Has anyone else’s dog experienced excessive thirst from Z/D prescription diet?

[richdawg]

My 14yo female lab mix recently went on Hill’s Prescription z/d dry food for chronic GI. It worked awesome to treat GI symptoms. However, her thirst drastically increased to a scary degree (drinking all water in bowl at once, drinking from the toilet) as did her incontinence in her seep. Our vet called Hill’s and the thirst is an uncommon side effect of the diet.

Our vet advised switching to another diet (Ultamino?). But wanted to know if anyone else had experienced this and what the outcome was.

 

[giddyg]

@richdawg I've also recently experienced this, switched my 13yo pomeranian to Hill's Science Diet Oral Care Adult Chicken Dry Dog Food and he's been drinking significantly more water to the point where I have to stop him sometimes.

 

[shela710]

@richdawg Not on any meds?

 

[richdawg]

@shela710 She takes gabapentin for her arthritis, and also proviable capsules, but those predated the med switch

 

[agapewarrior52]

@richdawg Hey. We are experiencing this same thing right now. We have a 10 year old Labradoodle and recently switched to Hills one week ago. The food has been great on his stomach but the exact same thing - drinking EXCESSIVELY and incontinence. Did the issue resolve when you switched the food?

 

[richdawg]

@agapewarrior52 The issue actually didn’t resolve. Despite no other clinical indicators (kidneys and cortisol were fine) the lack of resolution led them to do the confirmatory test for Cushing’s disease. Turns out she does have Cushing’s. The timing was nuts. She’s been on med management for about two months and is doing much better.

Royal Canin and Hill’s vets maintained that if the food was the problem, switching to a novel protein diet should help.