I’ll be writing Beckie’s journal here, in case it might help someone else.
Ever since she was a puppy, the first day I got her, Beckie has always had gastric problems, discomfort, diarrhea, vomiting and even pain from eating. When she was a puppy, she would cry after eating certain brands of food. After a while she stopped and I thought she had overgrown her allergies, but my guess is she just got tougher and tolerated the pain more, but it still remained.
She’s had multiple gastritis episodes and gone through various treatments at the vet. She was even found having chronic cholestasis on top of the gastritis last time (in may 2020). She also has problems with her anal glands and is licking her behind multiple times a day, sometimes causing painful irritation. Her glands have to be emptied regularly, sometimes multiples times a month. She has acid reflux.
With all that, she is very stoic, like most dogs, and looks like a happy dog most of the time, except when it all degenerates and she ends up at the vet.
I’ve tried dozens of types of food : with grains, without grains, hypoallergenic, gastro specific foods, etc. Some were from the vet, some from the best pet food manufacturers I could find.
Nothing has worked. I have seen her suffer enough and want a better life for her. So even though my vet, like most vets, is discouraging me from giving her raw food, I have decided to try it. It is the only food I haven’t consistently tried and I owe it to her to make the necessary effort to see if it will improve her quality of life.
Allergies have often been discussed with the vet, but all they have to offer is their low quality kibble that costs an arm and a leg and still make her ill.
My strategy : feeding 1 single ingredient (animal protein) at a time, for a period of 14 days (vet recommendation) if she does well on it. If not, as soon as I am sure she reacts, I stop.
The goal is to find at least 3 protein she tolerates well, to rotate them and give her the benefits of a varied and complete diet. The recommended ingredients in a raw meal is : 80% meat, 10% organs and 10% bones (in pre-made, the bones are crushed).
Once we have three proteins, I will test « dinners » from a few companies. Dinners are the same as raw meals except they are composed of 70% meat, 10% offals, 10% bones and 10% fruits and vegetables. These will be more touchy to test, because if there is a reaction, I won’t know to what so I will just discard the specific dinner completely.
So, after much research, I found 2 companies that made single protein pre-made raw. One is more complete because it also has beef green tripe (I had to take a chance with that but she does well on it). It’s called Bold raw and is the one that I’m thinking she will be on once we’re done testing.
The other one is called Big Country raw and since it doesn’t have beef green tripe, you need to add oils and supplements to it. I will be my second choice, and be used to make more variety (and save a bit of money since it’s cheaper).
Ever since she was a puppy, the first day I got her, Beckie has always had gastric problems, discomfort, diarrhea, vomiting and even pain from eating. When she was a puppy, she would cry after eating certain brands of food. After a while she stopped and I thought she had overgrown her allergies, but my guess is she just got tougher and tolerated the pain more, but it still remained.
She’s had multiple gastritis episodes and gone through various treatments at the vet. She was even found having chronic cholestasis on top of the gastritis last time (in may 2020). She also has problems with her anal glands and is licking her behind multiple times a day, sometimes causing painful irritation. Her glands have to be emptied regularly, sometimes multiples times a month. She has acid reflux.
With all that, she is very stoic, like most dogs, and looks like a happy dog most of the time, except when it all degenerates and she ends up at the vet.
I’ve tried dozens of types of food : with grains, without grains, hypoallergenic, gastro specific foods, etc. Some were from the vet, some from the best pet food manufacturers I could find.
Nothing has worked. I have seen her suffer enough and want a better life for her. So even though my vet, like most vets, is discouraging me from giving her raw food, I have decided to try it. It is the only food I haven’t consistently tried and I owe it to her to make the necessary effort to see if it will improve her quality of life.
Allergies have often been discussed with the vet, but all they have to offer is their low quality kibble that costs an arm and a leg and still make her ill.
My strategy : feeding 1 single ingredient (animal protein) at a time, for a period of 14 days (vet recommendation) if she does well on it. If not, as soon as I am sure she reacts, I stop.
The goal is to find at least 3 protein she tolerates well, to rotate them and give her the benefits of a varied and complete diet. The recommended ingredients in a raw meal is : 80% meat, 10% organs and 10% bones (in pre-made, the bones are crushed).
Once we have three proteins, I will test « dinners » from a few companies. Dinners are the same as raw meals except they are composed of 70% meat, 10% offals, 10% bones and 10% fruits and vegetables. These will be more touchy to test, because if there is a reaction, I won’t know to what so I will just discard the specific dinner completely.
So, after much research, I found 2 companies that made single protein pre-made raw. One is more complete because it also has beef green tripe (I had to take a chance with that but she does well on it). It’s called Bold raw and is the one that I’m thinking she will be on once we’re done testing.
The other one is called Big Country raw and since it doesn’t have beef green tripe, you need to add oils and supplements to it. I will be my second choice, and be used to make more variety (and save a bit of money since it’s cheaper).