Food Recomendations Needed!

[dbullwinkel]

I think it is time to change Cozett's food. When I adopted her in February, she was on Earthborn wholistic coastal catch. Seemed to do ok..We have been dealing with hook worms since she was adopted. when diarrehea started, I figured it was the worms. Recently she has been chewing herself and licking till she bleeds...so...I am really thinking there has to be a food relation to both issues. I have spray for the hot spots. My previous three greys were all on limited ingredient foods..grain free. Last two and Ig were on the NB duck/and/or venison.

I am very to make a switch..but welcome experience or advice regarding food.

I am leaning towards going to a novel meat such as rabbit or bison???

Thanks. Donna

[tammystroops]

Hi Donna,

first, for the hot spots, try this;

 

Listerine, water, and if you have it on hand Skin so soft from Avon.

if you don't, that is ok

 

IT has to be the DARK brown Listerine. I buy the Dollar store brand

in a spray bottle, mix equal parts of Listerine and water. if you have the SSS add about 1/3 cup to it

mix and spray the hot spot areas. NOT only will this heal the areas, but will prevent infection.

IT works and it is safe.

 

as far as food, if it is an allergy to the food, I am not a big expert with this. I have done the trial and error kind of thing. We finally found a food that works

for all our greys, and other breeds. but I also add my own homemade food to the kibble. I boil turkey and rice, or sometimes I add carrots, or peas etc.

 

Hope this helps

 

tammy

[NHNora]

I know some allergy dogs that do well with Pure Vita grain free varieties. It comes in Salmon, Bison and Turkey. They are only a single-source protein and I don't think any of them have white potatoes, just sweet potatoes and peas for the carbohydrate. That would be a way to narrow down some of the ingredient list. It's usually carried by smaller, independent pet shops. Rabbit-based foods can be hard for stores to keep in regular supply, because there's just not a huge supplier of rabbit for the pet market.

[Guest homebase004]

Donna,

We just picked up our second hound yesterday. One of the many things we discussed was food. After talking to all the local "Experts" and reading a lot of data online, we are now feeding Fromm. The company is over 100 years old and comes highly recommended, we are feeding the salmon formula.

 

Check put their web page, good information.

 

Good luck!

[Feisty49]

The food topic comes up often. A lot of us use and recommend Iams Proactive in the green bag. Yah, I know, not exactly "high end" but a lot of us don't think high end is the best thing to give a dog, especially when it causes loose stools. We do know that Iams in the green bag often, if not usually, makes poos firm and manageable, so to speak. Do a search for Iams on here and you'll get a lot of hits.

[cleptogrey]

right now all the fall allergies are kicking in. mold in the earth, ragweed, plantain you name it. it's hard to figure out since the contact allergens are so intense. i did find that with one of my dogs who went thru hot spots every fall just hosing him down and getting the pollen off really helped. no soap, just hosing and towel drying. hot spots are not fun, i've unsuccessfully used hydrocortisone w/ aloe(cheapest at costco). but the listerine sounds interesting.

 

food wise, may i suggest just plain old white rice. that's it, then 25% boiled protein of some sort. try chop meat first for a week or so and work you way down the list. you will see if you dog reacts pretty quickly, but it might be hard w/ the pollen situation. your loose stools should subside and then you can figure out what agrees but do it slowly. my saluki survived parvo(pre vaccine days) and lived for 6 years on white rice and a vitamin. he couldn't tolerate proteins after parvo, it really destroys their gut. my scottie had addison's disease and towards the end his kidneys were shot. again white rice saved the day- no expensive rx diets. my friend's 16 year old saluki was in desperate condition, it turned out to be allergies....out of desperation my friend(who just couldn't let him suffer anymore) served white rice and ground turkey- that's what he did well on for the next 2 years.

 

as you can see i'm against the fancier foods. if you can find out what not aggravating her thru simple elimination and treating your self to a rice cooker(aroma w/ the timer is my best friend) then you can also figure out if there is a touch of another parasite or what ever. pre- monthly heart worm meds my salukis were plagued w/ hookworms, not easy to get rid of. be patient, be simple and beef is a pretty simple yet lots of kibbles are not straight beef.

Edited September 2, 2014 by cleptogrey

[Guest rizzismom]

I had to switch food for my girl too--she had been on Purina Little Bites at her foster home and seemed to be doing okay on this, and then all of a sudden we had problem diarrhea. I switched her to Purina Great Adventure grain-free Tuna and Egg formula (blue bag) after I got the diarrhea calmed down, along with 1 tablespoon of fat-free plain yogurt once a day, and since then we have had no more problems. I have also had to limit her to just Milk Bones as treats because anything richer starts the problem all over again. I am able to get this dog food at the grocery store and while it is higher-end in cost it's not extreme.

[dbullwinkel]

I finally made the switch from earthborn holistic coastal to NB venison and sweet potato. my other greys and Ig did well on NB. Today when getting a larger bag of NB because she seems to be doing noticebly better on it (poop actually looks like poop)!! the store owner ( a store I do not go to often, but on my way home from work) showed me a display of Petcurean foods they are now selling. there was grain free version, I believe they had three varities: Now fresh, Go and summit. Having just switched and not knowing anything about this food, I continued with my NB purchase. I looked it up on dogfood advisor and it was given a 5 star rating. Does anyone use this food? how does your grey do on it?

[RedHead]

Greyhounds seem to be extra sensitive to kibble, so a lot of the brands that other people feed or that the petstore people will recommend, just don't work. If your pup is doing well on NB, after having a lot of issues, I personally wouldn't switch things up right now (NB is not a bad food). If you really want to try a switch, I would at least use the NB for a while to allow the digestive system to recover from the hookworms/digestive issues. For the record, I buy different brands of dogfood all of the time, and my guys didn't do well on either Go or Now. Of course, that doesn't mean yours won't though!

[Guest Bean_Scotch]

I've fed Authority Lamb and Rice from Petsmart to AT LEAST 200 dogs. No problems. No allergies. No hotspots. Firm stool. No parasites. Ever. I <3 Authority.