Norma:
I just thought of something that your vet might suggest for your dog.
Elizabeth Hodgkins, a DVM in California and a former Hills Pet Food employee, has a book on cats called "Your Cat: Simple New Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life." It's a pretty interesting book. One of her premises is that commercial pet foods are setting our cats (translate: dogs) up for diabetes because the foods are heavy on carbs.
Elizabeth tells about Punkin, one of her cats, who became diabetic. She switched the cat from the high-carbohydrate, high-fiber dry food to a canned kitten food that had a lot of protein and fat, very little carbohydrate. She was able to reduce the amount of insulin and later was able to take him off insulin.
She then tried the diet change on a dozen diabetic cats, with all responding very well. Many went off insulin shots entirely.
She has since patented her approach (patent 6,203,825).
After Punkin had been off insulin, Elizabeth went on a vacation and boarded him. She provided only canned food for him, with instructions that he eat ONLY canned food. When she picked up the cat, he was thirsty, urinating a lot, etc. She tested his blood sugar level and discovered that he was a diabetic again. She called the boarding facility and was told that employees didn't think he was getting enough to eat and they thought he needed to "graze" during the day, so they gave him your old standard dry food.
After 2 weeks on decreasing injections of insulin and only canned food, Punkin was no longer a diabetic.
You may want to relate the above to your vet and have him/her contact her for more information as to whether it would help Bridgette, too. It's certainly worth considering.
Elizabeth's website is
www.yourcatbook.com. There is a contact link, with e-mail and phone numbers.
