For the past 2+ years, my dog has off and on gone through bouts of seeming like he didn't feel quite right. Kind of a general malaise, with no other symptoms (no diarrhea or anything like that), and not really very major - just a little tired and funky, and you can see it in his face that something's not quite right. I finally decided maybe chicken was causing the problem - really just a random guess - and so for the past 3 weeks I've quit feeding him raw and have been feeding solely Honest Kitchen Keen, which is turkey based. Lo and behold, he's been a lot better, and his coat has improved too. Where before, he's always had a very slight dry skin itchiness, despite the salmon oil and vit e, now that's gone too. Maybe he's got a mild chicken sensitivity/allergy.

So the other day I decided to start adding stuff back in to his diet and got him some turkey necks. After 3 meals with turkey neck added in with his honest kitchen, the malaise returned. I cut out the turkey necks and now he's back to normal again. Could be coincidence - maybe he was just tired or something - I'll need to do more tests. But I'm wondering if anyone else has had a problem like this... where the dog seems to not feel well if he eats rmb? It's very strange. He loves to eat them and afterwards he poops just fine, but there's something going on...

Have you thoroughly inspected his mouth? Maybe a bad tooth or some other oral problem?

I can't think of any reason why RMB's would make a dog feel not well.

Without going to an entirely novel protein it is kinda hard to say it is allergy related.

How much fat was he getting on the RMB diet?

Dogs use fat like we use carbs for energy. Too little fat in the diet might also explain the poor coat and skin.

How much variety were you feeding when he was on RMBs? Any beef, pork, lamb, deer, etc., or only poultry?

 Quote: Debbie Bruce

How much fat was he getting on the RMB diet?

Dogs use fat like we use carbs for energy. Too little fat in the diet might also explain the poor coat and skin.

How much variety were you feeding when he was on RMBs? Any beef, pork, lamb, deer, etc., or only poultry?

This is a great point.

I think when I first started feeding raw I was guilty of feeding too little fat. Symptoms were similar.

Can't remember our particular instance involving skin and coat problems, but there was a pronounced lack of energy. He just seemed down.

Connie lined me out on the fat issue.:smile:

I agree that I'd try a totally new protein (bison, beef, rabbit) and see if your butcher can grind the protein with the bone in. We have a few people in my town that will do that for a decent price. Pick one protein at a time to try.

Good luck and keep at it

The dog was eating a turkey food, correct? THK Keen? And no malaise, no skin problem, no nothing? And then adding turkey necks made him seem "off" again?

This is what I would do, since none of this sounds anything like a food allergy or even sensitivity (turkey THK is fine but not turkey necks .... ).

I'd keep him on THK and use ground turkey or chicken for the add-in. (Remember that as long as you follow the THK package guidelines, the add-ins can be boneless, and this isn't a permanent thing anyway.)

And I would indeed add some raw fat.

What I'd hope to determine from this is that too-low fat is the whole problem.

The reason I'm saying to use ground poultry during this trial is to eliminate the possibility that what Michael mentions is a problem (any dental issues).

Switching to a different protein source isn't going to definitively answer it, even if all is suddenly well, because of the differences in fat in the various sources. That is, if you use a higher-fat protein and see great results, you still won't know if it was the poultry itself or the fat.

I'd bet a pretty good amount that it's not a poultry allergy, since you were feeding poultry in the THK and having good results.

I'd go slowly with upping the fat because despite the fact that healthy dogs use raw fat very well (and need it), a sudden increase can trigger diarrhea. Diarrhea is much easier to avoid than to fix.

If you don't have a source of raw poultry fat (like the butcher, with trimmings), post back and I'll give you some oil suggestions (not supermarket corn oils, which are chemical- and heat-treated).

How much fish oil are you giving, BTW?

 Quote: Debbie Bruce

How much fat was he getting on the RMB diet? .... How much variety were you feeding when he was on RMBs? Any beef, pork, lamb, deer, etc., or only poultry?

I'm interested in this question, too.



PS
Please keep us posted, Matt.

Thanks for your info everybody. It's a very curious problem, but I am encouraged since he really has had an obvious improvement in the past few weeks. The question is: what's caused it? OR, I suppose I could not worry about the cause and just keep feeding HK, but I really would like to know...

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To answer your guys' question, what I had been feeding primarily was 50% chicken w/ bones, and about 50% ground beef (with a little organ meat). Some of the chicken I'd leave the skin on and some of it I'd de-skin. Your idea about the fat content is intriguing b/c the ground beef is grass fed, so it's got a better nutrient profile, but is also leaner than "regular" ground beef. They raise a lot of grass fed beef cattle around here, so it's actually cheaper to get the grass fed beef than conventional.

Usually, I'd buy a whole chicken and cut it up, so that'd last about 4 days. Then the other 3 days of the week I'd feed HK and/or EVO red meat kibble. I usually give him a can of Evangers mackerel once a week and I usually give him 1 or 2 eggs per week as well. 3 pumps of the salmon oil and 400 IU of the Vit E per day (I've learned a lot reading this forum!) Sometimes I'd give him turkey necks instead of the chicken. Very occasionally I've been able to get lamb neck, which he loves.

The last few weeks I've been feeding him only Honest Kitchen Keen (turkey based), or the Evo red meat kibble - I decided to cut out the chicken and see what would happen. The results were fairly obvious - he improved gradually over the course of a week and has been basically like an upgraded dog ever since. He's gone from being just regular Dante to "Dante 2.0" - coat and skin are improved (that was a mild issue to begin with, but it is a noticeable difference), energy level and enthusiasm are improved, and he doesn't have the kind of sad look on his face - he's more sassy now. So I figured it was the chicken, but now I'm not so sure. I will experiment again with the turkey necks and see if he declines again, and then report back in a couple of days...

PS. I don't think he has any tooth issues - I'll double-check though just to be sure

Connie - I like your idea of adding the ground chicken/turkey to the HK. I'll try that in a few days after I've recreated the turkey neck experiment, just to be sure what I noticed is accurate. I'm thinking you guys might be right - it might be a fat thing.

Question: could a dog be sensitive to chicken, but be ok with turkey and other poultry, or is "poultry, poultry" - if they're sensitive to one, they're sensitive to all?

I think the reason I started to single out chicken was because a few times he seemed like he felt fine and then after I fed him the chicken with ground beef, he showed a rather rapid decline in mood. I figured the ground beef probably would digest really easily and quickly, so it must be the chicken that's causing the problem

My opinion: no--poultry isn't poultry. Chicken, duck, goose, turkey, guinea, quail--are all different species, different proteins. It would be possible to be sensitive to one and not others. As a food source, a chicken is no more like a turkey than a cow is to a sheep.

BTW--good for you for being so tuned into your dog's reaction to what he eats. That's one of the great things about a raw diet--the ability to precisely monitor what goes in and see what happens. I wouldn't be convinced (yet) that he's actually sensitive to chicken, or if this is just an issue of getting new foods introduced in the right proportions, twiddling with the amount of fat, etc. But again, that's the beauty of this way of feeding--you're in control.