Hi,
My dog will be 10 in Nov. He had a malignant fibrosarcoma removed in ’09. Since then he’s had issues with intermittent diarrhea.
His food history:
He has always been an extremely picky eater, going ‘on strike’ often
Fed Iams until he was 3.5 (My first dog & I didn’t know any better, mea culpa)
As a blood cancer survivor myself, I switched our household to an organic one.
Switched to Castor & Pollux Organix dry that I added a small amount of organic chicken, turkey or beef w/occasional wild caught salmon or duck to entice him to eat it. He did great on this until his health issue arose.
After his surgery I started adding pumpkin & probiotics (from Only Natural Pet) to his meals, but he still would get colitis type diarrhea every now & then. So I decided to try cooked homemade.
I had a vet nutritionist diet done up for him (Dr Susan Wynn). I use only organic foods, either turkey, chicken or beef w/either oatmeal, quinoa or sweet potato & then some kind of veggie, usually carrots, cauliflower or green beans. The individual supplements worry me because of the fish oil which he’s never done well on so I use flaxseed oil plus bone meal, choline, canola oil, lite salt & Centrum.
I decided to keep a commercial organic canned food to make sure his nutritional needs were met & for the times where I may not have a homemade meal available. I started w/ByNature Organics canned turkey until I realized it has carrageenan (sp?). I switched to Party Animal grain free organic. I’ve tried the 2 chickens & the turkey.
Problem is he still doesn’t like commercial dog food, sometimes he’ll eat it, sometimes not & he still has some soft poos. So started adding Animal Essentials digestive enzyme/probiotics & Metamucil (on the vet’s advice) I had a second diet done up for him from Balance It, but I haven’t used it yet because it seems like it has a LOT of carbs compared to his other vet diet (2.5 cups of quinoa to 6 oz of turkey) & 6 5/8 tsp of Metamucil! That’s over 2 TBS! I had been gradually increasing the Metamucil again on the vet’s advice as she said there would be Metamucil in the Balance It diet, but 2 tsps bound him up for over a day, so there’s no way I’m giving him over 2 TBS (which is more than the max for a human adult). He’s not a big water drinker, another concern for the Metamucil.
I’m sorry this is such a long post, but I really am trying to find the right diet for my fur baby. I’m thinking of cooking his Dr Wynn diet w/out the individual supplements, adding ONP’s senior multi-vitamin, the Animal Essentials & mixing it in w/the Party Animal, keeping the proteins the same (turkey w/turkey, beef w/beef etc).
Any thoughts, opinions & advice would be appreciated!
Btw, he’s a German Shepherd mix, 48 lbs, body score of 5/9 I don’t use chemical pesticides on him, just Heartgard monthly.
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