Thiamine deficiency in dogs Thiamine deficiency in dogs can cause several problems with your pets vessels as well

as nerve damage. It can also cause your dog to become stressed in situations that otherwise would not bother them. Thiamine is considered an anti-stress vitamin because it helps to strengthen your dogs immune system and improves their ability to handle stressful situations.

If a deficiency of this vitamin becomes severe, it will lead to a loss of nerve controls, a loss of reflexes, and eventually cause the death of your dog.

Thiamine, Vitamin B1, is a member of the B class of water soluble vitamins and your dogs body does not store this vitamin, and as a result, your pet will need to get an adequate intake in their diet or by some type of a supplement. Because it is a water soluble vitamin it is virtually impossible to be toxic to your dog, even in very large doses. Excess of any of the water soluble vitamins is excreted in their urine.

Causes of Thiamine Deficiency:

Thiamine deficiency in your dog is most commonly caused by eating too much raw fish or raw meats in the diet. Raw fish is extremely dangerous, especially Herring, Smelt, or Catfish. Fish contains an ingredient known as thiaminase which is an enzyme that destroys thiamine.

Originally thought to be just a concern for cats, feeding your dog raw fish is as much, if not a bigger concern in dogs, simply because they eat more than cats. Raw meats are also dangerous to your dog. Not only is in deficient in thiamine, it is also very low in calcium. Raw meat also carries the treat of bacteria and parasites, especially those that can easily cause Salmonella poisoning in your dog.

Thiamine deficiency can also be caused by feeding your dog an unbalanced diet, or food that has been over processed. However, perhaps the largest single cause of this deficiency in your dog is by Sulfites. Sulfites are naturally occurring compounds that are helpful in preventing microbial growths and are used extensively on fruits to preserve their original color.

However, they are also used as preservatives in several commercial dog foods and they interfere with the absorption of thiamine in your dogs body. If you use commercial dog food, it is extremely important to look for brands that do not use this chemical as a preservative.

Symptoms:

There are several symptoms that you can watch for in your dog that they may be developing a thiamine deficiency. The first symptom will be a condition referred to as Ventroflexion. This is a condition where your dogs neck starts to bend in a downward position and the chin will start to lower and rest near the middle of their body instead of squared off. Your dog will also start to walk with their weight placed on their back legs and they will quickly develop a gait. As the deficiency increases, their back legs will almost look like they are constantly in a crouched position with a much wider stance, and their back legs will also become very stiff.

The next symptom that you can watch for is Ataxia, which is a medical term that means without order. This is a very serious situation for your dog as they will start to show several different disturbances in their ability to control their body. They will start to walk in a very wobbly manner because they are losing their motor coordination. However, it can get much more serious.

Ataxia can also affect the nerves in the face and effect their eye movements. If you notice any type of abnormal eye movements, it is time to get them to your veterinarian as soon as possible. If severe enough, this condition can also affect your dogs brain.

If this is starting to happen you will see even more strange developments with your dogs eyes. The muscles surrounding their eyes will become paralyzed and as a result they will have very limited eye movement and the pupils will become fixed as well as dilated. At this stage, thiamine deficiency is now threatening the life of your dog.

There are also additional symptoms that can affect your dog with a deficiency of this vitamin and they may be as severe in some cases. Although Beriberi is thought to be solely a deficiency in humans, several of the same symptoms can affect your dog. This deficiency affects your dogs nervous system, and as a result it can cause tingling in their limbs the same as Beriberi affects humans

If you notice your dog starting to lick all of their feet almost in a chronic manner, it may be because they are having burning or tingling sensations; but unlike humans, they have no way of communicating it other than to licking them.

Treatment:

If your dog has developed a serious Thiamine deficiency, your veterinarian will immediately begin Thiamine injections for several days to several weeks, depending on the severity.

If you do feed your dog raw fish or raw meat on any type of a regular basis, you will need to immediately stop. You will also need to check very closely the type of food you are buying if you use commercial food and make sure that there are no Sulfites used as preservatives.

However, the best form of treatment for Thiamine deficiency in dogs is to make sure that they are not developing a deficiency to start with. A multi liquid vitamin or a liquid tablet daily can very easily supply your dog with an adequate amount of Thiamine.

To help stimulate your dogs immune system and to make it even stronger, you can also sprinkle in a tablespoon of brewers yeast into your dogs food once a day. One tablespoon contains 1.25 mg of B1, Thiamine, and it can be bought at any pet store or health food store, and it is a very inexpensive way to completely eliminate your dog ever getting this deficiency.

Thiamine deficiency is a clinical syndrome associated with vascular injury (pertaining to vessels) and nerve damage caused by vitamin B1 deficiency. It is due to an inadequate dietary intake of thiamine, s component of the B complex group of vitamins, relative to the body's overall needs.

This deficiency is more common in cats than dogs and is especially prevalent in raw fish eaters.

General Causes

Eating raw fish Feeding pet food that is not completely balanced Thiamine Deficiency in Dogs

If you feed your dog raw meat or raw fish it is only a matter of time

Thiamine Deficiency This deficiency affects your dogs nervous system, and as a result it can cause tingling in their limbs the same as Beriberi affects humans Summary:

To help stimulate your dogs immune system and to make it even stronger, you can also sprinkle in a tablespoon of brewers yeast into your dogs food once a day.

One tablespoon contains 1.25 mg of B1, Thiamine, and it can be bought at any pet store or health food store, and it is a very inexpensive way to completely eliminate your dog ever getting this deficiency.

Causes of Thiamine Deficiency in Dogs Last Updated: 16th Aug 2011 Published: August 2011

Thiamine, a short form of Thio-Vitamine, is a sulphur-containing vitamin which is a water-soluble vitamin of the B complex. It is synthesized in bacteria, fungi and plants.

Animals fulfil their needs from the food they take and insufficient intake of this vitamin results to a disease called beriberi which affects the cardiovascular system and/or the peripheral nervous system (polyneuritis).

If thiamine deficiency becomes severe, take your dog to your vet who will give it thiamine shots for several days or week. The number of shots will depend on the severity of the deficiency. The dog can also given a liquid tablet or multi liquid vitamin daily to supply it with adequate amount of thiamine. This is to ensure that the dog does not develop a deficiency. Improve your dogs immune system by putting a tablespoonful of brewers yeast in its food once a day. A tablespoonful of this contains 1.25mg of B1, and Thiamine. You can as well purchase it from health food stores. This is an inexpensive way of eliminating Thiamine Deficiency.

A. Deficiency in Dogs Thiamin deficiency in dogs results from animals consuming diets where marginal thiamin concentrations have been destroyed in food processing or thiaminases are sufficiently high in the diet. A group of sled dogs that were fed a diet consisting of frozen, uncooked carp developed clinical signs of thiamin deficiency after a six-month period. The addition of oatmeal, a dry dog food, and 100 mg of thiamin daily to the affected dogs resulted in complete recovery within two months (Houston and Hulland, 1988). Thiamin deficiency was diagnosed in dogs fed fresh minced meat that contained sulfur dioxide as a preservative and less than 0.5 mg thiamin per kg (0.23 mg per lb) of diet (Studdert and Labuc, 1991).

Pathological changes due to thiamin deficiency predominantly involve the nervous system and heart. The pattern of pathological changes depends on the period of induction; acute deficiencies tend to involve the brain and produce severe neurological signs, whereas chronic deficiencies produce pathological changes in the heart and peripheral nerves (Read, 1979).

Read and Harrington (1981) induced clinical signs of thiamin deficiency in young beagles by feeding a diet containing 20 to 30 g thiamin per kg (9.1 to 13.6 g per lb) of diet. They reported three phases of disease: an initial phase where dogs appeared healthy but grew suboptimally, lasting 18 8 days; an intermediate stage of variable duration (59 37 days) of anorexia, loss of body weight and coprophagy; and either a short period of neurological illness or sudden death. The terminal period, which in most dogs was abrupt and short (8 6 days), consisted of either a neurological syndrome or sudden, unexpected death. The neurological syndrome was characterized by anorexia, vomiting, central nervous system depression, paraparesis (partial paralysis of lower extremities), sensory ataxia, torticollis (twisting of neck), circling, tonic-clonic convulsions (relaxation alternating with spasms), profound muscular weakness and recumbency (Read and Harrington, 1981; NRC, 1985).

A prominent clinical sign of thiamin deficiency in dogs is anorexia. This progresses after a few days to ataxia with possible vomiting. These signs continue to tonic convulsions and can eventually lead to death of the animal. Dogs sometimes show cardiac hypertrophy (enlargement) with slowing of the heart rate and signs of congestive heart failure including labored breathing and edema. Read (1979) described the cardiac lesion as nonspecific multifocal myocardial necrosis, and suggested primary vascular damage may be involved. Brain lesions include symmetrical necrosis of the gray matter (Read et al., 1977), and histologically the reported peripheral neuropathy is characterized by diffuse bilateral myelin degeneration and axonal disintegration (Voegtlin and Lake, 1919; Street et al., 1941b; Read, 1979).