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Think I'll switch Boy's food. Want ideas.


Miztiki
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Boyden probably has allergies. He will be out of Chicken Soup in about 2 weeks. I read that it can help to feed a dog food he's never had before. That's hard since I don't know what he ate the years before I got him.

 

Flint River Ranch has a Trout and Potato dry food. I'm guessing that he never had that. Do you think it's worth a try? Do you know of any other foods that don't contain beef, chicken or lamb (since those are the most common)? I'll check them out if you do.

 

Thank you!

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One thing to be careful of if you are going to feed a novel protein diet as a food trial. If you are trying to see if the protein source is the source of the allergies then you can only feed the novel protein. No treats, no rawhide, nothing with other animal protein sources in it. This is very difficult for most families but it is the technical way to do a true food trial. If you feed this fish based diet and continue to give treats with lamb in them then you are defeating the purpose and you won't be able to tell if the new diet is actually working.

 

I did this with my male dog with a true novel protein source diet and it was soooo hard, esp with a normal dog in the household too. We ended up with a compromise. He only gets the fish based kibble and treats with no animal protein in them (peanut butter treats mostly) but he can also have rawhide. I added the rawhide as an experiment after his skin settled down with the new food. I noticed that my girl's teeth had started to suffer from lack of chewies so, back to the rawhide. He doesn't chew them much but they dont seem to bother him.

 

In any event, if you want to see if he has a true food allergy, not just sensitive skin or GI tract, then be prepared to follow a true food trial for at least 6 weeks, to see if it really helps. If it does you can then start adding proteins, etc til he has a reaction, then you know what he is reacting to.

 

Olivia

 

PS. For real food allergies then the answer to your question is yes, novel protein diets can make all the difference in the world!

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With his ear problems, I have to say I'd be more suspicious of the grain sources. Thus, you might be able to go back to a normal (and cheaper) protein source with a potato or other non-grain carb source.

 

You can put your Boy on an informal trial to see whether it IS the grain. For a week or so, grill up a pound of chicken breast, chunk it up, and mix it with some white rice, brown rice or potato - I'd prefer brown rice or potato since white rice is actually an allergen too. Maybe a cup of the starch. Only cook the chicken as much as you feel comfortable with - you don't have to cook it all through (it's even better the less it's cooked) but I know many people are squeamish about the raw part. (c: Give him a doggy multivitamin plus an extra A/C/E (antioxidant combo) since he's trying to heal (don't supplement A if you use sweet potato).

 

If he starts to improve, you are probably on the right track taking him off small grains of any kind. Plus soy. Plus processed white rice. If he doesn't get better even switching to potato, THEN you can assume he's bothered by the chicken.

 

Then the question is, what to actually feed. Check out http://www.petfooddirect.com Not all foods are on there but an awful lot are. It's how I comparision shop foods. Be VERY careful - many foods claim to be allergenic and yet include wheat, soy, or something else whacky.

 

Or you can just switch to whole food feeding permanently.

:rolleyes:

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I haven't been overly impressed with the Chicken Soup, and he hasn't either, so want to switch anyways, and thought maybe in the process I could see if a totally different food helped. Yep, he can go w/out treats and stuff. He does like his dried banana chips though. Do you think he could continue with those?

 

His skin and coat is healthy, and his digestive system seems fine. It's the ears and pink paw fur that makes the vet think he might have allergies. Even if he doesn't I'd like to try him on another brand of food.

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Nature's Recipe makes a Venison/rice kibble and canned, a totally vegetarian kibble and canned, and I've seen a canned Rabbit/potato at my favorite feed store.

 

Wellness also does some exotics - Fish/sweet potato, Venison/Sweet Potato. And Dick Van Patten's stuff, Natural Balance I think, does a Duck Potato.

 

The info and recommendations that Olivia and Rebecca have given you are pretty much what the Doggy Dermatologist told us. Shoshone does really well on the Vegetarian kibble, grains don't seem to bother her.

 

If you do one of the exotic kibbles, you can make treats by soaking the kibble, adding a little bit of the canned version to give it a flavor boost, roll out thinly and bake slowly. The smell isn't pleasant, but my guys all loved it.

 

Oat cereal from Trader Joe's make great treats, too, only oats and sugar. The regular Post or General Mills Cheerios have corn and wheat.

 

You might think about keeping a journal, too. That makes it easier to keep track of what's going in.

 

I thought at first that really 6-8 weeks was too long, but Shonie's itching slowed down at first from the antibiotic for the skin infection, and then again at around 4 weeks there was another noticeable drop, and at about 6 weeks, no itching whatsoever. It was worth it.

 

Good luck, I hope it's quick and easy for you and Boy!

 

Ruth n the BC3

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Rebecca, about grain...

 

Which ingredients are considered grains? The food I mentioned has course ground millet, oatmeal, oat bran, ground oats... Aren't those grains?

 

Here's the ingredients link to Trout & Sweet Potato.

 

A person need a dang PhD to figure out what a dogs' nutritional requirements are and what all of the different terms actually mean. :rolleyes:

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Yes, all those are grains. That is what I meant about reading the fine print. I wouldn't consider that to be a non-allergenic food unless a formal food trial proved the problem to be meat source-related.

 

I make my own food most of the time and I do use those grains, but Ben and Maggie cannot eat them even in the unprocessed state I offer them in. Ben is sensitive to pretty much any processed food. And grain makes MAggie gassy and fat and her coat comes out in nasty clumps. It's inconvenient but fortunately MAggie is an easy keeper. Ben is not but just one is OK. :rolleyes:

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Ok, now I'm more confused. :confused:

 

I don't mind feeding Boyden live food if it means he gets better. I could do an "uncommon meat" diet thingy. I could go to Galveston and get fish. Then what? Do you HAVE to have something like rice or potatoes and all that? Or just the meat and vitamins/minerals?

 

If I can eliminate the common meats (beef, chicken, lamb) and elimate grains and still be sure that he's eating a nutritionally complete diet, then I'll do that. But I don't know how. :rolleyes:

 

What about the lazy part? Is there anything I can do about that?

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Well, an all meat diet for a few weeks isn't going to hurt him. And, if he clears up, you'll have your answer.

 

There are just a ton of sites on raw feeding and home cooking. Pitcairn's book has great recipes for home cooking, I can't remember if he's got any grain free.

 

Rebecca's got more experience with grain intolerance than I do, it just happens that grains aren't what Shonie reacts to.

 

There's really nothing to do but try. You could get lucky first time out or it could take a few different meat sources/going without grains, etc to pin it down. There's no way around that part that I found, and I tried for years. No help for the lazy part, either. Darn it, I hated that too!

 

There might be a service in your area that provides raw pre mixed healthy food, you might try a web search for that. There's one in my area called Feed This, they've got a web site that is pretty helpful. I don't think you want to pay shipping from N. California to Texas, but it might be a good jumping off point for your research.

 

And, if Boy's really miserable with his ears, I'd ditch the Chicken Soup now. You can donate the unused portion to a shelter, and Boy might start feeling better sooner.

 

Good luck!

 

Ruth n the BC3

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Originally posted by urge to herd:

Well, an all meat diet for a few weeks isn't going to hurt him.

With supplements, right? Rebecca, can you be more specific about that? How much of each, etc.?

 

And wouldn't he have to be on it for 6 weeks or longer?

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OK, first rule - as long as you keep it simple, two weeks on ANYTHING isn't going to kill or permanently injure a dog. Don't feed him straight bacon fat, or antifreeze, or onion soup, or chocolate, but that's pretty much it as far as things that would hurt your dog if it comprised the dog's entire diet for a SHORT period of time.

 

Just an example, Doug the Dog has a nasty stomach bug and has been put on a very restricted diet similiar to the one I outlined for you, except for two days he'll eat nothing (one of those he doesn't get water either), then nothing but a little boiled chicken, then a teeny bit of rice with the chicken, then we'll finish the rest of the week with just chicken and rice (or scrambled egg and rice). The vet gave us these directions, so I'm pretty confident it won't hurt Doug. In fact, I've been down this road many a time - once with a dog with pancreatitis that couldn't have anything but chicken and rice for about a month!

 

Dogs on bland diest don't get supplements, but there's no reason you can't give your dog a multivitamin. Now that I think about it, you might want to just give him a grain and soy free human version because the pet tabs usually are formulated with other things. You really don't HAVE to, I was just concerned about helping him heal, considering the bother you're having with his ears especially.

 

So you aks, why give starches at all? There are some nutrients the starchy veggies or grains provide that balance what's in the meat and complete the nutritional picture for the dog. Raw bone contains a lot of the same stuff, but you don't want to switch him to bones until you've decided the food IS the problem. Then you'd do it gradually to let his gi adjust.

 

Most people who go completely grain free add brewer's yeast for extra B, or just add a B supplement, and usually do some kind of veggie mixture to cover all the nturitional bases (C, E, and selenium are very low in raw meaty bones, for example - actually, E is hard to make up anywhere except in wheat, which I don't feed). All of these are long term considerations, however.

 

Anyway, that's why a short term bland diet for a dog used to getting calories from carbs typically includes something like potatoes or rice. You can microwave a whole sweet or white potato (stick it all over with a fork first) for a quickie way to fix it. OR, one of my favs is a baked or microwaved squash - winter, acorn, or any other sweet squash - dogs love them and tehy are great for the digestion. Rice is my last choice for something like this because some dogs DO react to rice too.

 

Poor Boy sounds like he's got a pretty serious problem - I'd definitely be tempted to try just meat for a week. But I know it can be scary - it's been pounded into our heads for so long not to feed dogs "people food." :rolleyes:

 

Well, I know I'm switching letters around like crazy and I'm too tired to go back right now and figure it out. Night night time!

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What Rebecca said, plus, in 2 weeks, if it is grains that he's reacting to, you'll likely see improvement if you go strictly grain free. Not that his ears would totally clear up in that time, but they'd get noticeably better.

 

I fed Shoshone nothing but meat and vegetables for about a month. It didn't clear up her itching and she lost a little too much weight for me, but my vet wasn't worried - he said the same thing, nothing terrible was gonna happen to her in that length of time.

 

Bye from me, too!

 

Ruth

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My dogs are LOVING this switch to natural foods. I'm happy to have a use for my goose/duck eggs.

I would like to ask Rebecca what the "fish" component of her meals consists of? I have many tins of cheap tuna in the house but its easy for me to get frozen, raw lake fish since I live so close to Lake Huron.

Is it best fed as part of a mixture? I can buy big bags of frozen lake smelts. Can I feed this little fish heads,bones and all?

 

My suggestion for the "Lazy Dog" problem - get him a BC puppy...

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Hi Miztiki,

 

The only thing I have to add here is that California Natural makes a Simple recipe diet for dogs that are allergic to grains. Pretty much the only carb out there that isn't a grain is potato. Also I think that Chicken soup contains corn if I remember the label correctly. The British give their dogs a saucer of tea in the afternoon (I know odd to us). Tea is a nice evening pick me up and is full of antioxidents. He needs someone to run with to get his lazy butt going- Fee would lay around all day but she has 2 BCs and a nutty sheltie to look after- this is one of those Collie traits I was talking about. My Rough Collie growing up laid around all day, lazy, lazy lazy.

 

Also heck if you fed Boy raw ground meatballs for 2 weeks straight it wouldn't hurt him.

 

Good luck,

Annette

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For the fish I alternate between frozen Talpia, canned salmon, and occaisionally if that's all the budget allows, tins of sardines. I don't see why you couldn't use what's available to you locally - I base the addtition of fish to our diet on the fact that British dogs would likely have eaten a good deal of fish scraps, plus the idea that the fatty acids are found in ideal amounts in fish.

 

Some people are really fussy about the source of the fish, being particularly horrified at the idea of feeding tinned sardines, but I just don't have the money to feed fresh deep water fish to my dogs when I can't afford it for my kids and husband, either!

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His vet will be back in the office Friday, so I'll talk to her about changing his diet.

 

Annette, I would LOVE to have him run around with another dog but he's too anti-dog right now. I really, really hope this changes because I want to get another dog, hopefully this fall.

 

Hey Bounce, I was thinking about smelt too! Grampa used to bring home huge trash bags of them that gramma and I would have to clean. I would imagine that dogs could eat them whole. I would feed them frozen. I don't think they have smelt down here though. :rolleyes:

 

Rebecca & Ruth, thanks a million for all of your help! I really, really appreciate it.

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