Diet Issues

Hello again,

Lola seems to be having a rough time here recently with her new food. We gradually switched her over from Nutro to Evo Red Meat small bites about a month ago. She has never seemed super thrilled about it but she really wasn't with the Nutro either. She gets 1 cup a day split into two meals along with a tsp for Missing link made into a treat with breakfast. At first she would eat all of the food, sometimes at the end of the day there would still be a bit of kibble left over but nothing noticeable. In the past week or so though she has seemed to leave more and more left over, like today for example she has probably only eaten a 1/4 of a cup since 7 am this morning. So now I am getting a bit worried. Her poop is normal, a little smaller than before but I am assuming this is due to eating less. She drinks just as much as she always has and as far as her activity she is as goofy as ever. Also about a week ago I was cleaning her ears and found what I believe to be yeast, it is brownish in color and smells like straight up butt. After a little research I found that this could be caused by an allergy from the food. So I guess now we are starting the viscous cycle to find a food that she can handle. Basically I am looking for some advice. I have TOTW samples in the mail, along with a couple other kibbles. I am starting to research just making food for her but before I get into doing that I need atleast 2-3 weeks of planning and learning what I need to give her to keep her healthy.

So to summarize

-- She was on Nutro, switched to Evo
-- She weighed 19.6 lbs before, now she is at 19 lbs flat
-- She has some wicked gas now
-- She seems to have an ear infection (I just picked up a bottle of Zymox Otic w/ Hydrocortisone to treat this)
-- We have our first Vet appointment with our new vet in 2 weeks, Long story but we had her at Banfield and found a new vet.

I really felt bad for her today so I gave her some canned pumpkin and plan on giving her some meat as soon as it thaws for dinner.

Should I try to push up the vet appointment? What would the right route be to figure out what is bothering her and what wont?

Hi! I dont know if this helps but I feed Phoebe Natures Variety Prairie. She seems to love it. It took me about 6 month to get her on a healthy food that she likes. I switch between the beef and chicken flavor. The specialty food store I got hers at gave me a few little sample bags for her to try before I spent all the $ on the food. Its very healthy and all natural. No corn, by broducts or any other things not good for their tummies. You can check out their website if you wish its www.naturesvariety.com hopefully that will help

Evo is a good food, though 1/2 cup twice a day seems like a lot for a pug. The recommendations on the bags are always too much. Penny is on TOTW now (we alternate with Orijen) and she gets 1/8 cup twice a day. She's a big-boned girl and weighs right around 22 lbs, and she has a slim and girlish figure. She gets pumpkin and yogurt with each meal and salmon oil with breakfast. She gets ear infections every time she eats wheat, and I would bet that Lola has a food allergy of some sort. I am not an expert, and we have some incredibly knowledgeable folk on here. I do have to say that I have not been very impressed with most vets' nutritional knowledge, and am really not impressed with the food they sell. I am a grain-free person, and Penny does very well with it.

Well thank you, that makes me feel a little better knowing I might just be over feeding. I have been trying to search for information on homemade feeding and Raw diets but I haven't found that much other than forums posts.

I haven't tried the Evo Red Meat, because I see too many dogs with beef allergies so I never use it. I always feed no grain if I'm feeding kibble--but my own dogs are raw fed. For kibbles I like, Orijen and Acana (same company but Acana is lower in protein), Natural Balance LID (limited ingredient diet), Wellness Core and Nature's Variety Instint rabbit. I usually use a fish based kibble (NV Instinct being the exception) and rarely have issues with my fosters.

There's many of us who do feed raw and can give you some help with that. I have a house full of highly allergic dogs so I'm very careful about what I feed and to whom.

So far I have found that I should start with a uncommon protein source and add on it as I see positive changes. So starting with either Duck, Pork, Rabbit, Venison or Turkey would be a good idea? I have also read that people use ground bones in the food. Now I work as a meat cutter, and today after I finished off my daily lamb and pork cutting I thought about the dust left over from the band saw. The leftovers are a mix of meat and bone dust that I would think would be great, would this work as a meat source, obviously not the main source but in addition to.


This is what I am talking about, it has the consistency of play doh, there are no bones left, just a mush.



Now what you see there has a little beef mixed in as well but I would of course take out what I would be buying before the beef gets run through the machine. I know that we dump this stuff into our rendering cans that get bought by a company that turns it into make-up and dog food but that doesn't really mean that it is good.

Also with Raw how do you tell how much to give your pup? One site said 1-1.5% of your dogs weight per day. That would be around 4 oz a day, which does not seem like enough or is my math just off?

I feed my dogs between 2.5 and 4 ozs per meal depending on energy, age, metabolism and weight. I feed twice a day. My old guy, Tank, get 2 to 2.5 ozs per meal since he can look at the fridge and gain weight (he's also got the metabolism of a rock). Hazel is busy as a stinking bumblebee and she gets 3 to 4 ozs a meal. My shih tzu who isn't particularly busy, but is fighting geriatric wasting, gets the same amount as Hazel.

I can't speak to the residue from your work (although I'm incredibly envious that you have that job--BOY could I use a friend like you). I don't know enough about the bone to meat ratio to say. Hopefully, Hilary (Pugpillow) will chime in. She might be able to answer your question. Do check out her post about How and Why I Feed Raw--which I think she just posted here. She has a great recipe for homemade raw that I've used for years with some modifications due to the specific health issues my crew has.

ETA: Damn. Hilary hasn't posted it on PA. If you're a member of PugVillage, I think she has posted it there. It's well worth reading and printing off.

I'm a huge supporter of a raw diet. However, I don't make my own - I don't have the time to do it with 11 (12 at the moment) pets (only 2 dogs, the rest are cats). I buy prepared raw for the dogs and use Honest Kitchen dehydrated raw for the cats. I always alternate between brands (Primal, Nature's Variety and Stella and Chewey's) and change protein sources every week. I also add pumpkin, plain non-fat yogurt and Missing Link. This has been a really successful diet for my pugs - I rarely have allergy issues (and when I do, it is usually from pesticides on grass in parks). I haven't had an ear infection around here in ages and they eat with gusto and maintain a great weight.

I'm a pet sitter and I've seen MANY dogs turn their health issues around with a switch to raw. It is not for everyone - nothing is good for EVERY dog - but I love feeding raw.

Look into Honest Kitchen Preference which has everything but the protein in the formula. With your resources, that might be an excellent place to start.

northernwitch wrote:
I can't speak to the residue from your work (although I'm incredibly envious that you have that job--BOY could I use a friend like you). I don't know enough about the bone to meat ratio to say. Hopefully, Hilary (Pugpillow) will chime in. She might be able to answer your question. Do check out her post about How and Why I Feed Raw--which I think she just posted here. She has a great recipe for homemade raw that I've used for years with some modifications due to the specific health issues my crew has.

ETA: Damn. Hilary hasn't posted it on PA. If you're a member of PugVillage, I think she has posted it there. It's well worth reading and printing off.

Yes I did. I wouldn't have missed posting on my favourite forum . Amanda kindly replaced the old post with this one so you can find it at: http://www.pugauthority.com/medical-wellbeing-by-topic-f2/raw-diet-t1660.htm

You should also check out: http://www.pugauthority.com/medical-wellbeing-by-topic-f2/food-allergies-and-elimination-diets-t5123.htm

And I would suggest joining/reading the Yahoo forum http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/?yguid=242050548 and its sister forum: http://www.rawlearning.com/

The picture you showed looks a lot like the ground chicken bones I get from the abattoir as the basis of my Breakfast Slop. You can judge if you are feeding too much bone by looking at the stools. If they are white after a couple of hours (i.e. in your yard), too much calcium so cut back on the bone.

I give about 3 oz. of Breakfast Slop and about a small palm-full of meat/poultry/fish at dinner. But I also don't really treat very much - maybe some banana to balance betsy's electrolytes (she's on diuretics) or a tiny bit of liver every couple of days. But I adjust if they gain or lose weight, which you can judge by the chart I referenced in one of the write-ups. Each pug's requirements will be different. I give Gooey quite a lot even though he's not really mobile because he seems to metabolize food more quickly and I give Denver very small portions although he's the most active and gets regular walks, because he's a porker by nature and is sometimes successful in stealing food from Farnsworth.

Seriously, thank you all for helping me with this. Today my wife and I made a run to a local doggie daycare, Camp Woof here in Georgia. After talking to the owner and some of the employees we picked up a box of Honest Kitchen, canned tripe, and some bully sticks. Lola did not touch her kibble yesterday at all, I ended up feeding her some Chicken mixed with pumpkin. I explained everything to the employees, at first they were saying mix in the kibble but after telling them that she wont eat it they just said make the switch. For tonight we gave her another half of a chicken breast mixed with the half cup on Honest kitchen. We REALLY should have just gave her 1/4 cup then gave her another 1/4 cup about an hour later. She barfed about an hour after eating the food. I really think it was just from eating so fast because she ate what she tossed up before we could clean it and since then shes been just fine.

It is really crazy that she was doing so well on Nutro and then when we switch to better food her stomach gets all picky. The owner of Camp Woof said that it could possible be caused by the huge amount of protein in the Evo Red meat. So for now we will only be doing the HK with half of a cooked Chicken breast a day. If this goes well after her vet appointment we will start introducing different proteins into her diet.

Thank you for posting the recipe by the way, I have actually read your post about 3-4 times now, I usually have to read something a dozen times to digest it all, same goes for being told things so my wife says..

Innova EVO is a really good food, but not all foods agree with all dogs. My Sammy did well on the EVO poultry formula, but got very gassy on the red meat version. I usually feed him Natural Balance (their original one) and sometimes switch off with the original poultry formula EVO.

But with the ear stuff going on, it does sound like you've got some allergy stuff going on, so either a limited-ingredient commercial diet or a raw diet in which you can manipulate it as needed would probably be a good idea.