Food suggestions?

[Tippsy'smom]

I took Jazz to the vet AGAIN for another ear infection(he's had off and on ear infections since he was about 10 months old), this time to a new vet to get another opinion(this makes the 4th vet he's seen), and the vet suggested we try changing his food to see if it's causing the problem(none of the other vets even mentioned this to us!). So, can anyone suggest foods that are venison, duck, bison, turkey, or fish based?

[chica_2626]

I just put J.D. on this food this weekend to try and improve his coat and overall health and avoid fillers and such. It wasn't outrageously expensive but obviously pricier than like IAMs or Eukanuba, etc.

http://www.nutro.com/natural-dog-food/n ... otato.aspx

[meska]

I can give you experience with our Chow now 6years old. Please note that her health is likely to be slightly worse as she comes from a smaller gene pool (300-400 Chows born per year in the region). Since a young age she had chronic ear infections, scratching and hot spots. A blood allergy test came back she was allergic to meat so was put on a fish diet for 6months when about 3years old. One day I noticed a red lump at the back of her throat, an immediate trip to the non-regular vet said to use some drugs and see what happens for a few weeks. We had a gut feeling this was wrong so went to a vet hospital who operated the next day, it was a benign tumour. Later on talking with her regular vet he suggested it was an allergy tumour which links with the fish diet (another later blood allergy test confirmed severe sea and fresh water fish allergies - canine blood allergy tests for food we are told should be used as guides due to reliability issues of the results).

She was moved on to Royal Canin Hypoallergic dry food (soaked) which worked for 1-2years however the allergies started to come back again when she was around 4-5years old.

Both cruciate ligaments were torn one of which later caused severe arthritis (non-TPLO) and put on NSAIDs (100mg per day) later supplemented with Cortaflex. After research about kidney problems and the drugs as they overload the kidneys and liver not including actually making the issue worse, we took the recommendation to use Linseed oil (natural anti-inflammatory) taking 6weeks to activate in her system and then slowly remove the NSAIDs over the course of a few weeks.

Shortly after (5years old) we moved her on to a diet of rice, vegetables (carrots, sweet potato, squash, pumpkin) and grains along with 5ml Cortaflex and 10ml Linseed per day later adding 5ml Inflamex. Occasional hard goats cheese as treats and boiled chicken breast Fri-Sun (both seem to have the least allergens) keeps her weight low but constant as recommended by the vet. Combined with exact and consistent exercise twice per day she is a different dog and you cannot easily tell she has severe arthritis. The ear infections are non-existent, however she is also severely allergic to textiles and mould (via another allergy test) and this causes a lot of streaming in the eyes, therefore wood and tile floors work very well.

I have just had Mr Cusick design a custom diet. This is all via research (including sites in Hong Kong), testing and experience. Some people state the Chow is vegetarian or relatively close to it, I can confirm that from our personal experience this appears to be true. The key is experience in what works for you and your dog. Do everything absolutely consistently for up to one to two months otherwise you may be introducing an unknown element. I suggest a balance, we kept allergens in her diet however with age, by accident or design, reduced the allergens she was exposed to, therefore do take in to account the dogs age.

[Tippsy'smom]

Well, right now, we're trying TOTW (duck formula). And so far, Jazz LOVES it! Over the next month we'll see how he does on it after we get him switched over to it souly.

[Shane]

You can try Taste of the Wild. The ingredient list is very good and I have tried it and my dogs seems to like it. Also it is sold at a very reasonable price.

http://www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com/pr ... e_formula/

[Tippsy'smom]

That's actually what we're feeding him now. He LOVES it. He's actually started picking the pieces of this food out of the old(in the process of changing).

[Shane]

Or okay! Didn't saw that post. However, i tried my 2 on it and have no complaints about it.

[Tippsy'smom]

That's good to hear. I'm really hoping he does well on it. I started to try to change my female mix over too, but she got really sick, so we're gonna keep her on what she's on because she's thriving on it. But I have high hopes for Jazz.