Can anyone help with a dog with a possible food allergy?

[ShrekDawg]

I'm only stepping into this because you tagged me. Dog food is such a sticky issue because everyone wants what's best for their dogs. What I have learned over the past 2 years about dog food, ingredients, and nutritional DCM makes me never want to feed a food that doesn't follow WSAVA guidelines. Those that do follow them do long term feeding trials on their foods. Many companies don't. Many companies don't even have a nutritional vet on staff.

I used to feed TOTW. Than I watched food companies replace ingredients with cheaper ingredients like peas, and beans so they all could get on the grain free bandwagon. My dogs got diarrhea on foods with peas in them. They got anal gland abscesses on TOTW. Diamond gave my dogs constant digestive upset. I swore it was the corn. Other brands were way too rich with high fat and protein. It just made my head spin looking for the best for my dogs.

2 years ago I switched to Purina pro plan and I haven't looked back. All 6 of my dogs are thriving on it. No throwing up, no gas, no loose stools. They have healthy coats, and are very active. I raised 2 pups on plain old Puppy chow, and I never seen such healthy looking dogs.

My oldest dog recently developed a heart problem. The first question from my vet was to ask if I fed grain free. It's enough of a risk that I'm not taking that risk anymore.

My brother fed his dogs a vegan diet for years and they lived long lives. I'm not buying into the whole dogs need meat. Dogs need a properly balanced diet formulated and tested.

Dogs can take up to 3 months to switch to a different food. Especially if you are going from grain free to grains. Mine all switched over without problems.

Feet licking is often from a contact allergy. Try washing your dogs paws when he comes in. Just dip them in a bucket of water. See if that helps.

Have you changed your flooring recently? Are you using different cleaners or laundry soap?

The limping I would get looked at. Lymes comes to mind as we have it bad here in Wisconsin. Bone cancers too, especially with excessive licking, which they can do because of pain. Licking also releases endorphins, so some dogs do it to feel better. One of mine will lick the couch wet if we let her. She enjoys licking.

Sorry for the long post. I'm definitely not looking to debate anyone, or offend everyone. These are just my experiences, and what I decided to do. We all gotta do what feel is best.

Sorry I keep tagging you everywhere wise words as always though

I really like Purina! I switched the cat to it this year because it was on sale at the grocery store one day and I thought I’d try it. She LOVED it! And even the non sale price was way cheaper than the food I was feeding. I was feeding Wellness CORE and also the 4Health grain free and another store brand grain free, etc. I switched a lot and she never really liked any of them or did very well at all and was always throwing up (even when she’d be on one for a while) but not with this. And it’s like MUCH cheaper

She eats the Sensitive Skin & Stomach formula.

I used to be so anti Purina/big brand but then I realized it was way cheaper and lots of animals do great on it.

Plus that FB group you told me about a while ago helped. I haven’t read most of the actual science pages yet but did read some and seen all the dogs switch from foods I used to feed to Purina and thrive.

I forget the name of the group right now but can look it up.

Anyway, wise words as always hah

 

[ShrekDawg]

I know this is off topic, but I just want to leave it here for consideration.

I'm open to seeing hard data that somehow links grain free dog food to DCM. I don't have a horse in the grain free vs grain debate, but I am extremely suspicious that food was zoomed in on so quickly.

Breed predisposition was the very first thing that came to mind when I heard about all of this, and it is still my leading theory.

It also frustrates me to no end how grossly overlooked Chagas disease is in the US. I've lost two dogs to Chagas, both of whom died of sudden heart failure (congestive heart failure, arrhythmia, and DCM are all common outcomes of Chagas). It took YEARS to get that diagnosis because almost no one is testing for it. I had to DEMAND the testing be done because my vet refused to believe me. The two dogs that died were littermates- I still had the mother and was able to convince the owners of the two surviving littermates to let me test. Positive tests came back on all. I'm still angry about it.

I think in the studies they accounted for breed predisposition and the cases were still higher than normal or found to be connected, even with predisposition, or something like that. I’ve also seen a lot of dogs that were eating the brand in question go back to being totally normal when switching to one of the recommended brands. I know that’s a bit anecdotal but still. There is an excellent Facebook group that has all sorts of good articles and stuff on it.

 

[RainbowHen]

Dogs will lick and chew at areas that are painful. Has he been tested for Lyme's disease? My dog has Lyme's and whenever she has a flare up she licks at her painful areas

 

[ShrekDawg]

These are the two groups. Lots of science in the second one for those who wanted it. @clickchicks ???

https://www.facebook.com/groups/354686344666772/?ref=share

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TaurineDCM/?ref=share

 

[Halfpasthen]

I work with dogs every day and have for over a decade. What I have learned is that there is no such thing as a best dog food. There is only the "best" for your dog. All dogs are different. All have different lifestyles and different needs.
Frankly I don't trust commerical dog foods.
Enough recalls, horrible side effects, etc. To put me off of that. Not to mention kibble is a relatively new invention designed for customer convenience and nothing else. I feed my dog what I eat along with a raw food diet (whole prey model). I feed real food to my mongrel and he enjoys it just like I do.
I personally don't subscribe to the idea that it's good to feed a dog the same thing day in and day out for their entire lives. We are bound to get something wrong.
To me a balanced diet is varied and changing.
Lots of opinions on the matter. Lots of room for interpretation. My advice is trail and error until you find what works.

Look into cleaning supplies and other things that you use regularly around your house as dogs seem to be awfully sensitive to that sort of stuff.
I really hope your pup gets to feeling better!

Hahaha for what it's worth I tried proplan and it gave my dogs the worse gas of their lives. But others do great on it. Just like people we all thrive on something different lol.

 

[clickchicks]

@KDOGG331
Thanks for the links, I'll look into them.

I hear you, but consider this: the FDA report shows that there were 7 cases of DCM reported to the FDA from the years of 2014-2017. More than 7 dogs died of DCM between those years, of that I would bet my life. So why suddenly the spike in reports? Why were others not reporting sooner?

You have brands like Fromm on their list, which has been producing dry dog food since the 50s, but only suddenly, in the year 2018, started causing DCM?

There's more going on here than "BEG" foods causing issues. Unless they can produce hard evidence to the contrary, of course.

I'd love to see them doing follow up testing for diseases like Chagas, especially on any cases that originated in the south.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

@KDOGG331
Thanks for the links, I'll look into them.

I hear you, but consider this: the FDA report shows that there were 7 cases of DCM reported to the FDA from the years of 2014-2017. More than 7 dogs died of DCM between those years, of that I would bet my life. So why suddenly the spike in reports? Why were others not reporting sooner?

You have brands like Fromm on their list, which has been producing dry dog food since the 50s, but only suddenly, in the year 2018, started causing DCM?

There's more going on here than "BEG" foods causing issues. Unless they can produce hard evidence to the contrary, of course.

I'd love to see them doing follow up testing for diseases like Chagas, especially on any cases that originated in the south.

I was a chronic watcher of dog food ingredients. It was a weird hobby of mine. Around 2017 in many brands things like peas, beans, and other pulse ingredients were replacing other ingredients. They were also climbing higher up on the ingredient list, and companies started to split ingredients. They would have peas, pea flour, and pea protein, that type of stuff. After the whole DCM came to light companies first denied the connection, than they slowly started to remove some of those ingredients. It may be why it suddenly isn't as prevalent again. Just again my observations, and my conclusions on the issue.

 

[ShrekDawg]

@KDOGG331
Thanks for the links, I'll look into them.

I hear you, but consider this: the FDA report shows that there were 7 cases of DCM reported to the FDA from the years of 2014-2017. More than 7 dogs died of DCM between those years, of that I would bet my life. So why suddenly the spike in reports? Why were others not reporting sooner?

You have brands like Fromm on their list, which has been producing dry dog food since the 50s, but only suddenly, in the year 2018, started causing DCM?

There's more going on here than "BEG" foods causing issues. Unless they can produce hard evidence to the contrary, of course.

I'd love to see them doing follow up testing for diseases like Chagas, especially on any cases that originated in the south.

Yeah, I’m not really sure although I have noticed that a lot of companies seem to have changed their formulas in the last few years or maybe like 5 or so. I remember I switched my dog’s food a lot because a previously good food would suddenly be filled with fillers, etc. but because of the name recognition they were Still selling tons of it and could get away with it. Not sure if that’s true for all of them but have seen it a lot.

 

[ShrekDawg]

I was a chronic watcher of dog food ingredients. It was a weird hobby of mine. Around 2017 in many brands things like peas, beans, and other pulse ingredients were replacing other ingredients. They were also climbing higher up on the ingredient list, and companies started to split ingredients. They would have peas, pea flour, and pea protein, that type of stuff. After the whole DCM came to light companies first denied the connection, than they slowly started to remove some of those ingredients. It may be why it suddenly isn't as prevalent again. Just again my observations, and my conclusions on the issue.

This is a very good point. I had noticed the same thing. And even foods that I had fed back in say like 2014-2015, when I tried to go back to them several years later around 2017-2018 ish, Gator would no longer eat them and when I looked at the ingredients, sure enough, they had changed. Even ones he used to love, he wouldn’t eat. Of course, he was also sick by then so I’m sure that contributed some but the formulation was definitely different and one food in particular that I used to think was great, the new ingredients and/or order of the ingredients, I no longer thought was anything great.

 

[clickchicks]

I was a chronic watcher of dog food ingredients. It was a weird hobby of mine. Around 2017 in many brands things like peas, beans, and other pulse ingredients were replacing other ingredients. They were also climbing higher up on the ingredient list, and companies started to split ingredients. They would have peas, pea flour, and pea protein, that type of stuff. After the whole DCM came to light companies first denied the connection, than they slowly started to remove some of those ingredients. It may be why it suddenly isn't as prevalent again. Just again my observations, and my conclusions on the issue.

Certainly could be the legumes. I'm interested to see what further testing brings up. I'm only aware of one study done thus far. It was a short (90 day) trial that fed a diet around 50% lentils but didn't produce any noticeable difference in taurine or amino acid levels compared to the control.

That doesn't mean they couldn't cause other issues, though.

Link to the abstract of that study.