Alice, thank you very much. I could probably do the diet as you described after I invested in a freezer. Yes, Merrick does have some grain but no corn and the grains are pretty far (comparatively speaking) down the ingredient list. I'm going to do the cookie sheet thing, try to get some more time between the exercise and feeding (hard to do because of schedules), take the short walk after eating. Hopefully this combination will solve the problem. If not, the next step would be to check out the innova food and if all else fails, the natural diet with the freezer purchase.

As for the rawhide bone, my dogs get very little rawhide, I mainly use it as a lure to encourage the running in the yard. My apples are gone from the tree and I tried to buy a bag of small ones at the store but ripe apples just don't hold up and are destroyed too quickly. I've go 1/2 acre fenced and without encouragement the dobe is more inclined to be dignified and lay down on the high spot and watch the pup.

I believe that the natural diet is probably better for my dogs but as I said before my experience with it wasn't the greatest so I wound up feeding kibble again.

I have checked out the dehydrated food on this web site and going to that for the dobe is an option but EXPENSIVE. Feeding both the dogs that food would break the bank. The merrick is 2.5 to 3 times the cost of Purina and thats ok, its a good kibble (I realize that its not as good as a natural diet) but the dehydrated stuff by my quick calculations is 3 times more than the Merrick or other premimum kibbles. Don't really think I can do that.

Thanks for your advise, its appreciated.

 Quote:

I'm not trying to defend my choice of foods but because of all the kibbles I looked at Merrick seemed to have all the right stuff and none of the wrong. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Additionally it did have more of the good higher in the ingredient listing......The dog inhales her food, I'm guessing its partly because she was starved and partly because she just likes to eat but gulping the food is an understatement. I could go to 3 feedings but volume wise she isn't getting all that much now at each feeding. She won't be happy with less <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> .....

*** Edited to say that I was typing while you were posting, Glenn...... so it comes off as belaboring a few points on my part. Sorry!

I had seen (in authoritative publications) the info about not raising the bowl because of bloat factors, and in fact posted it here when it was published. Now I agree with everyone else here who makes a correlation between the two (bloat and intestinal gas), and I wouldn't raise the bowl. I don't, because of having a deep-chested breed (GSD). My carelessness in posting.

The food: I didn't imply at all that Merrick was one of the worst kibbles. I was saying that a lot of grain (and it has a lot of grain; check your label because I don't know which recipe you have) is gas-producing in a gassy animal.......... so I'd stop feeding grains. Period.

I stress that I'd switch to raw, or at least a low- (best no-) grain food.

Alice is right about the rawhide and the violent post-meal games, and especially about the inhaling food.

Inhaling food gulps in air. This equals gas, just as gas-producing food ingredients do.

Smaller meals! Whether she's unhappy or not, you're giving the same overall amount.

Spreading out the food is simply one way to slow the gulping. All ways to slow her eating are worthwhile.

And yes: you've done X-Rays, but I too would be back at the vet's if these changes didn't produce marked improvement. I had a dog whose first symptom of the pancreatic cancer that caused her death was gas and diarrhea, and this was two months after a complete annual workup.

Not to scare you (not at all, because there are certainly gassy dogs who do not have any life-threatening illness), but to remind you that worming once and a set of X-Rays are a good but not complete check.

 Quote:

.....Yes, Merrick does have some grain but no corn and the grains are pretty far (comparatively speaking) down the ingredient list. .....

On one Merrick recipe I read, three separate grains were pretty far down the list, but if you considered them as one ingredient (and I do), they would have been in second place and close to first.

That's kind of a tricky thing about ingredients labels -- like on sweet kids' stuff, where three kinds of sugar added together make sugar the number one ingredient.

Give THIS a shot.(costs a bit but a little goes a long way) It has helped my boy quite a bit. I am switching to Natures Variety kibble as we speak to see if it is better then Merrick for him. I am honestly thinking of trying the raw premade stuff (searching for a good brand) and might just end up switching entirely to that. I just dont have the time or confidence in mixing the proper ratios to do the raw myself...

 Quote:

Give THIS a shot.(costs a bit but a little goes a long way) It has helped my boy quite a bit. I am switching to Natures Variety kibble as we speak to see if it is better then Merrick for him. I am honestly thinking of trying the raw premade stuff (searching for a good brand) and might just end up switching entirely to that. I just dont have the time or confidence in mixing the proper ratios to do the raw myself...

THK is indeed a terrific food, and not a kibble. Best commercial food (IMO) there is.
http://www.leerburg.com/honestkitchen.htm

A couple of members here use frozen raw (which I wasn't including in the term "commercial food" !), so maybe they'll post. I've heard about Oma's Pride, I think on this forum.

As I'm working on a newsletter the dobie had another attack so.................I'm going to switch to something without grains and still do the other things but we both need to put this problem behind us.

One thought that came to mind is to just feed the Merrick canned food. No grains, except "whole barley" so I guess there are some grain after all. Starting with some of the tips on the web board there are some choices out there, EVO from Innova is grain free, Natures Variety is grain free, and "Barking at the moon" is another choice. Anyway there is a store locally that has a good selection of these types of foods so I'm going over there to check it out.

I am a little concerned with the super high protein level of these foods and I'm really not sure why. I believe it is from something I read in the past that said too high a protein food for dogs was bad or perhaps someone in the past told me it and I believed it. Don't know.

If someone has an oppinion about any of these foods let me know, I'll check the board before I leave.

thanks

I wish I could afford to keep him on HK Connie but he was going thru a Porsche payment a month in HK food. <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I love him but at that rate we would both be in a cardboard box <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

 Quote:

 Quote:

Give THIS a shot.(costs a bit but a little goes a long way) It has helped my boy quite a bit. I am switching to Natures Variety kibble as we speak to see if it is better then Merrick for him. I am honestly thinking of trying the raw premade stuff (searching for a good brand) and might just end up switching entirely to that. I just dont have the time or confidence in mixing the proper ratios to do the raw myself...

THK is indeed a terrific food, and not a kibble. Best commercial food (IMO) there is.
http://www.leerburg.com/honestkitchen.htm

A couple of members here use frozen raw (which I wasn't including in the term "commercial food" !), so maybe they'll post. I've heard about Oma's Pride, I think on this forum.

Connie, she had actually been wormed 4 times counting the worming at animal control. Somehow I was misunderstood about the exercise (not violent games) when I posted. The dogs do absolutely nothing after they eat except the strain of finding the best place to nap. All activity happens prior to feeding, I am going to go for a short and mild walk after feeding to see if that helps.

One thing that is frustrating for me right now is that I'm now going to change several things which makes it very difficult to know what solved the problem. In the end I guess it doesn't matter the only thing that matters is that she doesn't suffer the pains and to a lesser (but equally important)extent I can give the carpet cleaner a rest.

 Quote:

Connie, she had actually been wormed 4 times counting the worming at animal control. Somehow I was misunderstood about the exercise (not violent games) when I posted. The dogs do absolutely nothing after they eat except the strain of finding the best place to nap. All activity happens prior to feeding, I am going to go for a short and mild walk after feeding to see if that helps.

One thing that is frustrating for me right now is that I'm now going to change several things which makes it very difficult to know what solved the problem. In the end I guess it doesn't matter the only thing that matters is that she doesn't suffer the pains and to a lesser (but equally important)extent I can give the carpet cleaner a rest.

I am so sympathetic! I have a nature that makes me want THE fix, not a zillion maybes.

The thing is, with pain and misery (like allergies and gas), I finally learned to use everything that helps even a little. THEN I can challenge the results later with a slight adding back of one of the things I may have removed, and watching for results.

Then at least I have done all I can......... and if something was unnecessary and a nuisance, I can find out by gradually re-introducing it after I have controlled the bad situation.

The food change......... there are many reasons besides gas for reducing grains in the canine diet. I'd think of that as just a good step, period, with the potential besides of reducing the gas.

I have an idea on getting your dog to slow down while eating.
Its going to sound a bit odd maybe, but it worked.

I once worked at a Horse Back Riding school. They had one horse that they wanted to slow down her eating, to do it they placed an object in her feed box (I think they used a rock, but they kept an eye on her while she eating to make sure she didn't try to grab the rock)it slowed the horse down because she had to eat around the object.
Maybe you could try an inverted tupperware bowl or something placed inside her regular feeding bowl, then add her food around it so that she can't gobble it all at once because the tupperware bowl will kind of force her to slow down because it will be in her way a bit.
The cookie sheet idea is good too, but for some reason I have visions of the kibble going all over the floor..but then again, that would slow her down too! lol