Kibble and dehydrated food - questions/comments?

[JonP]

Before someone decides to start a group here for kibble or dehydrated food, I thought I would post a discussion to see what type of interest it generates. I also have some questions of my own that I hope someone can help me out with.

[JonP]

To start things off here...I currently feed kibble and have had some issues along the way; mainly diarrhea issues to be honest, and some skin irritation. I started out feeding “Origin large breed puppy” and found that it would give my girl diarrhea, which I could not conquer. At the same time it was also a little too expensive for me. After that I switched her to “Taste of the Wild” venison and bison formula. Even with this I still had diarrhea issues, I started blending it 50/50 with “Blue Buffalo puppy” and this helped a little with the diarrhea but I was still having issues. As of now, I have her on “Natural Balance Ultra Premium” and I am still on my first 30lb bag. I have been using cottage cheese for the last two weeks to firm up her stools, and this has worked wonders. My girl was having some skin irritations before I switched her, so I am hoping that will phase out with time and the new food.

 

I am still open to trying other types of Kibble, and even possibly dehydrated foods. I don’t know very much about dehydrated options, but I hope someone here who has experience with them will be able to help me out. From what I can tell, they seem expensive compared with kibble.

 

I would love to hear from some people who currently feed kibble. If anyone would like to share his or her experience (what you have tried kibble or dehydrated, and what you currently use and why) I would really appreciate it. I think that this would be a good place for people to share their advice on kibble and dehydrated foods. I am not currently able to offer my girl a raw diet so at this time the best option for me is either kibble or dehydrated foods. Thank you! 

[Marco]

Hello Jon, thanks for posting!  Has the diarrhea been constant, and have you ever had her checked for giardia?  As far as food have you ever thought about feeding canned food?  I know you mentioned raw is not an option, and you seem to be having problems with kibble.  I think If I wasn't feedin raw I would probably do some type of mix with dry, and canned.  By chance did you ever watch the video I told you about?  It breaks down the Ingredients in kibble, canned, and others.  A great explanation telling you what to look for, and stuff to stay away from.  Some links below you may also want to look at that might help.  Explains what to do, and types of food to feed while dealing with dog diarrhea.  Also a link on giadia, and canned foods.  I hope you are able to get things figured out, and maybe some others here will have suggestions for you also.

 

Parasitic Diarrhea

Treating Acute Diarrhea dogs

Diarrhea in Dogs: Causes and Treatment

Best Wet Grain Free Dog Foods

[JonP]

Hey Marco, thanks for reminding me. I forgot to mention that part. I have done three stool samples. The first was right when I got her and she came to me carrying giardia. I treated her and tested again and it came up clean. I was still having issues with diarrhea so I checked a third time and it was still clean. I don't know what else I could look into. I actually did watch all three videos that you sent me the other day. Not bad info but I already knew most of it. The only thing that caught my eye was the dehydrated food. I hadn't considered it before. Thanks again! 

Marco said:

Hello Jon, thanks for posting!  Has the diarrhea been constant, and have you ever had her checked for giardia?  As far as food have you ever thought about feeding canned food?  I know you mentioned raw is not an option, and you seem to be having problems with kibble.  I think If I wasn't feedin raw I would probably do some type of mix with dry, and canned.  By chance did you ever watch the video I told you about?  It breaks down the Ingredients in kibble, canned, and others.  A great explanation telling you what to look for, and stuff to stay away from.  Some links below you may also want to look at that might help.  Explains what to do, and types of food to feed while dealing with dog diarrhea.  Also a link on giadia, and canned foods.  I hope you are able to get things figured out, and maybe some others here will have suggestions for you also.

 

Parasitic Diarrhea

Treating Acute Diarrhea dogs

Diarrhea in Dogs: Causes and Treatment

Best Wet Grain Free Dog Foods

[Sweet Pea]

Hi Jon,

I don't have any suggestions for food as I feed raw now, but I did use to feed Orijin and Acana. 

Have you tried giving her probiotics and digestive enzymes? It sounds like her GI system has been through a lot and she could be lacking the beneficial bacteria that is normally present. 

[JonP]

Hi Kimberly, thanks for the reply. I have not tried anything other than human probiotic yogurt. I did that for a few days but it did not seem to have any noticeable affect. Have you used either option before with your dogs? I am wondering if she has IBS or something similar. 

Kimberly Baker said:

Hi Jon,

I don't have any suggestions for food as I feed raw now, but I did use to feed Orijin and Acana. 

Have you tried giving her probiotics and digestive enzymes? It sounds like her GI system has been through a lot and she could be lacking the beneficial bacteria that is normally present. 

[Sweet Pea]

My boy used to have  a lot of GI issues before starting on raw and the probiotics did help. I wouldn't use yogurt for two reasons...it doesn't have a high enough bacteria count and the dairy can make the issues worse in some dogs. If you want to give the probiotics time to work, you should really try them for a month. The brand I had good luck with was Probiotic Miracle for Dogs.

[Lisa Tiro]

Hi Jon,

My boy Axel is 8 months old now. When he came to me his stools were fine. I wanted to feed what the breeder was feeding but it isn't available to me here in MA. So, I researched and put him on Precise Holistic Complete Large/Giant Breed puppy food. It has the right balance as far as calories per cup, protein, calcium and phospherous etc. He started getting the diarrhea too. I called the vet and his stool sample had been fine the week before when I brought it in so they told me to fast him for 12 hours and then feed bland diet. He was still getting the diarrhea even with the rice and chicken so I called back. They said start him back on his regular food, so I did. Still loose and I'm talking I was up every 1-2 hours all night long taking him out for 2 weeks or more! My son and husband were freaking out so they took in another stool sample to the doctor, again it was clean. So I changed his food thinking maybe it was too rich for him. It took about 2 weeks and I bought Iams, the cheap stuff. His stool finally was more solid. I gradually changed him back to the premium food and when the stools were looking loose again, not quite diarrhea I started adding canned pumpkin in about 1 tablespoon to about 2 cups of dry food 3x a day. He loved it and his stools looked good. In the meantime I had been researching this online (that's where I heard about the pumpkin) and I googled teething in pups and I found some people saying that this happened to their pups when they were getting their adult teeth and this is when it happened to Axel. Then at about 6 1/2 months it happened again when his 7 month molars were coming in. He did not have any skin issues so your boy could have an allergy or a sensitivity to something in the food be it grains or maybe chicken. I know chicken is a common allergy as my cat is allergic to chicken and can only eat duck or rabbit and peas. He pulls his fur out. But I think it was his teeth the whole time. His gums were really red and raw and I was finding his baby teeth all over the place. They make more saliva and swallow it and it causes the stomach to be upset and out of balance. I now add in soft food and some table scraps here and there to spice up his kibble or he just won't eat it. I would love to feed raw but I just can't now, maybe in the future but now it would be too hard.

Lisa

[JonP]

Thanks Kimberly, I will look into starting her on some probiotics. When you used them, did you have to do it every day? Or was it just for a single month? Where did you buy them?

Kimberly Baker said:

My boy used to have  a lot of GI issues before starting on raw and the probiotics did help. I wouldn't use yogurt for two reasons...it doesn't have a high enough bacteria count and the dairy can make the issues worse in some dogs. If you want to give the probiotics time to work, you should really try them for a month. The brand I had good luck with was Probiotic Miracle for Dogs.

[JonP]

Thank you for your reply Lisa, I can completely relate to what you have described! I was going crazy trying to figure out what to do and my vet kept telling me to use cheaper and cheaper food (he thinks that everything I have tried has far too much protein). What food are you currently using? Did you stick with the Iams? I am pretty sure that my vet would consider that to be a good option for me at this point. I have called him and emailed him dozens of times with questions about her loose stools. I did use the canned pumpkin for a little while a few months ago and had some really good success with it. I didn't really have a good reason to switch to cottage cheese other than I just wanted to see if it would make a difference. I cannot offer my girl a single scrap from the table or anything...she will quickly get diarrhea. She will even get it from the big knuckle bones at pet stores and bully sticks. She will typically get loose stools when we get home from training, because the training treats make her somewhat sick as well (they are Zoooks brand or something). I doubt that my girl is having these issues from teething but that may have played a part in this in the past. She is nearly 14 months at this time. But the teething does make sense to me. I hope everything works out for your boy! Thanks again! 

Lisa Tiro said:

Hi Jon,

My boy Axel is 8 months old now. When he came to me his stools were fine. I wanted to feed what the breeder was feeding but it isn't available to me here in MA. So, I researched and put him on Precise Holistic Complete Large/Giant Breed puppy food. It has the right balance as far as calories per cup, protein, calcium and phospherous etc. He started getting the diarrhea too. I called the vet and his stool sample had been fine the week before when I brought it in so they told me to fast him for 12 hours and then feed bland diet. He was still getting the diarrhea even with the rice and chicken so I called back. They said start him back on his regular food, so I did. Still loose and I'm talking I was up every 1-2 hours all night long taking him out for 2 weeks or more! My son and husband were freaking out so they took in another stool sample to the doctor, again it was clean. So I changed his food thinking maybe it was too rich for him. It took about 2 weeks and I bought Iams, the cheap stuff. His stool finally was more solid. I gradually changed him back to the premium food and when the stools were looking loose again, not quite diarrhea I started adding canned pumpkin in about 1 tablespoon to about 2 cups of dry food 3x a day. He loved it and his stools looked good. In the meantime I had been researching this online (that's where I heard about the pumpkin) and I googled teething in pups and I found some people saying that this happened to their pups when they were getting their adult teeth and this is when it happened to Axel. Then at about 6 1/2 months it happened again when his 7 month molars were coming in. He did not have any skin issues so your boy could have an allergy or a sensitivity to something in the food be it grains or maybe chicken. I know chicken is a common allergy as my cat is allergic to chicken and can only eat duck or rabbit and peas. He pulls his fur out. But I think it was his teeth the whole time. His gums were really red and raw and I was finding his baby teeth all over the place. They make more saliva and swallow it and it causes the stomach to be upset and out of balance. I now add in soft food and some table scraps here and there to spice up his kibble or he just won't eat it. I would love to feed raw but I just can't now, maybe in the future but now it would be too hard.

Lisa

[Lisa Tiro]

I put him back on the high quality kibble Precise Holistic Large Breed Puppy. I only recently started him with minimal table scraps, only meats mixed in. It doesn't seem to bother him now that his teeth are in. He did get the runs from Vitamin C I started him on the other day but I gave him the regular C and not the buffered so that's why. Now he's on a low dose of the buffered and his stool is nice and firm. That used to happen to him after the bones and dog school too. It seems to be getting better now. She is kind of old for the teething reason. Maybe you should try a process of elimination with her to pinpoint the food that is bothering her. I know it sucks so bad because you're afraid to take her anywhere because she might get the diarrhea. My boy did it right in the middle of the dog class. I was so embarrassed. I would definitely try the probiotics and digestive enzymes too. It should help her. Let us know if it helps.

Lisa

[Sweet Pea]

Yes, you use them every day with meals. Definitely for a minimum of 30 days. I believe I got the Probiotic Miracle on Amazon because it was one of the top rated ones.

JonP said:

Thanks Kimberly, I will look into starting her on some probiotics. When you used them, did you have to do it every day? Or was it just for a single month? Where did you buy them?

Kimberly Baker said:

My boy used to have  a lot of GI issues before starting on raw and the probiotics did help. I wouldn't use yogurt for two reasons...it doesn't have a high enough bacteria count and the dairy can make the issues worse in some dogs. If you want to give the probiotics time to work, you should really try them for a month. The brand I had good luck with was Probiotic Miracle for Dogs.

[JonP]

Good to know. Thank you Kimberly! I will look at Amazon. 

Kimberly Baker said:

Yes, you use them every day with meals. Definitely for a minimum of 30 days. I believe I got the Probiotic Miracle on Amazon because it was one of the top rated ones.

JonP said:

Thanks Kimberly, I will look into starting her on some probiotics. When you used them, did you have to do it every day? Or was it just for a single month? Where did you buy them?

Kimberly Baker said:

My boy used to have  a lot of GI issues before starting on raw and the probiotics did help. I wouldn't use yogurt for two reasons...it doesn't have a high enough bacteria count and the dairy can make the issues worse in some dogs. If you want to give the probiotics time to work, you should really try them for a month. The brand I had good luck with was Probiotic Miracle for Dogs.