The Food Saga Of Sammy The Greyhound: Please Tell Me What To Feed This

[PointyPupNose]

Quick Context: Sammy is a (nearly) 11-year-old tripod who adopted us about 2 months ago. He has adjusted wonderfully to our household and has had zero issues EXCEPT FOR his problems with food. He is an old man whose mobility is fairly limited at this point and who no longer goes on walks. His "big excursions" are exploring our property during potty time. He is always supervised during this time because of his mobility issues- thus he doesn't eat mysterious/unknown things.

 

Past Food History:

1) Sammy raced until he was five and then was adopted by an elderly couple who pretty much fed him whatever he wanted. Pretty much nothing was off limits so we have no clue how he ate during this time.

2) Sammy was with his foster family for 6 months and during that time, he was a very very picky eater. (Probably because they were actually trying to get him to eat kibble...) He went on 4-day hunger strikes fairly regularly. Vet visits yielded nothing wrong with him. The fosters started giving him a bunch of melted butter aaaaall over his breakfast and tons of wet food mixed in with his dinner. When he didn't feel like eating that, they would add pasta sauce to his food. (YIKES.) He was eating Taste of the Wild kibble and Taste of the Wild wet food (random flavors each time). After hunger striking on that, they switched him to whatever food he felt like eating. This ended up being Purina Pro Plan's Lamb Formula. (Still TOTW wet food.)

 

When We Got Him:
-We pretty much quit giving him aaaaall human junk food (no more melted butter, no more pasta sauce, etc. etc). He tried to hunger strike for awhile but we were patient and fiiiinally we had him eating the Purina kibble and TOTW wet food ONLY.

-And then he started hunger striking again.

-And then he started having diarrhea. (No blood, no mucus. However, we're talking straight up PASTE diarrhea.)

-And then he wanted to eat grass and vomit.

-And then he started to have gas the likes of which we have never seen (smelled?) before. Enough to make everybody gag and run out of the room...ALL THE TIME.

-And then we started to HEAR his stomach making all kinds of interesting noises.

 

Vet Visit:

-Vet suspects food intolerance issues and NOT food allergies since he has zero problems of any other sort. He suggests only one source of protein for him because a mix of things does not seem to be working with him. We will have to do some detective work and figure out what exactly bugs his stomach.
-Vet states intestinal cramping galore has been going on.
-Loperamide + Metronidazole given.

-Diet changes: Forced fasting on our part ---> bland diet (rice + ground turkey) that he absolutely devoured ---> Canidae Limited Ingredient Chicken Formula + Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Diet Chicken & Sweet Potato wet food.

-Turkey was bad news. He loved it. It did not love him. The gas was unbelievable. O______O

-Meds made him feel great!
-Ate the most recent diet with no issues!
-Stool no longer diarrhea paste but very very soft.

 

Current Issues:

-Hunger striking happened again.

-Stomach noises back.

-Did a forced fasting.

-Back on bland diet. This time rice and ground chicken.

-He loves it.

-It appears to love him? Zero gas problems.

-Stool still extremely soft. (We have almost never seen normal stool the entire 2 months we have had him pretty much.)

 

Questions:
Chicken probably isn't helping. Go with salmon? Try lamb? Do a different brand entirely? Maybe quit the whole thing? I am seriously starting to think that homemade is the way to go with this guy. Unless there is a secret food that we do not know about? Does anyone have any suggestions for what we should do after the bland diet is over with? What should we transition to that MIGHT be successful? Our concern is honestly not nutrition/best food ever because honestly, he has eaten absolutely terribly for 11 years and unfortunately, we are not going to magically undo the effects of that with the time that we have with him. But we ARE concerned with food that gives him cramping pain and makes him not want to eat over and over again.

 

Tips, suggestions, recipes, are ALL appreciated!

[LaFlaca]

Maybe one of the Royal Canin veterinary diets kibble and/or canned? You'll need a prescription. Chewy carries them for cheaper than the vet's office/

 

Noisy gut suggests gastritis. Is he free of intestinal parasites?

[PointyPupNose]

Maybe one of the Royal Canin veterinary diets kibble and/or canned? You'll need a prescription. Chewy carries them for cheaper than the vet's office/

 

Noisy gut suggests gastritis. Is he free of intestinal parasites?

 

Oh that's good to know! I hadn't heard of the veterinary diets before. Perhaps I will look into that/ask the vet.

 

Yes he is! Got that checked recently.

[LaFlaca]

 

Oh that's good to know! I hadn't heard of the veterinary diets before. Perhaps I will look into that/ask the vet.

 

Yes he is! Got that checked recently.

 

Several brands make specialized, veterinary diets. Royal Canin is the best in my and my vet's opinion. Go to Chewy.com and check out the different prescription diets so that you can have an informed conversation with your vet.

[RaineysMom]

we've had issues with our Zeke for 2 years now. Vet suspects IBD and we did an ultrasound but didn't want to do the biopsy so went the diet change route. Pretty sure chicken is 100% the issue, for the most part (we were feeding Kirkland Lamb but it has chicken -- you'd be surprised how MANY things have friggen chicken in it!). So, we put him on Royal Canin Hydrolyzed Protein food (still is on) and that's all he gets for kibble now. I have to read EVERY label for chicken.

 

he still wasn't eating 6 months after all this started in 2017 and one day I was cutting up a beef tongue and gave him some -- he thought it was GOLD. So, now he gets a variety of raw and kibble with each meal. Right now (as in the past 4 days) he's refused all kibble in the morning but will eat it at night, and will eat all raw in the a.m. and most in the p.m. It comes and goes (his appetite).

 

for the raw, I feed all sorts of stuff. Ground beef, ground turkey (for him, he does ok with turkey but not chicken!), sometimes cubed turkey (I hand cut breast meat) and hand cut beef (like a rump roast, whatever is cheapest that week) or hand cut lamb (Costco's boneless leg of lamb, fat removed, isn't cheap but it's good once in a while for something different), sometimes turkey gizzards. We also give beef and lamb liver, tongue when I can get it, and green beef tripe (these we get from MyPetCarnivore.com). The liver is an organ meat and can only be given in small amounts -- the heart and tongue are considered muscle meat like regular meat . The tripe smells like a barnyard on a hot summer day but he really likes it. Since I don't really give bones (they freak me out in the food!) he gets the kibble for his calcium and hopefully whatever else I'm not covering with the raw. He really likes any of the beef "juice" (i.e. blood I drain out of the containers I put the cut up stuff in) and we use that on top of the kibble to entice him to eat it.

 

every day is a freaking challenge with him to get him to eat so I feel your pain. Zeke will be 10 in the spring but this started out of the blue when he was 8. Just one day, after eating like a horse every meal, just decided he didn't want to eat anymore....

Edited January 4, 2019 by RaineysMom

[cleptogrey]

he's an old man, i would like to share what i feed my old man dog who w/ all of his ills is now devouring like it's going out of style. this seems to have restarted the "eat button"

 

1 large pot

1 large whole chicken(yup easy to digest and most likely he won't have any problems with it. you can skin it if it's not frozen)

cheap white rice, probably 6-8 cups

water

boil until the chicken is cooked. if need be add more water. do this at night, it takes around 1.5 hrs, the rice turns to mush. i don't measure water, just fill the pot to the top.

debone and chop up chicken when it's cooked and mix into rice

boil bones for a broth that you can pour over the chicken rice mixture.

i also add rice crispies or cheerios, or toast to the mixture.

 

over the past couple of days my old boy has been starved so i started adding some kibble to the mixture(for some reason he has refused it for a couple of months). he has consumed 2 chickens and 10#s of rice in a week and a half. thank dog it's cheap. you can also throw in a multi-vitamin and if stools are loose some clay(rx vitamins makes it, easily found on amazon).

 

it's messy, put a towel under the bowl and have a napkin ready to wipe his nose. dogs drink less when they consume rice, it's all water and carbs

 

btw, if i never eat another piece of chicken in my life, i'll be happy! you will know what i mean if you make this!

Edited January 4, 2019 by cleptogrey

[MaryJane]

Use tilapia as the protein - my girl with IBD (also seizures) has been on it for a few years now and she does great. I give her rice, white potatoes, veggies and oatmeal with it and also add in calcium (oyster shell) along with fish oil. Note that tilapia is very low fat, so you will have to give more carbos to compensate for weight loss.

 

Note - I stay away from chicken for my dogs -- too contaminated, fed to much antibiotics, and they use bleach baths - it just overloads their systems.

Edited January 5, 2019 by MaryJane

[greysmom]

I'm confused why you think that chicken is the issue. According to your description, he is eating it and not having any gas or stomach noises. His gut is probably pretty messed up from all the junk he was being fed, so it's going to take a while - probably months, if ever - for his stool to firm up.

 

If the metronidazol seems to help you might talk with your vet about putting him on Tylan powder long term. This is a very low grade antibiotic, like the metro, that works specifically in the gut. You used to be able to just buy huge quantities on Amazon because it's also used extensively for chickens, but that changed a couple years ago and now you need a prescription. It tastes terrible just by itself, so most dog owners get gel capsules and fill them diy.

 

The other thing to keep in mind is that there's no rule that says a dog *must* eat kibble. It's just cheaper. My IBD dog only eats canned food, with oat bran added in for fiber. Look for canned foods that say they are "complete" nutrition.

[Dawnnziggy]

Myrtle has a lot of stomach issues. She goes on strike sometimes. This usually happens on Sunday for some reason. When it gets bad, I make her chicken and rice as Cleptogrey suggested. This works for my girl but I put plain yogurt in it too. This is what the vet suggested for her and it really works. She loves it too. Good Luck!

[JohnF]

You could give human Buscopan (Hyoscine butylbromide) to help with the abdominal cramping.

Ranitidine could help a lot too in the evening and then you could give a late snack without too much concern.

 

Royal Canin's 'Gastro-Intestinal' vet diet would be the one to go for. If your dog will eat it then you can buy it much more affordably in bulk online.

 

Don't give anything 'dairy' at all as even plain bio yogurt may cause an upset. Don't give anything too greasy as that might challenge the Pancreas.

 

My Peggy who has long had a very irritable stomach and nearly died from a nasty stomach bacterium does better on mid range Turkey and Rice Kibble topped with a 1/4 of a wet tripe can. Fish, Salmon and Chicken all led to 'pudding poo'.

[Busderpuddle]

I could have written that same list of foods, except for the butter and pasta sauce. UGH.

Ruby has been a picky butt from day one. We have tried so many foods over the years, dealt with some horrendous gas, cooked for her, fed her raw, etc.....

Finally, we decided that once we found a food that did not cause gas, we were going with it, and hunger strike or not, that's what we were giving her. We finally found Sport Dog, and she loves it. No gas issues at all.

Now that she is elderly and losing weight, we do add in some Wellness Puppy wet food occasionally just to make sure she eats. She is also on Pepcid now.

Good luck in your search. It can be a tough one with these picky poos