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Dog foods / Re: Impossible food? Low fat/protein but also low grains?!

« Last post by Tinkerbee on Today at 10:06 »

Tinkerbee - your post has given me an idea - Pure Pet Foods sell Vegi Plus Mixer which you just rehydrate and add your own protein source. There is also a similar thing in cold pressed food - Lukullus Veggie.  Somewhere on the forum is a thread about food made from insects - think it is going to come into production in the UK (might already be on the market).

Regarding the bile, three smaller meals a day might help. The blood and mucous is worrying. Have you asked your vet about keeping him on treatment for a longer period? I had a dog like yours and had to use Metronidazole, sometimes over a long period of time.

If you decide to try raw, consult your vet. Might be better not to start it when he is having a flare up. Nutriment staff will be able to advise you on this. They sell some lower fat products.

Thank you! Yes I think a veggie option/mix is next in line, I will look into these. Any blood etc cleared up quickly on antibiotics etc , and we've avoided that stage this time around. If it recurrs again I will have a chat with the vet about longer term treatment, and yes will look carefully if swapping to raw. Thank you for the advice Paws crossed he settles down, will give 3 small meals a go.

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Dog news / Re: Report from FDA (USA) re Dilated Cardiomyopathy

« Last post by Tinyplanets on Yesterday at 20:20 »

Interesting. The apparent improvements made after supplementing with taurine in dogs showing a deficiency and having DCM are promising.
There still seems to be lots of unknowns. Presumably the condition happens over an extended time period so not sure how useful recording treats and other things fed on top of the diet and keeping the packet info would be.  I tend, not to feed the same treats or extras. So what I would record after diagnosis, wouldn't necessarily  be what may have contributed towards the disease.
For anyone reading BEG diet is Boutique, exotic-ingredient, and grain-free. The abbreviations were explained at the end.

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Dog foods / Re: Impossible food? Low fat/protein but also low grains?!

« Last post by Dottie on Yesterday at 17:06 »

Tinkerbee - your post has given me an idea - Pure Pet Foods sell Vegi Plus Mixer which you just rehydrate and add your own protein source. There is also a similar thing in cold pressed food - Lukullus Veggie.  Somewhere on the forum is a thread about food made from insects - think it is going to come into production in the UK (might already be on the market).

Regarding the bile, three smaller meals a day might help. The blood and mucous is worrying. Have you asked your vet about keeping him on treatment for a longer period? I had a dog like yours and had to use Metronidazole, sometimes over a long period of time.

If you decide to try raw, consult your vet. Might be better not to start it when he is having a flare up. Nutriment staff will be able to advise you on this. They sell some lower fat products.

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Dog foods / Re: Impossible food? Low fat/protein but also low grains?!

« Last post by Tinkerbee on Yesterday at 13:40 »

Yes, I was careful to correctly weigh the CP food, and occasionally bulked it out with some veg as it did look v meagre and he would be stropping and throwing his bowl around after taking about 10 seconds to eat!

The symptoms we get are vomiting (quite often just bile), diarrhea (often bloody/mucusy), and he gets itchy as well as being a bit lethargic and generally under the weather. Although he can combine all this with moping around one minute and then haring about after the other dogs, which is frustrating as its hard to work out how ill he is/whats causing it. Symptoms have been diagnosed as colitis when I take him to the vets, and clears up on treatment and bland egg and rice. Equally I havent explored in any great depth with the vet things like IBD/Pancreatitis as it doesn't seem as severe/clears up fairly quickly.

This latest time I reverted to egg and rice at first symptoms and haven't needed a vet visit. We did think he might be scavenging/eating something outside (we have a small holding so plenty of opportunity!) but hes been carefully watched, and he had gone  through a bag and a half of the Burns with no illness, just lots of poos/messing at night. Its tricky knowing how much to swap and change to eliminate various things, as I dont like risking a recurrence of illness.

I will look into the home cooking, I am away quite often with work over the summer but could leave batches with the OH to feed, so that is an option if I do some research.

My old dog went 16 years on leftover scraps and pedigree mixer with a swap to Simpsons in her later years so its a learning curve having a fussy/sensitive dog!

Edited to add- We have a running joke now that he may be vegetarian ..! So tempted to look into Veggie dog foods and adding some tuna or similar if a meat proteuin is reqd.

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Dog foods / Re: Impossible food? Low fat/protein but also low grains?!

« Last post by Dottie on Yesterday at 12:33 »

Thank you for letting us know how you are getting on. I am sorry that Gentle didn’t work out. When you say ‘usual symptoms’ can you say what they are? Just wondering about overfeeding because that can cause loose stools and in my experience it is very easy to give too much cold pressed food due to it being so dense.

I don’t know whether this will help, but have you looked at home cooking? We have a section about this on the forum. If you don’t have the confidence or time, there are a very few companies who sell fresh cooked food for dogs. Butternut Box is one and of their four flavours, chicken and turkey are the lowest in fat. However it is more expensive than commercial food.

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Dog foods / Re: Impossible food? Low fat/protein but also low grains?!

« Last post by Tinkerbee on Yesterday at 12:17 »

Bit of an update:

Cold Processed (Gentle) initially seemed to be good, he really enjoyed it, was looking and acting really good on it , but unfortunately a few weeks in back to the usual symptoms...! I think he enjoys waiting until I've invested in a  full sized bag...

I've popped him back on to the Burns for now, and will experiment with reducing quantities and earlier feeding to see if we can avoid the night time poops!

I did speak with a friend of a friend who has a Border Terrier  with similar issues and the only thing theyve settled on is Pro Plan hypoallergenic. I didn't see a specific rating on here for that food but the other Pro Plan and instant reviews are v low so I'm not keen to try him on that as it seems v expensive for the quality. Although the Burns is only around a 3/5 so..!

Eliminating wheat/gluten is the next step, as I'm tending towards this also contributing to issues but aware that then pushes up the protein. Will also be researching Raw a bit more and see if I can find a solution thats easy for others to feed him when I'm not there...

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Dog news / Re: Report from FDA (USA) re Dilated Cardiomyopathy

« Last post by Seaweed on Yesterday at 08:58 »

Susan Thixton, Diet associated heart disease in dogs, “what we know” https://truthaboutpetfood.com/category/pet-food-news/
https://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/full/10.2460/javma.253.11.1390?fbclid=IwAR3U1HSY5E-b43JegH5apyWCciQckm4FcIpjc--b8uqIMx_Mn26G91gcBqs&

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Dog foods / Re: Tesco expands Naturo natural offering

« Last post by Dottie on Dec 10, 2018, 14:20 »

Thank you Seaweed. I’ve seen Naturo on the shelves of Morrisons but don’t recall noticing the new variety. I’ve tried the with brown rice types on my two dogs and they enjoyed it. Poos were good.
Morrisons price on the existing Naturo range is the same as Tesco.

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General discussion / Re: Types of dog food

« Last post by Dottie on Dec 10, 2018, 14:08 »

Thank you David. I missed that fact sheet, probably because it is a new one.  It is very useful so I will make this thread a sticky for easy reference.

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Dog foods / Tesco expands Naturo natural offering

« Last post by Seaweed on Dec 10, 2018, 12:01 »

Tesco are selling Naturo's new Chef's Selection range.
https://www.petbusinessworld.co.uk/news/feed/tesco-expands-natural-offering
https://www.naturopetfoods.com/chefsselection
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=Naturo%20Grain%20Free