Wheat causing intestinal upset?

Dog Food Advisor Forums Dog Food Ingredients Wheat causing intestinal upset?

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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  • #10380 Report Abuse
    shabbychic01
    Participant

    We have a cavalier king charles spaniel female pup who is 10 months old. We got her at 4 1/2 months of age. Shortly after we got her, she started having terrible diarrhea episodes, at least once a week. We have tried different foods (all four and five stars), and she’s been seen by the vet and put on different meds, to no avail. I’ve researched chronic diarrhea extensively, and it occurred to me that the cause of this has to be SOMETHING that she ingests regularly. I know dogs can have issues with wheat, corn, soy. Her dog foods have always been wheat and corn and soy free. So it occurred to me that I gave her a daily greenie, and a daily biscuit. The first ingredient in both of these is wheat protein, and wheat flour. So I decided to only give her treats and chews with no wheat. We’re on day 3 of this experiment, and so far so good. I’ll keep you posted. I really hope this is the answer!

    #10383 Report Abuse
    pugmomsandy
    Participant

    I’m using grain free freeze dried foods as treats. They are small like cookies and can break apart easily to split between dogs if I want to. Currently using the ones from Instinct, Nutrisca and the Carnivore Crunch by Stella & Chewy’s. The Carnivore Crunch is small like regular size marshmallows. I also give Dr Becker Bites (liver treats). For teeth cleaning I just give them a marrow bone, or rib bone or other bone to gnaw on.

    #10394 Report Abuse
    BryanV21
    Participant

    Dogs love tripe as well, and you can get freeze-dried tripe to give as treats. Not only should it not cause issues due to grains being in it, but tripe is also good for the digestive system.

    #10703 Report Abuse
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Could it be stress/excitement? I’ve gone though (still going through) this with my 1.5 yr old. Vet seems to think it could be caused by stress so we have her on Tylan which always works. It’s an ongoing battle for us too but so far we can link some stress (being home alone) or excitement (going crazy at the park) to be tied to mushy poops.

    #14739 Report Abuse
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    If your feeding him/her different treats all the time, that could upset his intestines. Or if your switching dog food too often and too many, that could upset him also. Or if he wanders outdoors and a neighbor is giving him stuff, then that could upset his intestines. Worse scenario could be that he has Parvo.

    #14744 Report Abuse
    Hound Dog Mom
    Participant

    Switching foods does not cause digestive upset in a healthy dog. If your dog gets loose stools when switching food – it’s unhealthy. One of the main reason dogs develop weak digestive systems (become unhealthy) are because they are fed the same food daily. A dog that eats a wide variety of foods will have a strong digestive system and a healthy colony of bacteria in its gut. I feed my dogs a homemade raw diet and they get something different at every meal with no issues. When I used to feed kibble I switched brands at the end of every bag (about every 3 weeks) and rotated canned food toppers daily with no issues. Many people are able to rotate foods frequently without problems because they have conditioned their dogs to have strong and healthy guts. Feeding the same food for extended periods of time is not healthy for a dog.

    #14745 Report Abuse
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Maybe your dog is different Hound Dog Mom, than with a Yorkshire Terrier. Because I’ve had issues that resulted in seeing the Vet for bloody stools and they have related it to the food and treats I was feeding him.

    #14756 Report Abuse
    theBCnut
    Member

    You shouldn’t feed the same food for years, not even months. Can you not imagine what your guts would do if you started eating only one thing for an extended period of time and then all of a sudden started eating something else? Dogs are the same way, we create dogs that get upset stomachs because we believed the dog food ads that told us to feed it for life. I had one of those dogs. My JRT would get violently sick if I gave her anything that wasn’t her regular food and it took a month to switch foods for her. When I heard about the idea of diet rotation I thought that she could not handle it, but I read more about how healthy it is for dogs so I decided to give it a try. The first switch took a month, the second did too. But the third switch only took 2 weeks, and the fourth only 1. At that point I started adding a little of something different every day. Now she gets a completely different meal every single day. It is something they have to get used to, but now nothing upsets her stomach.

    #15079 Report Abuse
    Becky
    Member

    I have a 1.5 year old pug who started with those exact symptoms at about that same age. We went though all kinds of tests and could find nothing wrong. After trying different foods, including prescription, I’ve discovered she can’t eat dry food. As long as she eats canned food, she’s OK. I figure it must be some kind of preservative on the dry food that she just can’t tolerate. She gets baby carrots for treats and chews on nylabones and the vet said her teeth will be fine.

    She’s been eating the canned Nutro Limited Ingred Lamb & Rice and now I’m hearing some scary things about them, so I’m a little worried. I came here to see what I could find out. Does anyone know anything about this?

    #15083 Report Abuse
    Hound Dog Mom
    Participant

    Truth About Pet Food has an article published about the issues going on with Nutro, you could check that out.

    #15167 Report Abuse
    mydogisme
    Participant

    Patty, do you mean giving a different flavor but same brand?Dixie is on Instints and I give her beef one day then chicken the next, then the organic chicken and veggy from castor and pol. all 5 star. Her stomich is so sinsitive, I have to warm up even her water to baby bottle warm or she throws everything up.

    #15168 Report Abuse
    mydogisme
    Participant

    Pugsmom, hi, I bought 4 boxes of the Instint cookies. At 10.00 a box I use 1 as a topper and she gets 1 every 3,4 days as a treat. Dixie could eat the whole box if I let her,but I still watch her stomich issues and she has to be on remidril for 5 days if she starts to throw up or flagel if its her colon.

    #15173 Report Abuse
    theBCnut
    Member

    Mydogisme, with a normal dog I rotate brand and everything, but I realize you have a diabetic dog and insulin regulation has to take precedence over everything else. In your case, I would alway add a good quality probiotic and digestive enzymes, and only switch to foods that you know are very similar.

    #79901 Report Abuse
    Alex p
    Member

    Gluten is a generic term, that’s used to describe the proteins found in wheat and other cereal grains, which are classified into two groups, called prolamines and glutelins. Gluten has become a ‘red flag’ ingredient in many foods (for both people and pets) in the past few years, but what’s all the fuss about?

    Gluten intolerance or Celiac Disease, is an immune response that occurs in the human body, when gluten is consumed. The villi, which are tiny hair-like projections in the small intestine that absorb nutrients from food, become damaged during the immune response. Damaged villi don’t effectively absorb basic nutrients and gastro-intestinal problems occur.

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