Another dog food question

[eskilady]

Is it possible that some foods can be too rich for dogs? We recently switched our 7 month old mini eskie girl from Pro Plan to Chicken Soup for Puppies. I did it the right way - gradually - and now she is getting about 1/2 cup of the dry with maybe a tablespoon of wet plus water. Since switching her, she has not had a formed stool. They are all very, very loose; not diarhea but a couple of steps up, very loose. Could the Chicken Soup be too rich for her - should I try something else? The last two days, she has had diarrhea but she doesn't seem sick and is always interested in her food. Any ideas?

[Novel]

Chicken Soup has lots of ingredients that she could be mildly allergic to. I wouldn't go back to Pro Plan though.

Dog Food isn't too rich for dogs, it's more that their stomach isn't accustomed to it. If you ate Special K every day for 6 months, and then had a taco, you'd have heary burn and an upset stomach, guaranteed. Dog Food is nothing more than Special K made with some bad ingredients and more filler.

If you want to stay on a dog kibble I would recommend Solid Gold, Eagle Pack, or Canidae. Solid Gold makes a great small breed food, it's a pink bag, but I can't remember the name.

If you want to try something better, look into a raw or BARF diet. These give your dog the best nutrition and actually improve their health and immune system. You just can't get that from a processed food.

[kerriebeth21]

How long has she been eating it? How long was the transition?

We had Cricket on Innova Senior...she threw up all the time. We decided that maybe it was too rich for her. When we adopted her a little over a year ago her coat and weight were bad. I'm betting they fed her the cr@ppiest food they could find. And she's an old dog...probably 11 or 12...so her whole life she's eaten low grade, she was used to it. We didn't go crazy. We bought Authority Harvest Baked for Seniors. It was the best label out of all the dog foods in Petsmart.

Don't give up on a food too soon. Allergies and food effects can't be known until months on a food. (This info is from my vet!) Give it a little more time and then go from there.

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

Personally, if it's a food you'd like to keep her on I'd eliminate the wet and just leave it dry for a few days to see what happens.

How old is she? Any reason why your adding wet?

[Kade]

I would do as Crossfire suggests -- if the pup needs wet food, I would moisten and mash the kibble, not actually give the dog canned food.

Also, have you tried a little bit of canned pumpkin? It firms things up. Just make sure you start with very small doses.

[momtobella]

I know when I changed Bella from Nutro to Blue Buffalo(I also changed it gradually) she had a bad case of the runs. My vet said that even though I changed it gradually, it still affects some dogs that way. After a week she was fine and I haven't any trouble since.

[DogtorJ]

The Chicken Soup foods are one of the reasons I am getting very frustrated in this battle for the perfect foods for dogs and cats. The ingredients are generally good EXCEPT for the dried skim milk (the number one food allergen in people and number two in dogs and cats behind wheat) and the barley (a gluten grain and only incrimintally better than wheat).

I would like all of you to call the company and ask them the logic behind putting milk back into pet foods when we took all of the dairy out over 15 years ago because of the allergies. (Of course, they turned right around and made a HUGE mistake putting wheat into pet food, in the face of current veterinary knowledge that clearly stated that wheat was the number two pet allergen.)

It is painfully clear that they do not understand WHY these foods are major allergens. So, when you talk to them, you can point them to the Food Intolerance thread on this forum or to my Website.

(PS. When they say "Don't worry...the milk is all lactose-free", just laugh and ask them to do a little more research on milk allergies).

John

[calgal]

Not all dogs have a problem with milk or dairy. I make my guys treats and add dry milk. I fostered many dogs and alway give them a little milk & cottage cheese. I have a Yorkie named Zada, a Chihuahua named Delsi, and now a new addition, a Yorkie named Azrael. They all get milk without any problems what so ever and my Chi is almost 14 years old, and Yorkies are known to have sensitive stomach's. It's like any other product, some dogs do fine while others don't. So I say everything we feed our dogs is with a trial and error attitude anyway just to see if they have any problems with it.

[eskilady]

Mona is 7 months old and I have been putting wet food in with the dry, just to keep her interest. She is my show dog and I am trying to get a nice coat on her. We have been having trouble getting coat ever since we started showing dogs. It is not their background because coat is there so we are trying a different food. She has been eating Chicken Soup for about a month or just a bit longer than that. But I will take your advise and not put any wet in with her dry. See if that works. She had me up at 4 AM this morning and I had to clean her crate and I had to clean it again later this morning. So I will try it and see what happens. Thanks!

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

Originally Posted by eskilady

Mona is 7 months old and I have been putting wet food in with the dry, just to keep her interest. She is my show dog and I am trying to get a nice coat on her. We have been having trouble getting coat ever since we started showing dogs. It is not their background because coat is there so we are trying a different food. She has been eating Chicken Soup for about a month or just a bit longer than that. But I will take your advise and not put any wet in with her dry. See if that works. She had me up at 4 AM this morning and I had to clean her crate and I had to clean it again later this morning. So I will try it and see what happens. Thanks!

If shes that bad with the runs you may want to take her off and put her on boiled hamburger and rice for a bit until she firms up then slowly add the dry back in. jmo

[DogtorJ]

Originally Posted by calgal

Not all dogs have a problem with milk or dairy. I make my guys treats and add dry milk. I fostered many dogs and alway give them a little milk & cottage cheese. I have a Yorkie named Zada, a Chihuahua named Delsi, and now a new addition, a Yorkie named Azrael. They all get milk without any problems what so ever and my Chi is almost 14 years old, and Yorkies are known to have sensitive stomach's. It's like any other product, some dogs do fine while others don't. So I say everything we feed our dogs is with a trial and error attitude anyway just to see if they have any problems with it.

You are right. Not all dogs, cats or people will have a problem with dairy products. But a very high percentage do. And it is not number one for no reason. Dairy proteins have been directly linked to asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, lupus, and more. In fact, in a medical study I found a few years ago, they stated that our children that get cow's milk in the first 5 days of life have a 40-50 times higher rate of asthma, juvenile onset rheumatoid disease, and type 1 diabetes than those who didn't. Wow! How can this happen? Here's a clue. (http://www.krispin.com/lectin.html)

The bad news is that an individual does not have to be allergic to one of the big 4 (gluten, dairy, soy, or corn) to be horribly intolerant of it. The allergies are usually present but not always. For example, not all celiacs are allergic to wheat. This is very bad news....no early warning signs. So, these foods can do the intestinal harm (villous atrophy of the duodenum) without warning us with stuffy noses, itchy ears, skin/ear problems in dogs or even GI signs (only 1/4th of celiacs even have diarrhea). And this damage can take YEARS to manifest. BUT once it does...look out. It can happen very suddenly, just as it often does in celiac disease in the late 40's and 50's in people.

But this is a typical pattern for our body, isn't it?. We can live on 1/2 of one kidney, 1/4th of our liver, multiple coronary arteries occluded, lots of lung damage, and more....and even be symptom-free. Why would our duodenum be any different? In fact, its not. BUT, all along, our ability to absorb vital nutrients is compromised. Then "suddenly", the iron deficiency anemia appears, or the thyroid problem, or the osteoporosis, or the immune deficiency. Yes, this is what we call in medicine the "acute on chronic presentation"...a sudden manifestation of a chronic problem. It happens all of the time in people. It happens even MORE often in our sedentary pets.

We and they are amazingly adaptive. It only takes about 3-4 days to adapt to a bad diet. (Did you see SuperSize Me?) This is one of the amazing things that I saw sooooo clearly in retrospect after learning what I did about the food intolerances. About 17 years ago, we transitioned from corn-based foods to wheat-based ones. THIS is when we began the habit of telling people to mix foods for 3-4 days when changing brands. Why? Because the dogs would develop diarrhea... or even vomit...if we changed too quickly. Let me ask you. What in the world could we feed our pet that would be HEALTHY for them that would make them vomit or have diarrhea??? Does anything that is good for us do that to us? NO. So why did we have to mix the food? Because we were "upgrading" them from the then number 4 allergen...corn...to what we KNEW was the number two allergen..wheat (with cow milk being number one back then and wheat being number two). Where was the logic in that??? But.........they adapted, just as we have done. But we adapt to other bad things too, like drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine, and air pollution. Thank Goodness we can, but that still doesn't make them healthy for us.

Yes, the bad news is that the food intolerances can take YEARS to mainfest as symptoms. If the study of celiac disease taught me one thing, it has taught me that. It happened to my brother. He suddenly dropped 40 pounds in a summer and became life-threateningly iron deficient/anemic. BUT, in retropsect, he had always been a little low in iron on blood tests in the Air Force and had always been able to eat alot without gaining weight. BUT, it wasn't until he hit 52 that the bottom dropped out.

So, when you feed these dogs the number one, two, three or four problem foods....wheat, dairy, soy, and corn... then you are playing with fire. If any of you really want to take that risk, then I guess you are free to do so. But please don't try to convince others to do the same. I think that there ARE better choices out there.

John

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

But please don't try to convince others to do the same.

I don't believe anyone has tried to convince someone to do anything. Just as you have a very strong opinion on the subject others may be strongly against it. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion here.

[WingedFoal]

I've been feeding Bitty Chicken Soup for quite a few months now, and she has firm stools, soft shiny fur, etc. No problems there. But then again, even when I fed her food with many allergens in it she didn't have a problem. So, I guess my experience with CS isn't helpful , since Bitty has no known allergens (so far). Tasmo was allergic to all foods prior to CS - had runny stools and flaky skin with dull fur (until CS) - then he became absolutely gorgeous.....

I hope Mona starts getting better soon, and you are able to find something that works for her! As I'm sure you know (so I'm just saying it just to "hear" myself...) every dog is different - what's good for one is not so good for another. Have you always given her this exact type of wet food, or did you add it with the switch to Chicken Soup?

[DogtorJ]

Originally Posted by Crossfire Bulldogs

I don't believe anyone has tried to convince someone to do anything. Just as you have a very strong opinion on the subject others may be strongly against it. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion here.

I agree and did not mean to come off sounding like that (although I understand how I did). I am sorry. I am obviously very passionate about this subject because I have seen over and over and over how these food ingredients are doing us and our pets in.

I now write on at least a dozen boards are there are people that are trying to convince people that some of these foods with the "big 4" in them are much better than certian brands that don't contain them. And I do not doubt that some of these new companies are honestly striving to create good dog foods with the best ingredients. But they are deceived if they think that putting dairy back into food is necessary or healthful. There is nothing that we derive from dairy that we cannot get from multiple other sources. Man IS the only species that drinks milk after weaning and that is a huge mistake on our part, especially getting it from cows rather than goats (the difference being the casein, from which Borden makes Elmer's glue.)

I do appreciate everyone's opinion on things and they have certainly are entitled to it. I am trying not to offer my opinion in these posts but cold hard facts with a few "theories" thrown in that stem simply from applied knowledge. For example, it is not my opinion that milk is a major allergen or why it is so. These are well-known facts. It may be hard to believe because of the marketing and misconceptions out there (including the lack of knowledge on both medical professions parts) but these things are facts. Like I keep saying, I am not throwing stones here because before 5 years ago, I was as ignorant as any one else to this harsh reality. But once you see it and hits you right between the eyes, it is impossible to ignore. And when you're in the position to do something about it, you must act on the behalf of the welfare of those who need this information.

So, please forgive me when my passion runs amuck. It has been an "interesting" last 5 years and sometimes I just don't handle this "mission" very well (sort of like Jonah). But my intentions are good. We all MUST see what these four foods (and hydrogenated oils) are doing to huge numbers of people and pets. Then we can be effective in changing things.

John

PS. Here's a little history lesson I just write to a close friend. Coincidence? I guess you can decide:

I love history. The plague came out of hiding after 2000 years within 50 years of man creating "common wheat" in the mid 400's. We then plunged into the Dark Ages. 1000 years later, we go into the cow milk industry in England, dropping goats as the principle milk source. Within 50 years, the Black Plague hits London killing 100,000 people and going on to wipe out 1/3 of Europe. Then, 500 years later, we invent hydrogenated oils (errrh). Within 7 years, the first major pandemic to originate in this country...the Spanish flu...kills 25 million people in 25weeks and goes onto to kill 50 million worldwide before it burns itself out 1.5 years later. Now, 100 years later we are eating soy and genetically modifying corn to death. Hmmm...Those who don't know history ARE doomed to repeat it, eh? OH yeah..the plagues are getting closer, aren't they? No wonder God is trying to wake us up. SMILE)

[Liz]

I take it the Chicken Soup food has chicken as the primary meat source. (?) What was the primary meat source in the Pro Plan you were feeding her? It could be that she is allergic to chicken. I have met several dogs now (including mine) who are allergic to this meat source. I had Bogart on Nutro LB Puppy (chicken) when I first got him. He always had mushy stools. Then I switched to Solid Gold (bison and salmon) and his "loaves" became much firmer. Later I decided to add some boiled chicken chunks to see if it indeed was the chicken and when I did that, his runs came back. So maybe it could be the chicken with your dog as well.