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There is a phone call that changes the trajectory of your life with your dog. For us, it was five words: “I don’t have good news.”
Hazel was 11 months old. She was finally growing out of her chaotic puppy phase and turning into this incredible dog. Playful, loving, full of life. We thought we had the next 12 to 15 years with her. We were wrong about the timeline, or at least that is what we were told that day.
This is the story of how our Aussiedoodle was diagnosed with renal dysplasia, what we did in the days and weeks that followed, and where she is today, more than a year and a half past the prognosis we were given. If you just got news like this about your own dog, we hope it gives you something we did not have that morning: a reason to take a breath before you let a number on a page decide how the story ends.
The First Signs
In July of 2024, Hazel was 10 months old and had just gone through her first heat cycle. During that time she was a little sluggish and off her food, but we chalked it up to the heat. Dogs get a bit out of sorts during their cycle, and nothing about it felt like an emergency.
But when the heat ended and she still was not eating well, still lethargic, still not herself, we knew something was off. This was not normal puppy stuff. The dog who tore through the house at all hours was lying around, picking at her bowl, and the change had lasted too long to explain away.
We took her to the vet.
A Diagnosis That Was Not the Full Picture
The vet ran bloodwork and found that her creatinine was elevated. Creatinine is a waste product the kidneys are supposed to filter out, so a high number is one of the first signals that the kidneys are not keeping up. They also tested her for tick-borne disease, and she came back positive for Ehrlichiosis. At the time, we thought we had our answer. A tick-borne infection can make a dog feel terrible, and it is treatable, so we let ourselves feel hopeful.
For the next week she got IV fluids and antibiotics. And it worked, at least temporarily. She bounced back. She was eating again, playing again, acting like the puppy we knew. We thought the worst was behind us.
About a week later, she stopped eating again.
The Call
We brought her back to the vet. They ran another full day of IV fluids and brought in an ultrasound technician to look at her kidneys. The results were not what we expected.
Tyler was working from our home office when the phone rang. It was the vet. He said, “I don’t have good news for you. Your dog was born with renal dysplasia.”
The call came to Tyler first, and I got the news a moment later. I left work the second I heard, but I could not make it to the vet in time, so Tyler’s mom went along instead. The waiting was its own kind of agony, knowing the conversation was happening without me and that there was nothing I could do to get there any faster. Hazel was not even a year old.
The vet explained that renal dysplasia is a congenital kidney disorder. In plain language, Hazel was born with kidneys that did not develop normally before birth. The Merck Veterinary Manual describes these kidney malformations as present from birth, with no cure, which means care focuses on managing the kidney failure that results rather than fixing the underlying defect. He told us she would likely only live three to six months, and that it would be a helpful if she made it to her second birthday.
We were completely gutted. Our first dog as adults. Our first baby. It felt like our hearts were ripping out of our chests.
When Tyler got home with Hazel, I was waiting at the door. We sat on the bed and just sobbed. We felt like we had already lost her. The grief hit before anything had even happened, and that might have been the hardest part. Grieving a dog who was still right there, wagging her tail, completely unaware that anything was wrong.
What We Did Next
The next morning, we got to work. We were not going to sit around and wait. If there was anything we could do to give Hazel more time and a better quality of life, we were going to do it.
We leaned on the renal dysplasia community right away, joining both of the Facebook support groups we now keep on our own resources page, including the Puppies with Renal Dysplasia Facebook group. They became a lifeline. When you are awake at 2 a.m. searching for anyone who understands, finding people who have lived it changes everything.
We also had a second veterinarian review her bloodwork and ultrasound for another set of eyes. We switched her food immediately to a prescription renal kibble and wet food, because that was what her original vet prescribed. A renal diet is not a minor tweak. According to VCA Animal Hospitals, these diets are built around restricted protein and low phosphorus to reduce the waste products in the bloodstream and ease the workload on the kidneys, and they are one of the most powerful tools there is for slowing kidney disease.
A few weeks later we discovered that JustFoodForDogs makes a Renal Support Low Protein recipe. We tried it. Hazel loved it. She has been on it ever since. We read the ingredients and saw real, recognizable food: ground lamb, rice, cauliflower, carrots, spinach, and blueberries, with the protein, phosphorus, sodium, and omega-3 levels controlled for kidney support. It is meant to be fed under veterinary supervision, which mattered to us, because we did not want to guess our way through this.
Two weeks after the diagnosis, we got in to see an internal medicine specialist. That visit changed everything. She confirmed that the JustFoodForDogs renal diet was the best fit for what Hazel needed, which gave us real confidence in a decision we had made on our own.
We also did the research ourselves and got Hazel started on a kidney-support supplement routine before that appointment, reading studies and community notes late into the night and building a stack we felt good about. When we saw the specialist, she reviewed everything we had put together and validated it, then suggested a few additional supplements to round it out. That is the routine Hazel still follows today. It centers on a kidney-support stack: a probiotic made for dogs in renal failure, a liquid kidney-support formula, a whole-food renal supplement, daily kidney-health chews, and an omega-3. That last one is not a guess. The American Animal Hospital Association notes that long-chain omega-3 fatty acids are suggested for dogs at this stage of kidney disease, which is why we use Nutramax Welactin 3 Canine Omega-3 as part of her routine. One note worth sharing for anyone building a similar stack: the probiotic in her routine requires cold shipping, so we get it through our vet rather than ordering it online, and we would steer you to do the same instead of buying it off a shelf.
We also wanted to get Hazel spayed. Our internal medicine specialist reviewed her case and said it was safe to proceed, and they performed a kidney biopsy at the same time, which definitively confirmed the renal dysplasia. A biopsy is the only way to confirm the diagnosis for certain, which is consistent with what both Merck and the American Kennel Club describe. Because of her kidney disease, it was not a same-day procedure. She was admitted early in the morning, stayed on IV fluids most of the day, had the surgery and biopsy in the evening, and then stayed overnight on more fluids. Everything went well. Her kidney values held steady through the entire process.
Where Hazel Is Today
Hazel turns three this September.
Read that again. The dog they were sure would not see her second birthday is about to turn three, and she shows no signs of slowing down.
Her creatinine started at 2.4 at diagnosis. It crept up to 2.8 in the weeks that followed, and then it simply stopped climbing. We do bloodwork every three to four months to keep watch, and through her most recent panel on June 2, her numbers still had not moved.
She is on the same supplement routine, the same food, and the same general rhythm we settled into once our specialist had reviewed it. Nothing has changed because nothing has needed to change.
If you met Hazel today, you would never know she is sick. She is hyper. She loves playing with her favorite ball. She wrestles with her best friend Kaia, the white Lab who belongs to family, like the two of them have all the time in the world. She loves walks, the beach, and hiking. We take her everywhere with us. She paws at us constantly for attention. And at night, she is the biggest cuddle bug you have ever seen. Most nights she wants to be right next to us, though she still loves her own cozy spot too.
She is the best dog. And she has no idea anything is wrong.
What We Wish We Knew
Looking back, a prognosis of just a few months is a common starting point for serious kidney disease conversations. But what we wish someone had made clearer is how wide the range can be. Merck notes that signs of these kidney malformations usually become evident somewhere between 6 months and 2 years of age, and the AKC’s overview of renal dysplasia goes further, explaining that the age signs appear varies with the severity of the malformation and whether one or both kidneys are affected, and that some dogs are not diagnosed until they are much older. The picture is far less fixed than a single number suggests.
That does not mean every story ends the way ours has so far. It means the textbook is not the whole story.
We wish we had taken that initial prognosis with a grain of salt. Not because the vet was wrong to say it. He was going off the literature and trying to prepare us. But hearing “your dog will not see her second birthday” while she sat right there, tail wagging, full of life, nearly broke us in a way it did not need to.
If your dog was just diagnosed with renal dysplasia, here is what we would tell you. Get to an internal medicine specialist as soon as you can. Get on the right renal diet for your dog’s specific case, because food is one of the most effective tools you have. Ask your veterinarian what monitoring schedule makes sense, and stick to it. Join the community of owners who are living this every day, because they will catch you on the nights the science cannot. And do not let a number on a page define how much time you have.
Kidney health is connected to so much of what we write about, from why fresh food is worth considering to how gut health affects nearly everything. Hazel is the reason any of this exists, and her diagnosis is the reason we read every ingredient label like it matters, because for her, it does.
We live every day trying to make it Hazel’s best day. We do not know how long she will have with us. Nobody does, with any dog. But we want to make every day count and give her the best life a dog could have. She is our spoiled baby, and we would not have it any other way.
This article shares our personal experience and is not veterinary medical advice. Every dog’s case is different. Work with your veterinarian and, if possible, an internal medicine specialist to determine the best plan for your dog.
Samantha Tilton
I catch the things that are easy to miss. The small changes, the quiet signs, the details hiding in plain sight. I co-founded The Daily Dog because the best thing you can do for your dog is pay attention, and I write to help you know what to pay attention to.
