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So what's in the food?


Kiger

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I'm sure you all know the intimate details of Kato's digestive tract by now and how the raw food has cleared his little problem up. So what do you think it is about kibble that disagrees with him so much? His relatives all eat National dog food.
[b](INGREDIENTS: Poultry Meal, Fish Meal, Kibbled Corn, Pork Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Extruded Rice, Beet Pulp, Plain Dried Blood Meal, Sodium Bentonite, Corn Oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Cane Molasses, Feeding Oat Meal, Liver Digest, Flaxseed, Potassium Chloride, Vitamins and Minerals.)[/b]
Not the greatest stuff in the world, but they seem to do well on it. Maybe I should have been feeding him a cheaper kibble?? His breeder seems to think it's just the "weird" brands (Wellness, Canidae) I'm giving him that cause the problem. Somehow I doubt that.

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I am not to thrilled with those ingredients: corn, molasses, corn, digest? Ewww!

This is simply my opinion after listening to your issues. I think you have switched food too often. It can take up to a month for stools to equalize (for lack of a better word) after changing. Kato sounds a lot like my Mary. She just has softer stools than the other dogs. When you have 3 that eat the exact same thing every day you realize that they are each individuals. The boys have good firm stools regularly, Mary has consistent stools but they are just softer than the boys. She eats Solid Gold now and her stools are much better than they were on Wellness. I think you really need to pick a food, get down to the basics (no extras except for maybe a supplement like krugers) and maintain it for a good month, then see what happens. When you are adding sardines and all that other stuff you have no way of knowing what is causing the upset. It might not be the kibble but some of the other things you were adding to it. You might want to look into some Nzymes which is a digestive enzyme that would help him digest his food better.

That is JUST MY OPINION! I dont think feeding a cheaper food is the way to go. Although all that corn would plug him up pretty good :wink:

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[quote=Mary's Mama]I think you have switched food too often. It can take up to a month for stools to equalize (for lack of a better word) after changing.
[/quote]

He was on Canidae for 6 months and Wellness for 4. He never got better, and it varied from pancake batter to all out squirts. I had to switch from Canidae because he started eating his own poop. I tried yogurt and Prozyme and neither of them helped. He always strained so hard to go that he'd pee on his front legs. I thought that this was just some weird idiosyncracy of his until I switched to the raw and he didn't do it anymore. The dog was literally surprised when he didn't find pee on his legs the first time he went after the switch. They were good kibbles, but they just didn't agree with him.

Oh, and I guess they add all that sugar to National to make it palatible. With all that corn and molassas, it sounds more like horse feed!

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While I certainly would not advocate trying a less expensive/grocery store brand of food as an experiment, it is QUITE possible Kato would do just fine on one of them!
I have to admit to a level of frustation with the food issue, yes some of the dry kibbles out there are not considered a 'quality' food. Nonetheless, SOME dogs do extremely well on them anyway! I honestly get a bit tired of hearing that certain premium foods or a raw diet are the ONLY way to go.
Please don't anyone think I am speaking of anyone specifically, I am truly speaking in GENERAL terms.
Canidae is considered a premium food, it caused frequent soft almost mushy stools in all 3 of my dogs and they were on it for over a month. I found out from another list that many other dogs who had been fed Canidae also had very soft stools. So it is TOO RICH. Some of the premium or 'super' foods are just too rich for our dogs. Many do not need all the 'extra' that is in them. I don't care if the ingredients are 'all natural' either, natural substances can kill you just as quick and of course too much of a good thing is just that, too much.
Science Diet is considered garbage, it was very beneficial to Jesse and he THRIVED on it for a number of years.
Brittany is the kind of dog who has done pretty much the same no matter what food she eats. She was on Science Diet Lite for a number of years and also THRIVED.
I watch my dogs for little changes and cumulative changes, I NEVER saw any detriment in their health, fitness, activity level, etc while they were on Science Diet.
A very well respected local Belgian Sheepdog breeder has been feeding Wayne dry food for over 20 years. She has hometown champs, international champs, herding champs, performance titled dogs etc from her lines. Her dogs ON AVERAGE live to between 15-17 years of age, pretty darned good for Belgians. I would have considered Wayne if I had been able to get it locally.
Here's the ingredient list for Wayne: Ingredients: Poultry by product meal, ground corn, ground wheat, brown rice, poultry fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), potassium chloride, dicalcium phosphate, salt, brewers dried yeast, choline chloride, zinc proteinate, vitamin E supplement, ascorbic acid, zinc oxide, manganese proteinate, copper proteinate, extract of rosemary, manganous oxide, copper sulfate, vitamin A acetate, niacin supplement, calcium pantothenate, vitamin B12 supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin supplement, thiamine mononitrate, calcium iodate, biotin, sodium selenite, folic acid.

Sorry for the rant, dogs can and do survive and thrive on grocery store brands of food every day.
Flame suit on, fire away!

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Kiger - I apologize. I thought I remembered you changing foods more frequently than that, especially lately.

What other foods have you tried besides Wellness and Canidae? Are they the only ones available to you?

I hear that Eagle Pack is an excellent moderate food. If you are looking to find something for him that maybe isn't so rich (I do agree with Carol, the foods can be too rich) but still of good quality, Eagle may be a good alternative. (Have you ever read [url]www.greatdanelady.com?[/url], you could even send her an email, she is an excellent source for nutrition information)

What about Natures Variety? They offer dry, freeze-dried raw, and frozen raw. They have very nice ingredients and maybe you could use half raw and half kibble to cut down on costs?

Another great food that is not well known here is Go!. It is a canadian food but they are starting to sell in the states.

Are you not wanting to feed raw permanently? How do you feel about home cooking?

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[quote](INGREDIENTS: Poultry Meal, Fish Meal, Kibbled Corn, Pork Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Extruded Rice, Beet Pulp, Plain Dried Blood Meal, Sodium Bentonite, Corn Oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Cane Molasses, Feeding Oat Meal, Liver Digest, Flaxseed, Potassium Chloride, Vitamins and Minerals.) [/quote]

:o Where's the BEEF!!!

Are you sure this isn't really feed?

I got to go see a litter-mate a few weeks ago and he's on the Eagle Holistic, two other litter-mates & mom & dad have just recently switched from the Natural to the Holistic, and after seeing the difference after 3 weeks, I probably will soon be switching to the Holistic. Have to wait a little longer because of Rocket's frog incident.

Kiger - I recollect you saying something before about all the quality dog foods having one particular ingredient in common, that is probably your culprit if your not using that ingredient in your BARF diet.

:angel:

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I tried that Chicken Soup dog food but same thing again. That's why I was joking about corn - the one thing they all had in common was no corn! Myself, I think he would have done just as bad on the breeder's food. There must be something about kibble that does not agree with him - why else would he do so good on raw which is nothing but meat and veggies? And I agree with everyone else. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. My mom's dog just recently got switched over to Wellness and she's been eating Science Diet or Purina for 14 years.
I'm ordering Kato some Barfworld kangaroo patties. Think he'll like them? They sound just awful. :lol:

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