Home Cooking For A Very Young Ibd Dog

[galgomum]

Well, Lehto really has done it this time.
Like any other young dog he got himself into trouble by eating something bad.
Unfortunately, the damage is permanent and according to the et he has IBD.

For now he gets Tylan powder on his food which he is eating well. So no problems there.

Second, he tolerates cooked chicken legs. (I boil it until the meat falls of the bone)
I give him everything except the bones.
He handles white rice well and we have now added sweet potato for fiber.
So far so good.

Kibble will make him sick in a few days. And we are not willing to take that risk for now.
We are staying away from kibble, any kibble.
Home cooking for at least several months now so we can find out what triggers him.

He reacted pretty bad to the mozzarella low fat string cheese we used in the past for class, not sure it was the fat or it being a milk product.

So, that is where we are now.
He is still on the skinny side, but not too bad.
And even though he is about 20 months old, he doesn't seem done growing or filling out and he is high energy.

What supplements will he need and what foods can we add?

I am already thinking of a multi vitamin (human) and I guess he needs a calcium source.

Edited January 8, 2013 by galgomum

[Guest grey_dreams]

I'm sorry to hear about Lehto's problems Petra. I'm not an expert on IBD or home cooking. But it is my understanding that chicken skin has a high fat content. If I was to home cook for a dog, I would probably choose turkey breast filets, and boil them for about 15-20 min. I used to do this for Zuki at times he went off his food. If Lehto can tolerate fish, you could also feed fish filets (frozen), just be sure that the fish does not originate in Vietnam, Thailand, or China (higher contaminant levels). If Lehto can tolerate some grain, oats are really great food. I always feed oats (Quaker old fashioned rolled oats, just boil them a litle). Those are just a few ideas. Hope you can find a food routine for Lehto.

Edited January 8, 2013 by grey_dreams

[Hubcitypam]

PM RobinM...I think her guy had best results with tilipia....

[Remolacha]

I am sorry to hear Lehto has IBD. I switched to raw for my IBD dog, but if you are not comfortable with that, Batmom has some excellent home cooking tips. You will need a source of calcium, and one way to get it is to put the chicken (bones and all) in a crockpot and cook until mush I think it takes about 24 hrs?

A good multi vitamin for IBD. Dogs is Animal Essentials Herbal multivitamin.

 

The IBD journey is trial and error, life long. Good luck!

[a_daerr]

I don't have too much advice for 100% home cooking, but I have a little experience fattening up a skinny puppy. My favorite thing right now is a rice cooker with a rack. I use it to make rice/oatmeal in chicken stock with chicken breast/porkchop on top. Truman also gets cottage cheese (might not be good if Lehto is lactose intolerant, but high in protein), beef raviolis, pasta, chicken feet, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turkey meatloaf (I use a recipe by Three Dog Bakery that makes a really large amount), hamburger. He also gets greek yogurt mixed in with a lot of stuff. I also like Nutro and Wellness canned food with rice/oatmeal if I don't have time to defrost and cook meat. No veggies here because he won't eat them. He's gained 9 pounds since September (no less skinny unfortunately), but adding the homecooked to his diet is making a difference.

 

I looked into supplements awhile ago because Truman was having terrible diarrhea all the time. There are a few powdered supplements that add calcium, Wysong's Call of the Wild or Honest Kitchen's Preference. I have no idea how well they work.

[Guest cwholsin]

I don't have experience with IBD, but we've been giving natural peanut butter for afternoon snacks to help fatten up our boys after dropping weight from moving to a higher elevation town.

[MaryJane]

My dogs have been getting home-cooked for close to 10 years. My current dog Larry who is 11 years old has severe allergies (chicken & noodles) and has some minor kidney issues (needs lower protein) while Lucy who is 6 years old has seizures and needs preservative and rosemary-free food. Lucy has been on home-cooked for 4 years and Larry has been on home-cooked for about 7 years. The dogs before them were also on home-cooked. All my current dogs are healthy except for the conditions noted (cross-fingers). My youngest boy Adam at 3 years old is also on home-cooked for the past year but he has no restrictions on what he can eat.

 

Morning meal - hamburg (or meat chunks) with oatmeal, grits, (and a bit of either barley, rice, farro, cornmeal or potato) and a touch of molasses. Some milk gets added (soy milk for Lucy). They all get two 500 mg calcium pills (oyster shell) along with 1 multivitamin.

mid-morning snack - toast with butter

lunch snack - teaspoon of peanut butter with a few crackers, maybe an apple, or cucumber slices or lettuce ribs

dinner - rice (maybe a bit of potatoes), veggies (peas, carrots, zucchini, or string beans) and hamburg or chunks of beef. They also get 1 fish oil and the boys get 2 more calcium pills while the girl gets one.

evening snack - 2 tablespoons of yogurt and 1 tablespoon of applesauce

 

Note, all the meat is cooked, I do not raw feed. For the calcium, I use oyster shell, some people use egg shells -- do not use bone meal as it is not human grade. I have also used probiotics on occasion but, do not use it every day. For treats, I either make my own (sweet potato chips) or give them animal crackers (the ones for humans).

 

Dr Remaillard who used to be at Angel Memorial in Boston, formulated the diets for my greys - she has left there and now has a web site where you can order diets on-line for whatever condition you are trying to treat. She has also packaged a "vitamin powder" to take the guesswork out of giving supplements but, I prefer to do my own formulation which is cheaper and works just as well.

 

A word of caution about chicken - farmers raise chickens in such tight conditions that they have to give excessive amounts of antibiotics to control infections that they are prone to. Many "human doctors" are now considering whether the excessive amount of antibiotics in chickens could be one of the factors of IBD in humans by damaging the "good bacteria's " ability to keep the "bad bacteria" in check. Cows also gets antibiotics but, not to the extent that chickens do.

[cleptogrey]

it sounds like sloooooooooooow and steady for lehto right now. i swear by rice, i've had 2 dogs who lived on it for...well years! my saluki survived parvo and my old fashioned vet put him on rice. he lived another 6 years, tads of veggies and that's about it. i can't believe that he looked so good, who knows why, but no one ever questioned his diet when they saw him. my scottie had kidney disease after years of steroids for addison's disease. he too lived to 12(like my saluki) and ate rice or pasta.

 

if lehto is doing well on chicken and rice why not a good canine multi vitamin. i do remember supplimenting azim w/ one. i would limit his intake to what he's doing well on and in a couple of months see if his epicurian horizon can expand.i agree w/ the statement above about the antibiotics in chickens. i don't know if you have a costco, but they are now getting organic chickens at a good price. i personally stay away from commerical brands since i have had way too many reactions from the chicken's antibiotic intake.

 

i find the dairy products are a real pain, way too many dogs don't tolerate it. if he can eventually eat turkey, oatmeal, yams, pasta then go for it. sorry to hear he has damaged himself, but it's not your fault. he must be a lucky pup to still be alive.

 

my best kitchen appliance aside from the microwave is my aroma rice cooker. i preset it the night before and ...hot rice in the morning. fortunately the price of rice has just dropped. kohoko rose is fantastick and reasonable. cauldron rice (also an asian brand) is pretty good, i've been buying 20# sacks of rice for years! i perfer the short grain to the american long grain. if you can find an asian market you'll save and you yourself will become a rice eater!

[Batmom]

I homecook for my current dogs and have homecooked for some previous dogs as well. My current dogs eat similar to MaryJane's. I sometimes cheat and give them low-additive human cereals for their carbohydrate portion (Shredded Wheat, Cheerios) but that gets expensive.

 

Angel Zema ate primarily beef plus a vitamin/mineral supplement and calcium supplement for several years. I started out similar to an elimination diet for allergies -- 12 weeks, beef + calcium supplement, period. Then added ONE thing. If symptoms recurred and continued for 2-3 days, I stopped the one new thing, waited until she was symptom free again for 1.5-2 weeks, then tried ONE other new thing. I never did figure out what she was sensitive to but she did well on her odd diet. (She had urinary problems on commercial food.)

 

For Zema's initial diet I used eggshell calcium, which I prepared myself, from eggs. Later on I used and still use a low-additive people calcium supplement.

 

It is worth being conservative and going very slowly with diet additions. Angel Batman turned out to be allergic (itchy, not IBD) to FISH OIL! which is a supplement contained in many foods and added by many people for good health, glossy coats, etc.

[MaryJane]

I forgot to add to my original post that if you supplement with cacium, make sure that it does not have vitamin D or any other supplements added - you need to read the labels carefully.

[galgomum]

Thanks every one!

Diane, how do you grind eggshells so fine that you can use it as an addition?

Yes, we are going slow and steady now and so far, so good.
The challenge will be to find a treat so good for agility that he won't take off searching for food.
Which is hard, we have a puppy class before us that is very generous with all kinds of goodies

[Batmom]

Eggshells -- I dry mine out in the microwave (heat 30 seconds on high, repeat if needed), pat dry any remaining moisture with paper towel, grind with mortar and pestle or coffee grinder. They don't have to be perfect.

[RedHead]

You can bake the eggshells for a bit to dry them out and then just grind them. An easy rule that I was told to follow was 900 mg per pound of food. With eggshell powder that works out to about 1/2 tsp per pound. A long time ago I did some homecooking for my IBD/pancreatitis dog which did wonders. I made it mostly of meat, eggs and pulped veggies. A lot of people think you have to add a ton of variety if you are feeding homemade, but you can also make balanced meals with just a few ingredients. There is no set formula for IBD as you will have to find out your dog's individual intolerances. A lot of ingredients not tolerated in kibble may be tolerated with homecooked.

[galgomum]

Thanks every one.
Today he got a whole cooked egg, by accident .
And his stools where loose, not bloody though, so back to just chicken, rice and sweet potato.
Husband seems to think all will be fine if we just add fiber.

Don't think we are at that point yet.

[Guest dee]

Vet put my rescue labradoodle on tylan powder and boiled chicken when we first got Gabi because she had really bad diarrhea. Kept her on Tylan powder and gradually put kibble in with chicken. She's now on kibble (California natural) and no mor Tylan powder.....took years to get her to this point and her treats are only those tiny baby carrots. As soon as she has any other treats she has diaerrhea again. Her diet sounds boring but she's healthy and no loose stools. Tylan powder helped her a lot.

[Guest IrskasMom]

Petra , I have no Advice or better said , no Clue about IBD . poor Lehto . I do remember RobinM knows a lot about it. Tilapia seemed to be the Main Course .

[NeylasMom]

Thanks every one!

 

Diane, how do you grind eggshells so fine that you can use it as an addition?

 

Yes, we are going slow and steady now and so far, so good.

The challenge will be to find a treat so good for agility that he won't take off searching for food.

Which is hard, we have a puppy class before us that is very generous with all kinds of goodies

My dogs love cooked chicken as a training treat. Not sure if that will continue to hold his interest since he eats it for meals, but that's what I would use.

 

Sorry you're struggling with this.

[Guest WhiteWave]

You may check out this site. I have always found it pretty informative for different issues.

http://dogaware.com/health/digestive.html

[galgomum]

Thanks every one, looking into expanding Lehto's food slowly.
But at the is moment he seems to be doing well on the rice chicken and sweet potato.
His stools are ok at the moment and he is starting to fill out a bit.

If we can keep this up we may be able to skip the blood test to check his pancreas.

 

Still, after eating, he still sometimes seems to be in pain.
One of the things I will have to ask the vet about next time.