The Pancreatitis thread

[Tinyplanets]

We have a few threads about pancreatitis now so we thought that it may be useful to merge them and have all the information in one place.

[EvieParker]

information as requested
Breed of dog - Miniature Schnauzer
Sex Female
Age 11
Diet - Royal Canin Gastro Intestinal Low Fat, previously on Canaghan Light/Senior
Weight to include current weight and ideal weight 9kg
Nature of the problem, including how long your dog has had it. - She has recently had acute pancreatitis and been very poorly. During the time she was admitted to the vets we also found out she has liver disease. I have been advised by the vet to feed the Royal Canin however on researching I know it is not very nutritious. I prefer a dry kibble as she also suffers with colitis and is intolerant to fresh meat including chicken. however in kibble and ry form this is fine.
Known allergies/intolerances. As above
General health. Good
Veterinary consultations - include any advice and medication that was given. She is on Denermarin supplement.

I have been doing a lot of research and then came across this thread with lots of advice (I've read it all so no need to repeat) however there are no updates as to what food people have changed their dogs on to and how they are doing on it? Is there anyone who has had a similar experience to me that can offer any advice please?

Many thanks

[Dottie]

Hello and welcome to the forum.  As you see in this thread, pancreatitis is a common problem.  Your post highlights a particular problem with the forum - the failure of members to provide feedback.  Sadly, they often do not even reply so we have no way of knowing whether our advice has been of any use or what has or hasn't worked for them.  Forums are all about sharing experiences and we do not understand why our members are not coming back on their threads to let us know how they are getting on or trying to help other people with the same problems.  Perhaps it is because people prefer Facebook these days.  I have just done a very quick search and found this group (Living with a Pancreatic Dog).  There may be more.

I can only suggest that you follow the advice I have given previously re sourcing a better product.  You might find it helpful to ask the vet for the values in terms of the dry weight percentage of fat/protein as this will assist with the search.  Because you want to feed dry food I would also advise that you soak it first as this will help with digestion.  Also, small, more frequent meals may be more palatable - maybe three per day.  If you need help with using the filters on the Dog Food Directory, please ask and we will do our best to assist.  There are plenty of low fat products to choose from, once you know the level of fat and protein that you need.

If it is of any help, I have just completed a search using the filters:

Type of food - dry
Food properties - clearly labelled
Avoid ingredients - all red
Nutrient Levels - slider for fat moved to 5% to 10%

It returns two pages:

Ancestral Canine Premium Senior Lite
Barking Heads Fat Dog Slim
Burns:  Alert, Large and Giant Breed Original,  Organic, Original, Sensitive+ Duck and Brown Rice
Country Kibble Grain Free Light and Senior
Fishmonger's Finest Senior
Gelert Country choice Grain Free Adult
Laughing Dog Adult Complete Lamb
Lily's One Pot
Luath's
Milburn's Premium Senior/Light
Millie's Wolfheart Tracker Mix
Pooch & Co Adult (one suitable variety)
Trophy Premium Holisitic Large and Small Bite
Wafcol Senior Salmon and Potato
Wainwright's Dry Mature Grain Free
Walking the Dog Grain Free Lighter Option and Senior

[EvieParker]

Hi Dottie

Thank you for your advice. I had done a search myself and thought that the Ancestral Canine Senior Lite looked like the best option as it scored the highest. So I think I will give that a try and see how she gets on. I will start to soak it a little too and see if that helps with her digestion. Since having pancreatitis I have also been feeding her 3 smaller meals a day and also bought her a slow eating bowl as she does tend to scoff her food as fast as possible.

The vet has suggestion fat content of less than 10% but didn't mention protein. And I think I would rather have something that was grain free, think this will also help with her digestion.

I will feed back once she's been on it for a few weeks so others can benefit from my experience. It may not be for a while as I have just bought a bag of the Royal Canin so will mix the two different food together for a few weeks and gradually change her onto the Ancestral Canine.

Thanks again - this forum is great!

[Dottie]

Thank you so much for your feedback - it really helps.       It is useful to know what the vet has said re the required percentage of fat (dry weight).   I know what it is like to have to finish off bags of food - I've done a lot of that in the past when I have changed product for one reason or another.  I get to the stage when I am glad to see the back of it!  LOL  I hope that the Ancestral food helps and I think you are doing a great job with the meal preparation and timing.

If it helps, I have heard from David about the BalanceIT website which is all about creating home cooked recipes, particularly for ill dogs.  It is American and we have nothing like it in the UK.  However, he has checked and approves the website and as he says,  cooking is basically the same whatever the country or continent. 

Looking forward to hearing of your dog's progress and I hope that you can keep her stable.

[EvieParker]

Thank you Dottie. I will check out the BalanceIt website. I have not seen that, anything to help my girl 

[Dottie]

David is in the process of writing a knowledge base article on pancreatitis so please keep an eye on this thread. Hopefully it won't be long before he uploads this to the website.

[David]

Hi all. As Dottie mentioned, I have been putting together an article on feeding dogs with pancreatitis as it does seem to be an increasingly common question amongst our visitors.

The article is available on the link below. Although it does touch upon home preparing food, it is more about picking suitable commercial alternatives to prescription diets as well as treats and supplements etc. A comprehensive home-prepared food guide is in the pipeline though so please bear with me.

http://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk/articles/feeding-dogs-with-pancreatitis

As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback

[Dottie]

Thank you very much for that David.  I am sure it will be very helpful.  It would seem that pancreatitis is not always preventable but in some cases it might be. 
In the hope that some of these cases can be prevented, here are three simple measures that pet owners can take:

1. Feed a good quality diet and don't give high fat food, in particular unsuitable leftovers from your own meal.   
2. Do not allow your dog to become obese, particularly if it is an older female.
3. Give your dog daily exercise.

[DQ]

The current posts and David's article on pancreatitis are timly for me as last week one of my minature schnauzers spent 2 days 'in hospital' with what the diagnosed as low grade pancreatis. He's home now and much better. I am aware schnauzers are prone to this but apart from his breed he is not overweight, gets plenty of exercise and hasn't had what the vet calls a fry up, he is 13.
For the last year he has been fed raw, either Nutriment or Natural Instinct. He also has some home cooked and the occasional tinned. I am reluctantly feeding Royal Canin Gastrintestinal Lo Fat wet. It's tuly awful! Meat and animal derivative, vegetable and vegetable derevatives, cereal, topped of with a chemical found in wash powder which increases sodium x5. Protein7.5 Fat 1.7 Goodness knows where the nutrition is.
So since he was diagnosed I've been glued to the internet researching. What I find difficult to get my head round is this dry matter issue. I understand the calculation(just) and the need to calculate a level playing field but as David has said if I want to feed wet or raw there isnt anything under 10. Nutriment do their Low Purine and Natural Instinct their Special but with their dry calculation are well over 10.
Also before I settled on raw he test drove many wet foods. With low fat I found he didn't keep weight on and I had to keep increasing the amount fed. One of the reasons I settled on raw was I could feed him less food.
currently I'm intending to put him on to homecooked next and then try reintroduce some raw. I just cannot believe feeding something like Royal Canin can be better than feeding quality ingredients. Surely it must be easier to digest
Lastly, the vet couldn't give me a fat level other than reading the figure off the tin and said it is possible he could have another attack whilst eating th R C.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Dottie]

It is sad that your elderly dog has pancreatitis and I hope that you can keep it at bay with a suitable diet.  It seems that you really want to keep feeding raw but the lowest in fat that I know of (complete) is the Natures Menu Country Hunter nuggets at 13% .   I have a 13 year old too and she lost weight on this product so I can identify with your concern about an older dog keeping weight on.  This is my experience right now and I am having to give her more food than she has ever had.  This pleases her enormously as she has a good appetite.  Whilst I can appreciate that you would like to go back to raw, perhaps that is not the right thing at this stage of her life.  However, it is your choice of course.

Regarding wet food, AFAIK there are no quality products with the required fat level (as you have found).  This leaves you with dry food or home cooked.  I have a feeling that you would find it hard to go back to dry food so as you say, home cooking would probably be the way forward.  However, it is time consuming and needs to be done with great care so that your dog does not become deficient in nutrients.  I would imagine that once you have a few good recipes you would find it quite straightforward, especially if you cook in bulk once a week and freeze daily portions. 

The other alternative (which is still dry food) is to look at  cold pressed products because some of them are only very slightly higher than the required 10% fat,  Gentle being only 10.7% dry weight.  My oldie is currently on a cold pressed product and seems to be doing fine.  I soak the nuggets and make a sort of crumble.  She also gets topped up with lean cooked chicken, white fish or scrambled egg as this increases the protein. 

I appreciate that you are not happy with RC but for the moment, maybe it is best to feed it and get your dog comfortable and stable.  In the meantime you will be able to decide on a way forward.  Please let us know what you decide to do and how your dog gets on.  We never know when the information will be useful to someone else.

[Tinyplanets]

A great article. Very informative.

DQ I am sorry to hear that you are going through this at the moment. It sounds like a very distressing condition for both dog and the family.

[DQ]

Since my last post I've continued with the Royal Canin whilst I continue my research. He's doing fine at the moment. I have a couple of issues I'm struggling with. David's article refers to feeding foods with fat of 10% or less Dry Matter. Whilst I can see the need to use the dry matter calculation when comparing kibble with wet or raw, I'm struggling to see why it is necesary to use this when only looking at wet or raw. The way I look at it the moisture is a good thing and means the food levels are diluted and therefore more gentle on his digestive system. I read recently that dogs need protein, fat and naturally occurring moisture. I've spoken to a number of manufacturers, raw and wet and kibble and no one seens to know where this dry matter guide has come from. I should say I've come across it elsewhere in my research so it's not just Davids guidance.
Secondly David mentions using Salmon oil or EPA oil. I don't know if I'm having a senile moment but can anyone tell me what EPA is! Also I was surprised oil supplements are good given the fat issue. I'm particularly interest given David's comments about reducing lipid as I believe it is something to do with high lipids that effects schnauzers.
I wonder if David could help with these points raised by his article

[Tinyplanets]

HI DQ, as I understand it, the dry matter calculation  allows you to assess nutritional composition on a level playing field.

A food with a high water content may state that it is  10% fat but if it is 75% water, then the fat content of the 25% dry matter must be high. As you say I am not sure how this works with pancreatitis. I was worried about the fat content of nutriment but as it is 66% water, the overall amount of fat my dog is eating, is acceptable to me. I was also a bit confused and unsure as to why the dry matter is used as a measure when you are feeding the food wet. On my pack, the amount of fat states 9.2%. That is as it comes but that is how I feed it.

I got a bit tied up in knots thinking about it initially but, I feed almost double the weight of nutriment to the amount of cold pressed I used to feed.  Even though both fat levels stated are similar, as served, the bigger portion requirements (due to water content) does make for a diet higher in fat. My dog seems to do well on this so it isn't an issue but not good if you are trying to control the fat content.

In terms of EPA oil, my knowledge is scant. I believe it is omega 3 present in fish oil and is processed, by the body, in a different way to fats which may cause problems. Hopefully somebody will be able to tell you more. I will be interested to learn more myself.

I hope I haven't confused you more.

[Dottie]

I will email David to ask him to look in on this thread.  It may not be immediately so please keep a look out for it if you do not have notifications turned on in your control panel.