A Question for Dog Owners

[bunn]

I've put this on Facebook as well where most of my loony dog nut friends tend to hang out, but I thought I'd pop it on here as well.  Facebook is so random in what it shows and what disappears...


Any suggestions for a dried food that might suit Brythen, who is a big skinny lurcher who could do with gaining a bit of weight and also has persistent minor runny bum issues?  I mean, it's not a big thing, but I'm hoping to achieve better scoopability, if you know what I mean :-D

So far, have tried James Wellbeloved lamb & veg, JWB lamb and rice, Barking Heads salmon & potato, Pets At Home fish & potato.

I was trying to stick mostly to protein sources that are either free range (ie, lamb) or fish, because I try to avoid spending money to support the factory farming of chickens and turkeys -  but I'm not having a lot of luck.

He has other stuff with his dried food - sardines, grated carrot, dried tripe, liver, porridge, mashed potato, tinned Arden Grange, Naturediet etc. Oh, and I did try him on raw frozen tripe too (goodness that is unpleasant stuff!) but still with the runny bum..

I don't really have the freezer space to feed only raw/homecooked - also, Az isn't keen on raw and ideally I'd like to feed them something they can both eat!

Oh yes, and he has had the usual Firming Goop from the vet, whatever that stuff is called, the name escapes me, and that made no odds.

Comments

[mcmurphy79.livejournal.com]

We started our greyhounds on burns but it's expensive. They too had runny bums. We feed them wag now which we get from tesco they have firmer poos now. With ours we find that sardines and fish can make them runnier.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I've tried Burns in the past and it's good on the runny bum issues, but not so good on the getting weight on side of things.

I don't think it's the sardines - I've tried taking him entirely off all fish for 2 weeks, and it didn't help.

[mcmurphy79.livejournal.com]

U are right re the weight thing and burns. It worked for our mental foster but sal didn't take to it at all and lost weight.

Hope you find something

[ideserveyou.livejournal.com]

We had a collie/GSD cross with persistent gut issues and we found that the only thing that calmed it down was Eukanuba lamb and rice. Horrible stuff that looks like rabbit poo and is doubtless made in some faceless and ethically unsound factory, but it worked brilliantly. Anything with veggies in it was an absolute no-no for her, and fish didn't work either, but the lamb'n'rice was a dream - and what comes out the other end is low-volume and easily scoopable ;)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Adding grated carrot seems to help to some extent, so I don't think it's veg that he has a problem with. Or not carrot, anyway. I've tried eliminating fish, and again, that doesnt' seem to make much odds...

There are lots of rabbit-poo-style lamb and rice foods (actually dogs love rabbit poo don't they? so I'm sure they don't mind the format!) I've tried one from a different manufacturer, but no doubt they are all slightly different. Maybe I just need to keep trying different ones till I find one that suits. :-/

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

We switched all our border collies to Burns at the BCT and they immediately became skeletal. We found we had to feed about four times as much as the recommended amount to keep a normal weight. I don't think it's a bad food, but I think they base their calculations on assumptions of a very low energy consumption, which really doesn't suit forty border collies pinging round a kennel.

I've found Arden Grange in the past to be pretty good for getting weight on. They use free range chickens and they do a lamb as well. We've fed our border collies on that too, and they did pretty well.

My two right now are on JWB. Cole gets sensitive tum and a dejected looking coat if you try to feed him on anything but the most expensive food possible, so he gets the lamb and veg one which we refer to as "goldust".

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh, I had not realised Arden Grange used free range chickens. I think I should definitely give that a go then.

Mollydog had to have the gold dust JWB as well, it was the only food I tried that kept the 'resulting product' really solid :-D. So I was feeding Brythen that when I adopted him but it doesn't seem to do the job for him - at least I know the problem isn't cereal-related though. Az, fortunately, has a very resilient tum.

I think I'm going to try him on a diet with no lamb in for a bit, see if that is the problem. I've got some turkey and rice wet food and JWB kibble: if that suits, then that gives me some idea what the problem is and I can try the AG to try to soothe my ethical issues.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Pip's on JWB as he's marginally less hyper on it. But he has no problems keeping on weight...

My last Springer had recurrent colitis & the food he coped best with was the tinned Butcher's Tripe (the tripe-only variety).

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I can label Brythen's issue as colitis without having it investigated, but it does seem to meet the descriptions - albeit a pretty mild case, which is why I've not done the whole thing with having tests done yet...

I strongly suspect it's partly excitement-related - plops in the garden are normal, but if we are out on a walk, he'll do one normal one, then a couple of small mucussy jobs.

I've fed that Butcher's Tripe before, but only as an extra, if the turkey-as-only-protein source approach doesn't help, then I will definitely add that to my list of things to try. It seems to be affordable and good quality, and handy that it's so widely available. I'd just rather have some dried in the diet if I can because he's a big hungry lad and it would mean storing a hell of a lot of tins!

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this would be any help but I feed mine on Chudley's Working Crunch topped off with a four way share of a tin of meat. They not only love it, they do very well on it, aren't runny, and the crunch is VAT free!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That's a food I've not tried! Have noted name.

I think though I'm probably looking for foods that have worked for dogs that had this problem first - Az has been solid on pretty much everything I've ever fed him, but I think Brythen has a more delicate system. I believe that salukis and GSDs are both prone to runny bum, and I think Bryth probably has a bit of both those breeds.