Dog diets

[-Analog-]

Can anyone suggest a diet for my dog? She's been eating Beneful and wet food mixed and it just seems to make her sick all the time, lack of energy and vomiting.. Vet says she's 100% in good health. She gets walked 3-4 times a week, has car rides and lots of attention, and she's still sickly 2 or 3 times a week, I just dont get..

We've tried switching to other dry & wet foods and she just wont eat them. The only thing that does not seem to make her sick anymore is plain chicken breast with steamed snap peas mixed with a little bit of brown rice, which is better than what I eat most of the time, I'm getting kind of worried at this point because she's been throwing up every time she eats dog food...

[Bones]

Beneful is like Lucky Charms for dogs, it's a horrible food.

Firstly, go to a vet and get her checked out

secondly

Go to good independent pet shop and see what they suggest for the type and age of your dog. Idealy if you are going to feed manufactured foods, it should have single source protein and single source carbs. No corn or meal. The first ingredient should always be meat.

[Killcrop]

manufactured as opposed to what?

[Doodad]

We had all kinds of problems (ears especially) with out Slack Russell Terror, Molly, for quite awhile despite good foods (we thought) like Beneful etc. Finally switched vets and first thing he said was food allergies. Switched to Wellness which is just meat for the most part and she is a new dog. As well as a 13 yr old hyper little dog can be anyway.

[Bones]

manufactured as opposed to what?


as opposed to RAW/BARF or home cooked. If you're going to feed a dog processed food, you need to get as close to holistic as you can.

[-Analog-]

Figures that beneful is crap, makes sense.. Our old vet reccomended beneful to us. We no longer go there as of 3 weeks ago after the vet snipped her claw way too short..

Cookie was just at the new Vet less then a week ago and had a clean bill of health minus puking the beneful. I spoke with the vet about the food thing, they suggested a RAW Chicken diet which just left me with a raised brow, hence this post.

[mge80]

I HIGHLY recommend a raw diet. If you want details, PM me, and I can give you details on what I feed my dogs. I have extraordinarily healthy dogs with none of the typical dog ailments...no skin issues, no digestive problems, etc...that are a perfect weight and very muscular (although they are a muscular breed), and the blood work always comes back in the very center of the normal range.

There are a handful of quality commercial products, but by and large, I would recommend a home prepared raw diet.

I honestly spend no more than 15 mins in the morning preparing both meals for the day, then maybe another 5 putting each one together. That is really not a lot of hassle for the benefits, IMO.

[Bones]

Figures that beneful is crap, makes sense.. Our old vet reccomended beneful to us. We no longer go there as of 3 weeks ago after the vet snipped her claw way too short..

Cookie was just at the new Vet less then a week ago and had a clean bill of health minus puking the beneful. I spoke with the vet about the food thing, they suggested a RAW Chicken diet which just left me with a raised brow, hence this post.

A RAW diet is a bit more work than most people are willing to deal with, but is really the best thing for dogs.

Try something like Merrick B/G (before grain), or Eagle Pack Holistic Select. Like I said see what your local dealer suggests for your dog.

[gregc]

Check out 'Flint River' foods.

[gregc]

http://www.flintriver.com/

[FlyingDutchman]

I feed my Vizsla Candidae All Stages food. Skin and teeth always look great and has very good bowel movements. I get it for around .80/lb so its not a bad deal. Check out a dedicated pet store for it. Its not available at Wal-Mart or any of those types of stores.

[mikjwilli]

How often do you change her food? They say when you change their food, it needs to be done gradually so their stomach can adjust.

There are a lot of high quality kibbles out there including Chicken Soup, Canidae, Wellness, Solid Gold, Eagle Pack, to name a few. If you do a search for "Dog food grading" system, there's lots of info out there. And stay away from anything with "byproducts" (beaks, feathers etc. - total garbage). Sounds like she may even have a sensitive stomach. There are plenty of high quality kibbles for sensitive stomachs as well. Good luck!

[jazzguitar14]

chicken livers/hearts, green beans and carroots, and rice... maby a raw egg or some cheese for some flare....

I boil everything together as a stew making about 1 weeks volume then just serve it cold from the fridge... the dog loves it !!!! and its good for him...

[dets1]

our doggies get Wellness. supposedly very good stuff.

[LowellH]

I mostly just rotate my Brittany pup between a few brands of quality kibble - Orijen, Solid Gold, Merrick, Innova, etc.

Good quality kibble IS more expensive, but dogs end up eating much less because much of what's in grocery/pet store food is just filler. It may end up saving you a lot on future vet bills too.

Anyway, I top each mound of kibble with either: a whole raw egg (including shell), raw yogurt, cottage cheese, or a little raw meat/organs. She also gets Missing Link supplement and salmon oil once a day.

I recently started feeding raw meals once or twice a week too, usually just a raw meaty bone and a small portion of organ meat.

[Ooogie]

My dog has food allergies and was on a prescription Venison & Potato dog food for quite awhile (expensive). We actually saw a canine dermatologist that prescribed that while we tried to figure out what she was allergic to. Now a lot of the brand names like Eukanuba, Natural Balance have similar dog foods so it's not quite as costly.

If it's an allergy there's really no way to tell without experimenting unless you go for the full-blown allergy tests. Just go with one of the single-source protein foods (Venison and Salmon are the most popular) for awhile to see if it helps, it takes at least 6 to 8 weeks on the food to really see if it's working. Definitely avoid corn meal and make sure meat is at the top of the ingredient list as someone else said.

I've never really seen allergies exhibit themselves in vomiting and lack of energy like you describe, think I'd see another vet if at all possible...those are usually indicative of something beyond food allergies in my experience.

Good luck,
Mark