It was with much sadness that I came across this thread. I too have a dog with renal failure, although it seemingly came on far earlier than those affected by the contaminated food from China. This makes me ANGRY.

My tiny Yorkie is on Purina's canned prescription diet NF for renal failure. She will hardly eat on her own and hated KD, and I have to force food some and also use a litle meat on top of the prescription food, or forget it... I have been able to keep her going now for over a year, with special care. She is on 100 cc daily fluids, similar to IV's, given under the skin, Sub Q. She is also on Prednisone.

I was buying the bags of fluids from the vet, with B-Complex (injected into the bag) and it was costing a fortune-$25.00 a bag. One bag would last about 10 days. I was lucky my husband was agreeable to the expense, but he loves the dog too...

The reason I am posting this, is because I found I was able to save a fortune by getting prescriptions from the vet for the components of the fluid therapy and assembling it at home to administer myself.

My costs have dropped to probably about $6.00 per bag. This means that keeping her going is far more affordable. If anyone needs help with figuring out how to buy this or even do this, please let me know. It is easily done, although I had to go to various drug stores to get the prescriptions filled, since no one store had everything... You need to have a vet, or someone, who is willing to show you how to administer fluids at home, if you don't know how.

During normal times, some pharmacists in our area are a little nervous about selling supplies like this. However, most have heard about this problem with the kidneys and understand what it is needed for. In some states, you may not even need a prescription for some of it.

At first, I had a difficult time sticking her. I studied to be a nurse and had no problem with the idea of sticking people, but my tiny dog??? You get over that quickly...

Anyway, please feel free to PM me if you need help with this.

Cathie