Hi Deborah M,
I really understand how you’re feeling & I know what you’re going thru, I took on this dog & I was just his foster carer, I had to take him to vet get him desexed vaccinated meds for all his sores that were around his neck & legs from being tied up then he has his photo put on the Rescue site & adopted out, his name was Patch & he just turned 4yr old in very bad condition, I’ve never seen a rescue dog this bad before I think he wasnt Put To Sleep cause he became the pound favorite, there’s always a few pound favorites, the people who work or volunteer at the pound do everything to get them a home or into rescue before their kill day so they called me (cause they know I love Staffys) to fix him all up & adopt him out but as the days went by he was weeing blood, so off to see the rescue vet, she said looks like he was being used for breeding, so he gets put on vet diet for 6 weeks to dissolve his crystals then he is diagnosed with IBD & Helicobacter-Pylori, Skin Allergies & Food Sensitivities, In the end I adopted him myself, I felt all the people that came out to meet & greet him weren’t listening to me when I said “but he’s sick, he has a few health problems” they’d all say, “Oh he seems fine he’s really happy, he doesnt look sick”, I couldnt handle not knowing whoever adopts him would they continue with his meds etc or would they just give up on him like his old owners did & surrender him back to a pound & he’ll continue to suffer, he just turned 9yrs old last week & it’s been a very hard 5 yrs & the money I’ve spent trying to fix Patch, I even stopped doing rescue for a few years when he was real bad & sick, I couldn’t leave him at home while I was out helping other dogs all day & worrying about him, he does not do well on ANY vet diets they give him bad acid reflux, make his skin itch & smell yeasty cause he has food sensitivities to some grains, gluten corm/maize & beet pulp, he can NOT have any Beet Pulp he gets bad acid reflux, all these things that are suppose to fix & help his stomach & bowel make Patch worse, then finally I started looking for other diets beside these vet diets & FINALLY after trying a few kibbles, I found “Taste Of The Wild” Sierra Mountain, Roasted Lamb dry kibble, people in the IBD & EPI face book groups were saying how well their dogs were doing on TOTW Sierra Mountain or TOTW Pacific Stream both are lower in fiber & TOTW uses Purified water, the Sierra Mountain formula just has 1 single meat protein Lamb, has Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes, that firm his poo’s up & his acid reflux stopped & his skin all cleared up, cause he wasn’t eating a diet that had ingredients he was sensitive too but he still get his seasonal environment allergies in Spring/Summer so I have to bathed him weekly in Spring/Summer in “Malaseb” medicated shampoo to wash off any allergens on his paws & skin, the Malaseb shampoo realives & stops his itchy skin…. I’ve never found a kibble that helped most of his health problems all at once, a few years ago I started rotating his kibbles between a few different brands kibbles he does well on, I was feeding the Lamb TOTW thru the winter months then a Salmon fish kibble thru the Spring/Summer months but then I seen 2 studies a company thet test dog foods for 130 metals toxins & contaminates alot of these fish kibbles were very high in toxins, so now I prefer to add a tin salmon to his diet instead, for breakfast he gets his TOTW, lunch time he either gets a small cooked meal with 1 spoon salmon or 1/3 cup of “Canidae Pure Meadow”or an Australian salmon kibble, then dinner time he gets his TOTW Lamb again then he gets another small meal 1/3 a cup 8pm so he doesnt wake up early hours of the morning with acid reflux, whenever I try something new if it says add 1 teaspoon then I only add 1/8th a teaspoon & slowley introduce to his diet, I’ve learnt I ned to slowly add any new supplements or kibbles to his diet or I’m up 12am, 3am 5am & poor Patch has diarrhea….
I found Homeopathy, natural healthy foods works the best for Patch & other sick rescue dogs I’ve helped over the years, you’ll be surprised how feeding a simple bland lean cooked meal like turkey, tin Salmon or chicken breast, lean beef, I feed lean pork mince or lean beef mince I make rissoles with boiled Sweet Potato or boiled potato can make a big difference & is heaps better then these dry kibbles, then I slowly start adding 1 teaspoon of tin Salmon in spring water to the cooked meal, just feed 1 small cooked meal & still feed his normal limited ingredient dry kibble for his other meals or if he’s eating a cooked meal already start buying tin Salmon in spring water then drain water put in air tight container & add teaspoon of salmon to the cooked meals, I also buy “K-9 Natural green lipped mussels freeze dried & Patch started with just 1 mussel as a treat around 11am daily now he gets 2 mussels as a treat daily, Mussels are very healthy & help balance their diet,
here’s a link on Mussels https://drsarahbrewer.com/supplements/green-lipped-mussels-health-benefits
are you following “Rodney Habib”on his face book page, he has really good info also follow “Judy Morgan DVM” https://www.facebook.com/JudyMorganDVM/ click on her Video link look for her “Pancreatitis Diet” & her “IBD IBS Diet” video’s, you can leave out the ingredients you dont want to feed & what I did was just start with 1 lean meat protein mince grounded meat & 1 carb then after I saw Patch was OK I started to add 1 new ingredient egg, then another new ingredient broccoli etc, I make 1/2 cup size rissole balls & bake in oven & boil sweet potatos & freeze in sections & take out the day before, Judy has a 16 yr old dog called Scout, he has a few health problems, she cooks for him & her other sick elderly dogs, Judy shows you how to balance the diet with healthy ingredients, I don’t bother balancing every single meal, I just make sure he’s getting his Omega 3 fatty acids for his skin & stomach, the Dinovite would be very high in Omega’s for the dogs skin my Patch can’t take fish oil or fish oil in kibbles he gets bad acid reflux, so I supplement his omega fatty acids thru foods instead, I add salmon, freeze dried mussels, roasted Almonds a treats I bite & eat 1/2 a almond & Patch gets the other 1/2 of the almond just start off slowly just give 1/2 a almond for 1 week see how he goes, they need 3 almonds a day, read the link I posted above, the health benefits from freeze dried mussels for skin, stomach, joints, brain etc
Have you tried “4Health” Special Care, Sensitive Skin, it has Hydrolyzed Salmon or
“4Health” Special Care, Sensitive Stomach it has just Potato & Egg as only ingredients 4health is sold at Tractor Supply shops only, it’s worth trying a small bag & ask is it money back guaranted if my dog wont eat it?? I always just say Patch wont eat a kibble when he gets his diarrhea & I need to take back the kibble its easier….
You know your dog best so do what you feel will works best for your boy… Good Luck
