Elimination diet

[Judy Kyps]

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Our dog has always been a sicky dog since we had her from the RSPCA when she was four with bouts of throwing up ( not diarrhoea) every few months. Because she was an anxious dog the vet the vet diagnosed her with colitis but as it didnt happen often enough we we left to just get on with it, with the occasional anti-nausea injection.

Fast forward to jan 23 ( our dog is now 12 yrs old) she caught the parasite ‘Giardia’. After lots of tests and poo samples and becoming very out of sorts and very loud stomach noises and diarrhoea she was given medicine and we managed to clear it.
(We are now very careful where we walk her ).

Since the Giardia her stomach isnt right and we keep being told it was the giardia that caused her colitis to keep flaring up. Each time she has a flare up she is out of sorts/ shakes/ extremely loud stomach noises all day/ and sometimes diarrhoea with blood from her back passage. The flare ups are getting closer together each time .
Since her Giardia last year she has been on Royal Canin gastrointestinal dry food ( she wont eat the wet) and we put skinless boneless chicken on top to get her to eat in. But last week the vet has suggested we try only a tiny amount of chicken and phase in a new food ‘Royal canin hypoallergenic’ food. We have started two days of this and today we have started with the loud stomach noises and she isnt eating again.

we have booked yet another vets visit today but we are at our wits end. Every single blood test, poo sample has come negative and im convinced it must be something in her food ( she eats absolutely nothing else - poor dog) but how on earth do i find out what she has an intolerance to as there seems to be so much crap in all these foods.
Has anyone else had this problem? ( by the way, inbetween each flare up she is absolutely fine, looking like the healthiest dog around- she is 13 now)
Gastrointestinal

 

[JudyN]

I'm sorry you're having this problem. Stress can affect digestion quite significantly - is she generally anxious, or is she a chilled happy dog (when well)?

I'm not an expert at all, but I'm wary of the various 'sensitive/hypoallergenic' dog foods. Dogs are designed to eat mainly meat, but there's little of that in RC Hypoallergenic: 'Derivatives of vegetable origin, vegetable protein extracts, oils and fats, meat and animal derivatives, minerals. Selected sources of protein: hydrolysed soya protein concentrate, hydrolysed poultry by-products. Selected source of carbohydrate: pea starch'

Meat and animal derivatives can be very low quality, e.g. claws and feathers.

Have you ever tried just giving her chicken (with or without rice), or fish?

 

[JoanneF]

I'm also extremely wary of some of these foods (not least because vets are often highly incentivised to sell them).

That said, some dogs seem to do well on hydrolysed protein diets. The proteins are broken down so far that the digestive system sort of doesn't recognise them and react to them (that's a very unscientific explanation, but I hope it makes sense).

 

[Judy Kyps]

She absolutely loves cooked chicken but the vet told us last week after another flare up to reduce the chicken to only a really tiny bit as its so high in protein
Yes she has always been an anxious dog, when we first had her we spent what seemed like thousands on training. The RSPCA stiched us up as we were told her previous owner was an old gentleman that went into hospital and couldnt keep her anymore….in actual fact at the beginning our vet pointed out we were having so many issues with her because we were infact her fourth owners!…he pointed out on her vaccination card ( which the rspca had given us) that the rspca had vaccinated her 3 times and he explained they only vaccinate there when they are given up by their owners…. sure enough there were 4 stickers on the card and i peeled them back and found three other address’s she must have lived at and this was before she turned four years old the poor doh

 

[JudyN]

Something to help make her more relaxed might help - you could try an Adaptil product: Calm your Anxious Dog with ADAPTIL and ThunderShirt. There are various supplements, but I don't know enough about these to recommend any in particular.

I had good results with YuDigest Plus with my dog after my dog had a bout of tummy troubles which I think was set off by stress - maybe mention this product to your vet and see if they think it's worth a try?

 

[arealhuman]

Have you considered a raw diet? I'm not suggesting you make the move suddenly, but it might be something to think about. I moved our dog, who is just over 2 years old, to raw as he has a sensitive tummy and a lot of kibble just made him sick/have sloppy poos. Raw has mostly cleared that up.

There's lots of info here - Raw Dog Food Supplier · Honey's - this is who we use, I'm not affiliated with them. They also have a helpdesk that anyone can phone for advice, it might be worth giving them a call. I did and there's no hard sell.