Hi guys, I’m not new here, just never post anything I only read your posts.

I need advice on dry food.

I have a 3 year old Rottweiler “Rocky” that was imported.
When I got, him he was on Royal Canin food, I then transferred him to Orijen puppy which he didn’t do so good. Always hungry, soft stool, gunky eyes, shedding a lot. I then tried few different Acana flavors, Dr. Tims brand and the last one was Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream with smoke flavor. He starts out ok and then things go back as usual.

When he was about 7 month old he got GI (gastrointestinal infection).
I recently transferred to raw food diet trying to figure out the right way to do it. My vet gave him Pancre plus saying he might not digest certain food and I think he has sensitive stomach.

I narrowed it down and feed him chicken breast, raw beef, chicken backs cutting out all the skin and fat. I also add chicken liver every two weeks or so. As far as supplements, human vitamin c, vitamin b, vitamin e, every time I give him fish oil he has soft stool. Rocky has a hard time gaining weight so I gave him satin balls for two weeks which he got some weight on. Two day after I stop giving him satin balls he had bad diarrhea with blood. Maybe less protein more carbs would be better?

I’m thinking to switch back to dry food and need your advice. Are there any low fat dry food?
I know Orijen is a good brand wanted to try fish flavor this time, maybe it less fattening.
Looking at all brands “Guaranteed Analysis” not sure what I need to look at or consider, they all look similar.
Was also considering Royal Canin maxi adult or maxi sensitive. Maybe that brand would be better for him.

Sorry for a long post
Thank you
Bobby

Hi, Bobby,

I know you'll get help with Rocky's nutrition problems -- I just wanted to mention that it looks like you joined up here a long time ago when pseudonyms were accepted, but we've used "real names only" for many years. Someone from admin will be sending you a PM to get the info we need to correct your login info. Thanks in advance!

 Quote: bovime

Hi guys, I’m not new here, just never post anything I only read your posts.

I need advice on dry food.

I have a 3 year old Rottweiler “Rocky” that was imported.
When I got, him he was on Royal Canin food, I then transferred him to Orijen puppy which he didn’t do so good. Always hungry, soft stool, gunky eyes, shedding a lot. I then tried few different Acana flavors, Dr. Tims brand and the last one was Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream with smoke flavor. He starts out ok and then things go back as usual.

When he was about 7 month old he got GI (gastrointestinal infection).
I recently transferred to raw food diet trying to figure out the right way to do it. My vet gave him Pancre plus saying he might not digest certain food and I think he has sensitive stomach.

I narrowed it down and feed him chicken breast, raw beef, chicken backs cutting out all the skin and fat. I also add chicken liver every two weeks or so. As far as supplements, human vitamin c, vitamin b, vitamin e, every time I give him fish oil he has soft stool. Rocky has a hard time gaining weight so I gave him satin balls for two weeks which he got some weight on. Two day after I stop giving him satin balls he had bad diarrhea with blood. Maybe less protein more carbs would be better?

I’m thinking to switch back to dry food and need your advice. Are there any low fat dry food?
I know Orijen is a good brand wanted to try fish flavor this time, maybe it less fattening.
Looking at all brands “Guaranteed Analysis” not sure what I need to look at or consider, they all look similar.
Was also considering Royal Canin maxi adult or maxi sensitive. Maybe that brand would be better for him.

Sorry for a long post
Thank you
Bobby

- bump -

Hi, unfortunately I can't give you a good advice about dry food. We used in the beginning Pedigree and all went principally well.

Nevertheless we changed to raw food, because those industrial foods are mostly full of stabilizers, colorants and artificial flavorings. Besides this they process not only good meat, they use also animals, including cats and dogs who have been put down because of a desease.

Very often they also put to many carbs into it in order to stretch the amount of the whole., eg cereals which should be given - if at all - only in small quantities. Of course not all brands are the same. There are certainly serious ones, but it's difficult to find out which ones.


I have a LB book about raw food diet. If you want to, I can give you the name. But at the moment I have a mess with all my books (converting more systematically) and will first have to search for it.

When I began with raw food I started just with one type of meat for a few days in order to test how they react. Then I added the next type and observed and so on. It depends of course a lot of the individual dog.
When we change to raw food, we have to make sure they get enough of muscle meat but also organic meat like liver, kidney, spleen etc. but this in lesser quantities than muscles. Also white cheese, yoghurt (esp. probiotic ones) and eggs are healthy for the dogs. Eggs always the whole one, never only the white part. If you use a Mixer you can also use the shell (Calcium) Don't forget to use also veggies and fruits. Mine love tomatoes, carrots, red and yellow peppers, green food, cabbage, garlic, bananas, mangas, melons and apples. But all this in much smaller quantities than meat. Potatoes only cooked. If raw they must thoroughly be peeled, because the peel contains something poisonous for dogs.
All this of course, as I said, only one new thing at a time for a while, so you can observe and see on what the dog reacts bad. In case you use avocados be careful as some dogs react allergic on this. Mine don't, but I give only a little.

Don't know if that helps. For industrial food I once came across a site which examines them and report when something was wrong with a brand. There were many scandals by the way. I'll try to find that site again.

Wish you good luck and be very careful if your dog is so sensitive.

You might want to consider the Honest Kitchen dehydrated foods. They have some that are lower in fat, grain free, etc. https://www.thehonestkitchen.com/

The dehydrated food will be much better than a kibble for your dog, and easier to prepare than the raw.

I would give them a call and see which would be best for your dog.

Thank you for your replies.

Few days ago I start transitioning rocky to kibbles. I'm give him chicken backs and kibble and he 's looking better, less eye gunk and fur is not bad. Maybe he doesn't agree with chicken breast (use to feed him chicken breast with backs). But then again he always starts out ok.

How is dehydrated food better than kibble?

Dehydrated food still retains all of the vitamins and minerals of the food - the moisture is just removed. Kibble is typically processed with high heat and loses a lot of the natural goodness of the food.

I feed raw, but when I travel with the dogs or when my BF has to feed the dogs, we use The Honest Kitchen foods - he's afraid of raw meat

The Honest Kitchen website has a lot of information on it, well worth taking a look at .

Hi Bobby. I'm a little confused about a couple of things. You mention that Rocky is hungry all the time and has trouble gaining weight, but then you ask for recommendations for low-fat kibble. Has your vet told you he has trouble digesting fats, specifically? Did he or she run any blood tests? There are specific medical conditions that can cause some of the symptoms you describe.

Did your dog get better during the course of Panacur Plus?

I can't address the raw diet, but are you absolutely sure you were doing it correctly? There are a lot of resources here on this site. There are how-to articles, and also a number of old threads that explain the right way to do a raw diet.

I will try to address the kibble questions, since I do feed it (along with other things), and I also have a dog that seems to have a sensitive digestive tract but has not been diagnosed with any particular conditions. Interestingly, he got less sensitive as he got older, or maybe I just learned through trial and error what worked and what didn't. I am reluctant to recommend specific brands, as what works for one dog may not work for another. However, I do recommend doing your research and choosing a brand that uses only the highest quality ingredients. The site I've linked here would be a good place to start to learn about what goes into dry kibble and what are considered quality ingredients. They give comprehensive reviews of many brands, and go into in-depth explanations of each ingredient.

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/

Wow, thanks, Cheri, that's exactly the site I meant.
And thanks, Kelly, good tip! Hope I'll find this here. Though I'll continue with raw food, sometimes it would be less tedious to have some prepared healthy food.

Rocky always seems hungry or just has a high prey drive for food.

After he got sick and had GI (gastrointestinal infection) he was very skinny. I fed him with kibble and little by little he got better. But every time I would add more food he would get soft stool or diarrhea
After a while I switched to raw diet, giving him chicken quarts with skin then started to add gizzards and some liver. Rocky starts out ok and then after a while he gets diarrhea. I took him to the vet and the vet did a Fecal test and Superchem CBC. I told my vet I was feeding a raw diet, which he was ok with (his other doctor in the office went nuts on me). The results came back good, the vet said rocky might be allergic to some type of food and recommended Science Diet Single Formula. When I told the vet that I was feeding rocky with chicken quarts and some gizzards the vet said that rocky might not digest fat very well and prescribed PancrePlus to see how it goes. I then started to feed rocky with chicken breast and chicken backs, cutting out all the skin from backs. I read about satin balls for gaining weight, which he did well on and when I stopped giving him satin balls 2 days later he had bad diarrhea with blood. I know I'm not knowledgeable enough about raw diet and decided to switch back to kibbles. I still give PancrePlus before every meal.

Rocky seems better now, less eye gunk, fur less oily, stool is firm but larger quantity. I'm not sure if its PancrePlus or kibble with chicken backs.