Changing diet...

[Nash]

Hello all,

I have a 2 1/2 year old dog who has some allergic reactions to different kinds of feeds. Besides the hair loss on his ears when the weather is getting better, he seems to have a very sensitive coat. Especially the top of his paws and his lower chest area. Just a lot of pink hair, and reddish paws. It doesn't seem to bother him too much except for some extensive licking every now and than.
I have a brother of him at the house now, he doesn't have any skin problems and is on the same diet. Also his mum.
I was thinking more of a treatment like the lime sulphur dip Jack mentioned in the pbb, cause I didn't tought it could be the feed, but i cant seem to buy the product here.

Now in another topic Jack touched on the matter it could very well be an immune dysfunction. Now I start wondering if the problem can be solved with a change in his feed. I feed my dogs raw, and I have always had good results with the brand of raw I have the dogs on now. This is the ingredients listed on the website of the food :

Contains:

Fresh beef, fresh chicken, fresh minced vegetables, rice, cold-pressed sunflower and linseed oil, vitamins and minerals.

And this is listed on the site also :

Protein 13%
Moisture 61%
Fat 14%
Calcium 0.48%
Axis 3%
Phosphorus 0.43%
Fiber 1%

The feed is packed in wraps that weigh a kilogram a piece. The dogs do well on half a kilo a day weight wise.

The food alone improved a great deal from the food I was using prior to this, and that was like 5 months ago. The last month I started adding two types of oils to the feed, I switch them every few days. The oils I add are the Salmon oil, and Flax seed oil. Since my boy is already showing allergic reactions to some feeds I was almost certain it would have to be the wheat's, rice, grains etc. So no wheat germ oil.

I don't give any other supplements to the dogs here, like extra vitamins, and I'm trying the best I can to provide a good feed. If it would help I'd get them tomorrow. But honestly I'm at a loss here as to what to do ? Any ideas here are very welcome.

[scratchin dog]

Some dogs are highly allergic to sunflower oil. Have you thought about creating your own raw diet instead of buying one? This way you can be in total control of all the ingredients and begin a process of elimination as to the cause of the allergy.

[R2L]

Sounds like carnibest Nash? It's great food, no need to add oils though!! There's already cold-pressed sunflower and linseed oil like you mentioned and translated from the site: "The salmon oil is not intended to supplement carnibest, because all variants are equipped with Omega-3 fatty acids already. In principle it is not necessary to give salmon oil over it."

It doesn't really matter whether his brothers/sister or sire/dam do good on the same food or whether he been doing good on it before. Each individual dog can have or develop an allergy or protein intolerance for certain type of animal.

There's no way someone will tell you what's the problem. Best way to find out is to rule out all possible problems It could be a protein intolerance for beef or chicken, it could be the rice, one of the oils or one of the many external factors.. house mite or grass allergy??, ect. Reddish paws could indicate its a food allergy. I can recommend "haaksbarf" if you wanna try an elimination diet. nothing besides the animals itself and 15 % vegetables is added. They have horse, rabbit, goat, duck, salmon, lam. But id look for other options too, a blood test can point out some external stuff.

It can be a pain the ass to find out what's the problem cause it can take a few weeks to see improvements. So be patient there

No problems with the old food?

[Officially Retired]

Nash, I don't really like that diet much.

As Scratchin Dog pointed out, sunflower oil is a known allergen to many dogs. (Linseed oil is the same as flax oil and is good for a dog.) As R2L pointed out, each individual dog is different and one brother may be allergic while another is not. (For example, I am allergic to grass/pollen but my brother is not.)

Speaking of immune dysfunction and food allergies, really, a food allergy is a sort of immune dysfunction itself, in that it is an over-reaction of the immune system against perceived antigens. Other immune diseases are insufficiencies rather than overreactions.

Back to the diet, where are the bones? Where is the organ meat? And even though it says, "minced vegetables," that still begs the question as to what kind of vegetables (they don't all have the same value). I don't believe that is a nutritionally-complete diet at all, so your dog may simply have some kind of vitamin/mineral deficiency. (Hard to say what.) However, licking and itching repeatedly is generally a sign of allergy.

In the end, after raising more dogs than most people on the planet ever have, and especially since I have had a cancer-prone/BS-food-intolerant bloodline in particular, it is my absolute conviction that lousy diets are the #1 health problem in dogs.

As mentioned, why don't you just construct a homemade raw diet? You can do it for less money and provide a FAR better menu than that.

Jack

[Nash]

Some dogs are highly allergic to sunflower oil. Have you thought about creating your own raw diet instead of buying one? This way you can be in total control of all the ingredients and begin a process of elimination as to the cause of the allergy.

Thnx SD, I didn't know that the sunflower oil could cause problems, but it could be anything like R2L says. I have tought of preparing his food myself before. It would take me a bit more time and sorting out where to buy the ingredients but it might be the best thing to do. Is there any way of doing this, with like a starting point which you build up from ?

Sounds like carnibest Nash?

It doesn't really matter whether his brothers/sister or sire/dam do good on the same food or whether he been doing good on it before. Each individual dog can have or develop an allergy or protein intolerance for certain type of animal.

There's no way someone will tell you what's the problem. Best way to find out is to rule out all possible problems It could be a protein intolerance for beef or chicken, it could be the rice, one of the oils or one of the many external factors.. house mite or grass allergy??, ect. Reddish paws could indicate its a food allergy. I can recommend "haaksbarf" if you wanna try an elimination diet. nothing besides the animals itself and 15 % vegetables is added. They have horse, rabbit, goat, duck, salmon, lam. But id look for other options too, a blood test can point out some external stuff.

It can be a pain the ass to find out what's the problem cause it can take a few weeks to see improvements. So be patient there

No problems with the old food?

R2L That's the brand. I was always happy with it and i'm sure it is one of the best in that small country of ours. I tought it was the more complete. I started adding the oils right before conditioning started and during the last month. I see many improvement on adding the oils and am certain it provides more energy to the dog, the way the " Carnibest Active " version of the feed does. I am aware of individual needs, but just tought i pointed it out to let members know it's not complete garbage i'm feeding here.
I have fed the dogs " Haaks Barf " before, it is a very wet food that i need to give almost a 1/2 of the normal portion of to even keep the weight on my dogs. Could be something to consider, but than i would need to mix something in to get the dog full.

Blood test is a good one, thnx for that.

Nash, I don't really like that diet much.

As Scratchin Dog pointed out, sunflower oil is a known allergen to many dogs. (Linseed oil is the same as flax oil and is good for a dog.) As R2L pointed out, each individual dog is different and one brother may be allergic while another is not. (For example, I am allergic to grass/pollen but my brother is not.)

Speaking of immune dysfunction and food allergies, really, a food allergy is a sort of immune dysfunction itself, in that it is an over-reaction of the immune system against perceived antigens. Other immune diseases are insufficiencies rather than overreactions.

Back to the diet, where are the bones? Where is the organ meat? And even though it says, "minced vegetables," that still begs the question as to what kind of vegetables (they don't all have the same value). I don't believe that is a nutritionally-complete diet at all, so your dog may simply have some kind of vitamin/mineral deficiency. (Hard to say what.) However, licking and itching repeatedly is generally a sign of allergy.

In the end, after raising more dogs than most people on the planet ever have, and especially since I have had a cancer-prone/BS-food-intolerant bloodline in particular, it is my absolute conviction that lousy diets are the #1 health problem in dogs.

As mentioned, why don't you just construct a homemade raw diet? You can do it for less money and provide a FAR better menu than that.

Jack

Jack, same question to you as to SD. Is there a starting point ? A basic feed i can put together and than build up from there eliminating additives which are the start of the problems ?
A co worker of mine had to put her dog on some ostrich diet for 6 weeks before they could have certain tests done on the dogs allergies.


Thnx for the replies all.

[R2L]

Bones and organ meat all there Jack, mixed in the right percentages. It's a great complete product made for the lazy people. But if you have more then 3/4 dogs, its way to expensive. True on the vegetables. Putting to together your own meal is the only way to know whats exactly in there
Why not try giving chicken and beef following the barf principle. Just the muscle meat,organ meat and bones. Haaksbarf has it too. Stop if the problem gets worse, if it doesnt or gets better. you're 100 % sure its not a allergy to the meat, and you can add the other ingredients one by one.

[Nash]

Stop with the Haaks barf already. it's over 4 euro a kilo ! That should be a complete no altering needed feed.

I think i will be starting with the clean meat and built it up from there. Let's wait and see what some other members come up with.

[Officially Retired]

You can't just start with clean meat; you've got to have raw bone with it, otherwise the dogs will build a nitrogen/phosphorous imbalance. That is one of the worst mistakes raw feeders make is only feeding meat. In the original ingredients you posted, there was no mention of bone at all.

To get a good meat/bone combination, feeding chicken is generally the cheapest, the easiest to come by, and the easiest for the dog to assimilate--plus chicken has a good amount of fat on it, which is vital. One of the reasons feeding exclusively rabbit/squirrel isn't good is because they have no fat on them.

[Nash]

Jack that's what i meant, just no rice, oils, etc. Starting with some broccoli, chicken quarters, etc. Need to check some of your menu's.

[Nash]

So today i got 10 kg of chicken quarters for 14 euro. Some chicken hearts, livers, yoghurt, broccoli, selery.