Force & Verve, from Honest Kitchen are both low-protein.
Could you try feeding them alone, and only periodically add the mix-ins?

I've looked at Honest Kitchen several times, but I can't get past the calories. Do I even need to worry about calories if I'm feeding less as long as it's high quality?

I'm leary of raw because I don't know how to keep track of the protein levels. Are the protein levels different if the meat is cooked or raw? Plus, I'm not sure that I can afford it. With gas getting so high and me living in the boonies, it's a long way to Wal-Mart and/or Sam's. I'll just have to weigh things out.

Except for the weight, Kali's doing very well otherwise. For 2 years now, her BUN/Crea have been normal and her kidneys are functioning normally. The vets says that they are functioning better now than when she first got out of the hospital. So, I kind of hate to mess with that.

I don't feed Honest Kitchen myself, so I'm unfamilier with the calorie content, etc. I was able to find the protein content on their site, but the calorie count isn't there.

What I would focus on, is finding a food that is super-healthy, so that the dog can glean as much nutritional value as possible, since it is going to be eating reduced amounts.

You could even try mixing a small amount of a good quality kibble, like Timberwolf (which I see you are already feeding), Evo, etc, in with the HK. The Timberwolf Wilderness Elk & Salmon is one of the lower-protein mixtures.

A combo of HK and Timberwolf might be enough to help your dog *feel* full, while keeping the cal and protein intake lower.

I don't feed the "suggested" amount on the bag. I look at the recommended range and begin there, adjusting based on my dog's appearance and appetite. You could try the same.

I'd ask the Raw feeders here if there are any fillers that you can add to help the dog feel full, on a reduce cal & protein diet. Would a small amount of plain oatmeal be bad???

As far as the price of gasoline, etc, goes, a food that you can have shipped to you would probably save you a fair amount of money. The price of s&h is probably going to be less than the price of gas for round trip if you live far from anywhere you could purchase a quality food.

 Quote: Francie Hallings

I'm leary of raw because I don't know how to keep track of the protein levels. Are the protein levels different if the meat is cooked or raw?

You can look at the protein levels of different foods on this site--both raw and cooked
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

I have only ever fed raw, but I looked up a few different meats and it does appear that the protein content is increased by cooking
100 grams ground beef raw has 14 grams of protein
100 grams ground beef cooked has 26 grams of protein

100 grams whole fryer chicken raw has 18 grams of protein
100 grams whole fryer chicken cooked has 27 grams of protein

Shannon

Protein content is not increased by cooking. Water is cooked away, so less of the weight of the cooked meat is water weight.

That is, cooked meat is denser from loss of fluids.

 Quote: Francie Hallings

I've looked at Honest Kitchen several times, but I can't get past the calories. Do I even need to worry about calories if I'm feeding less as long as it's high quality?

I'm leary of raw because I don't know how to keep track of the protein levels. Are the protein levels different if the meat is cooked or raw? Plus, I'm not sure that I can afford it. With gas getting so high and me living in the boonies, it's a long way to Wal-Mart and/or Sam's. I'll just have to weigh things out.

Except for the weight, Kali's doing very well otherwise. For 2 years now, her BUN/Crea have been normal and her kidneys are functioning normally. The vets says that they are functioning better now than when she first got out of the hospital. So, I kind of hate to mess with that.

THK is high quality. If I couldn't feed raw , I would consider feeding the package recommendations of Force for the dog's desired weight for a week or two (weighing the dog before and after) and see what happened with the weight. I would feed RMBs with it according the package, too. THK is a lot less expensive than it looks when it's just part of the diet and the other part is skinned chicken backs and necks, for example, with occasional efficient fish protein (like commercially frozen white fish, for one).

I would read some of the link below on the low-protein/kidney idea. Many sources are quoted there on the subject of higher-quality protein for kidney problems (as opposed to lowered amounts of inferior quality). It's really informative.

http://www.dogaware.com/kidney.html

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Protein content is not increased by cooking. Water is cooked away, so less of the weight of the cooked meat is water weight.

This is what I was thinking also would be the case, but the water content stayed essentially the same for 100 grams of cooked beef or 100 grams of raw beef. With chicken the water content was just a few grams less when cooked.
Shannon

 Quote: Shannon Reed

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Protein content is not increased by cooking. Water is cooked away, so less of the weight of the cooked meat is water weight.

This is what I was thinking also would be the case, but the water content stayed essentially the same for 100 grams of cooked beef or 100 grams of raw beef. With chicken the water content was just a few grams less when cooked.
Shannon

Then fat may have been rendered?

Cooking changes the shape of proteins, but cannot increase or decrease the amino acids, which are what protein is made of, so I'm lost.

I can say raw has helped my female finally lose weight, I'd have to do a bit more reading on kidney problems, but I know it is in a couple of my books for a raw diet. I tried high quality kibble, then Honest Kitchen, but I wasn't happy with them. I did like the Honest Kitchen, but it gets pretty expensive when I want something I can feed to all my dogs. It took a little while to find out where I needed to be for amounts for her, but I weigh in roughly every 3 weeks at the same vet(I noticed scales varied drastically). She gets 1.2# of food a day. Once a week she is fasted and gets a recreational bone. I would like her to be in the 70-75 pound range. She is at 80.7 now, she started at 86.8 in February, which is when we started raw, but as I said it took a while to figure where her diet had to be for her to lose weight. She was in the 90+range to start with last year. I really buckled down with her, made sure she can't steal food from one of the other dogs, and stick with the program. Her weight wasn't healthy, and it is really hard to do agility with an overweight dog. She gets plenty of exercise, one of my males is lean and beautiful, and they are constant playmates. He is 75# and gets roughly 3#/day. Her metabolism is just so low after getting her spayed, I had a tough time with her weight. She is looking so beautiful, and I feel good about what she eats, and she loves it too.