities in her liver liver enzymes, but I would not worry too much about her only having chicken and turkey. As that is about all I can get for Pereg [unless I win the lottery] she seems to be doing fine on just those two meat proteins.

Hopefully the next blood tests will result in normal levels. xx

Luna's elevated number was ALAT/ALT.

It would more or less be only chicken. Turkey is not easy to get hold of here.

I know its probablely age-related, but the number is 4 times the maximum allowed.

I'll see what the next sample says. In the meantime, I'm looking into a good kibble and some homemade food, that would be easier on the liver-

I'll return when I know more about the food

Is or has Luna been on any medication lately, such as anti-inflammatory or antibiotics? Those can cause raised liver enzyme levels. As Pereg is on Phenobarbitol, which can cause liver damage, she has Milk Thistle and SAMe supplements to help support her liver, and thankfully her levels are still good.

So sorry for my late answer. I hadn't seen your question

Luna had her last (of 5) cartrophene injections on March 28. It shouldn't have been in the body for that long.

But we had a new sample tested yesterday, and the number has dropped to 163, so we're almost within the normal range And my vet is convinced its caused by the cartrophene. We're gonna have another test in 3 months time, to check again

I'm going to add Milk Thistle and have a look for that SAMe, thanks

I'm going to see if I can keep her on mostly raw. Combined with homemade and a bit of kibble (untill I've used the 15 kiloes I bought).

I miss the rawfeeding, and I actually think Luna does too

But I need to get my freezer refilled now, as I've sold more or less everything

But hey, that means I can take pics for the freezer thread

I'm getting some chicken and lamb on saturday, as a thank you for helping a friend.

I need to see if I can find a place to buy rabbits. Its very hard here in Denmark, as they are seen as pets, so as soon as I start talking about them as food, people clam up

Rabbitt is light meat, so would be good. Lamb is not the best, but she needs to have some bone to chew on.

May be a bit of a dumb question but
Does your vet know you feed raw?

I cant remember what it was but I do remember reading when I started raw feeding that its normal for some bloods to come back very high on a faw diet - and they are only seen as a 'fail' because vets are so used to dogs fed high carb diets

I might be totaly wrong - its just something that is in the back of my head as remembering I read

Not a dumb question at all

Yes my vet knows Luna's been rawfed for 7 years, and there was nothing to see on the bloodwork last year

And food alone couldn't give that huge elevation, I asked her, because if it was caused by the food, I would change to kibble