Need To Switch Food

[JohnF]

>Due to economic crisis in our house, we switched from Solid Gold Lamb and Rice to Purina One Lamb and Rice with no problems.

>

 

We've switched temporarily too (you have to hope) back onto a regular Greyhound food. It makes more poop than the expensive quality kibble but it's a lot more solid, and it can make nasty gas. But I can stop the gas by feeding s tbsp of natural live yoghurt - Peggy gets a Greek one with honey because I like it and she can run off with the tub to clean it out at the end.

[Guest JsMom]

Yeah, that's the other part of the equation... $2-3/lb food is just not in our budget.

[Batmom]

It might be worth trying one of the limited ingredient commercial foods (e.g., Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Venison) as a temporary thing -- see if it works, see if the itchies go away and the digestive system agrees -- and then look at finding something similar but less costly. Pinnacle makes some foods that have rather more ingredients but are a little different than most formulas; expensive, but again might be worth a temporary trial.

 

My go-to food for bad poop is IAMS -- green bag (chicken) or red bag (lamb). The lamb formula is quite similar to Kirkland; just a few different ingredients, and not so many ingredients as Kirkland's. Interestingly, one of my pups had soft serve on the Kirkland but gorgeous poop on the IAMS. We weren't dealing with itchies, too, tho.

[Guest JsMom]

I can't do IAMS (even though lots of people have suggested it and I'm tempted) b/c it has corn, and he did not do well with corn in his food when we first got him. I'm hesitant to introduce it back in, since I won't know if it's the corn or something else that isn't working (if it doesn't work). I think a trip to Costco for major amounts of chicken are in order.

 

If we go back to the bland diet to "reset" things, how much should I be feeding him (chicken and rice)? Same amount as kibble or more? He's lost some weight (that he needed to lose, b/c he was starting to pork out) but I don't want him to lose any more.

[Batmom]

You would need to feed a good deal more in volume because your homeprepped food will already have the water in it, as compared to kibble which is dehydrated. Usually what I do is add up the calories the dog was getting on kibble, and try to provide @ that many in the homeprepped diet. USDA nutrient database, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ , is a decent source of calorie info. The search function is a little bit clumsy but you'll get the hang of it .

[MaryJane]

I can't do IAMS (even though lots of people have suggested it and I'm tempted) b/c it has corn, and he did not do well with corn in his food when we first got him. I'm hesitant to introduce it back in, since I won't know if it's the corn or something else that isn't working (if it doesn't work). I think a trip to Costco for major amounts of chicken are in order.

 

If we go back to the bland diet to "reset" things, how much should I be feeding him (chicken and rice)? Same amount as kibble or more? He's lost some weight (that he needed to lose, b/c he was starting to pork out) but I don't want him to lose any more.

 

If he weighs about 75 to 85 pounds then you might try giving about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of white rice with 1/2 to 3/4 cup chicken twice a day. I would also include about 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup (twice a day) of some veggie like green beans (cook it good so it is soft). You want to supplement with at least some calcium pills (do the oyster shell calcium 500 mg) and give about 3 a day.

[Guest JsMom]

Excellent -- Thanks for all the info! I'm so bogged down with details of kibble ingredients it never occurred to me to just look up calorie and protein values on USDA (I use that site all the time). And I never realized I'd need to supplement calcium or anything like that, so thanks for that, too!

[Batmom]

Over the short term (12 weeks or so), you don't need to supplement with anything. I usually add calcium but nothing else if I'm trying to figure out a food issue.

[Guest Swifthounds]

I wouldn't supplement short term with calcium or anything else. Contrary to conventional feeding, dog's are not designed to get all their require nutrients in small doses daily. I would concentrate on getting him settled and back on track and settled. All supplements have fillers and the last thing you want to do is dump one more unknown into the mix. If you get to the end of the safe window and he needs to be on home cooked, then you can add some plain egg shell ground fine in a coffee grinder.

[Guest JsMom]

Oh, that's great to know! Bland diet starts tonight. The gas last night was some of the worst EVER, and yesterday he started refusing to eat breakfast again... I can't believe it took me this long to figure out there was a real problem.

[Guest Swifthounds]

Don't beT yourself up. For all their being touted as special and sensitive dogs, greyhounds are pretty darn stoic. Hopefully, you're on the right track now. Once you get him doing well on something, his gut can start healing and any transition will go better. Jeep us posted.

[Guest JsMom]

Minor update: Went to the vet for shots the other day. Vet supports home-cooked diet if it fits into our lifestyle, but didn't really get into what we would need beyond the meat and rice. Then he whipped out a 32 lb bag of Purina HA (hypoallergenic) and said that would be a good alternative if we can't do home-cooked b/c of time or money. It has hydrolyzed soy protein and no grain.... And it's $96 a bag! I think I can do home cooked for less than $3/lb, thankyouverymuch.... Ugh! Are these really the only options? Ridiculously expensive food, home cooking, or the cycle of allergies and food refusal we've been dealing with?

 

I'm PRAYING that the allergen is not chicken, which will simplify things a lot, but he said it's highly unlikely it's anything else in the food we've been giving him.

[Guest JsMom]

Looks like we need a beef-as-the-only-protein dog food. Suggestions?

 

We need:

-no corn

-no chicken or other meat

-no beet pulp

-no yeast

-no potato

-beef as only protein source

-rice is fine

Edited October 6, 2011 by JsMom

[Burpdog]

I have not read the entire thread. Has he had allergy tests?

 

Look up Prairie Beef & Barley

[Guest JsMom]

No tests, elimination diet. He does fine on beef/rice bland diet. Some paw licking (which we think is from outdoors) but no gas and no butt chewing. So we switched him to chicken and rice to see if it was the chicken or something else in his food, and after a few days on chicken, he is chewing holes in his butt. Since there are so many other things that can be allergens, or things that he's had and either didn't react well to or wouldn't eat, we'd like to exclude those things too, hence the list.

 

I will look up Prairie... Didn't come across it in my Petco search just now. But I did find AvoDerm:

Ingredients:

Ground Whole Wheat Flour, Beef Meal, Ground Whole Rice, Avocado Oil, Soybean Oil, Avocado Meal, Lecithin, Flax Seed, Herring Meal, Dried Kelp, Dried Alfalfa Meal, Potassium Chloride, Monosodium Phosphate, Choline Chloride, Ferrous Sulfate, DL-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate (Source of Vitamin E), Zinc Oxide, Sodium Selenite, Manganous Oxide, Riboflavin Supplement (Source of Vitamin B Complex), Copper Sulfate, Zinc Amino Acid Chelate, Iron Amino Acid Chelate, Manganese Amino Acid Chelate, Copper Amino Acid Chelate, Cobalt Amino Acid Chelate, Niacin, Ascorbic Acid (Source of Vitamin C), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Source of Vitamin B6), Calcium Iodate, Thiamine Mononitrate (Source of Vitamin B1), Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement.

 

Guaranteed Analysis:

Crude Protein (min) 20.00%, Crude Fat (min) 8.00%, Crude Fiber (max) 4.00%, Moisture (max) 10.00%, Omega 6 Fatty Acids* (min) 2.30%, Omega 3 Fatty Acids* (min) 0.87%.

 

Does anything about it jump out at you all as no good?

 

ETA: Found Prairie... It has chicken in it. Thanks for the suggestion, though!

Edited October 6, 2011 by JsMom