Hi Jane,
I rescued a English Staffy 6yrs ago who suffers with IBD, Patch was gulping his dry food, at first I was told add warm water & soften Patches kibble, but once kibbles are soft YOU MUST drain all the water out, so your left with the soft kibble, I was cuffing my hand in the bowl around the wet kibbles & pushing out excess water so there was no water & the kibbles weren’t really wet, but when Patch ate the wet kibble he started getting bad acid reflux + swallowing & swallowing about 20mins after he ate the wet kibble, then his new vet said stop soaking his kibble in water, feed 3-4 smaller meals thru the day instead of feeding him 2 large meals of kibble.. he eats between 2 or 3 cups kibble a day depending on the brand, instead of giving him 1 cup kibble at 7am, I give 1/2 a cup 7am & the other 1/2 the cup at 9am I put his bowl on a small stool, level with the dog mouth, when he’s standing, his mouth needs to be inline with stomach when eating, you can buy those raised stainless steel bowls & they go into a wooden thing or there’s stainless legs holding the bowl.. or buy those slow feeding bowls & I put his bowl on his little kids potty plastic stool….
I feed his wet food in a slow feeder bowl & his kibble goes in his stainless steel raised bowl, I noticed he was gulping heaps of air when the kibble was in those slow feeding bowls, he was licking & licking up the kibbles, then he couldn’t get the kibble, then after eating he was burping very loud burps, so no more slow feeder bowls for his kibble meal, I like small kibbles they are easier to digest if he doesn’t chew them….
I feed Patch 7am-1/2 a cup kibble, 9am -1/2 a cup, 12pm – 1/3 cup wet meal, 5pm – 1/2 a heap cup kibble & 7.30pm-1/4 a cup kibble, at lunch he eats either Freeze Dried Raw I add a little bit of water so the freeze dried comes to life & reconstitutes or Sweet potato & tin Salmon, he gets something healthy for lunch…
I try & reduce the amount of kibble I feed & replace with healthy foods, tin Salmon, Egg, Green Veggies, Sweet Potato, Blueberries, Mussels, Yogurt, Almonds as Kibble isn’t the healthiest thing to fed our pets..
Follow “Rodney Habib” on face Book, he’s always testing something, you’ll be surprise what he found when they did blind testing on Purina Pro Plan Healthy Minds, it tested positive to Glyphosate (Round Up)
https://www.facebook.com/rodneyhabib
After soaking his kibble I noticed some kibbles went soft within 20mins then there were kibbles (Vet Diets, Science Diet, Royal Canine, Purina) that would take hours to go soft, Patch never did well on these harder kibbles that took forever to go soft in warm water, so I started looking for kibbles that digested quickly & move thru stomach small bowel quicker instead of sitting in his stomach causing pain, he’d whinge & cry after eating, something was wrong…
when I did my kibble test the small kibbles went soft quickest within 20mins were – , Canidae, Wellness, Eagle Pack, Earthborn Holistic, Pro Pac Ultimates these brand kibble soften very quickly…
Get a cup of warm water drop 2 kibbles in cup of water, a good kibble will float to the top of the water not sink, a good easy to digest kibble goes soft within 20-30mins, also feed large breed kibbles, they are made for large breed dogs bowel to prevent bloat, Large breed kibbles are lower in Kcals so they’re not a dense kibble, dense kibbles are harder to digest more work on stomach & pancreas, Patch does best when the kibble is under 360Kcals per cup also the fat isn’t as high in large breed kibbles, the man at Pet Shop told me to feed Patch a large Breed kibble it will help with his IBD, so last year I tried Wellness Core Large Breed Adult kibble & it helped Patch with his IBD, I think the low Kcals -330per cup, lower fat-13%max & the potato in the Wellness Core L/B Adult helped with his IBD also Potato firms up poos..
I nilly put him to sleep last year he went down hill after Summer, everything he ate he was reacting too.
I’ll try & find a link I have, its a study that was done on small breed dogs bowel & a large breed dog bowel… it explains how small breeds don’t seem to suffer from bowel problems like large breed dogs do..
