[Naturella]

Hello, all!

I know we all have a passion for dog health and love to spread the word to other dog lovers. This thread can be for our success stories, if anyone cares to share.

For me, I have several (3, really). I think you have heard them before, but one is a close friend of mine who used to feed Shep and is now a crazy dog food lady like me, feeding 3.5-5-star foods, rotating all the time, and giving canned or THK as toppers. Another friend used to feed whatever Walmart carries and is cheap, so Beneful, Pedigree and the like. Now she feeds Victor, TOTW (every once in a while), Holistic Health Extension and Pure Balance, with various canned as toppers. The third story is the lady I babysit for and they used to feed their dog Kibbles ‘N’ Bits, Beneful, Iams, etc, and now I am in charge of their dog’s menu and I also shop the dog food for them on a budget, so she ate 3 bags of Dogswell LiveFree and is about to start a Wysong bag. She also had 2 bumps on or really close to her ribs before I started her food change, and I almost can’t believe it, but I can’t feel those bumps anymore! Is that even possible? I don’t know. I plan to get her 3-4 bags of various Earthborn Holistic next and maybe a bag of something else to stick in the middle. I’ll see what deals there may be around Black Friday online and in stores. She’s also been on a daily teaspoon of coconut oil for about a week now, and also I advised the family to use it as a “leave-in conditioner” after bathing her, so she gets it on her skin and coat as well. In a month or so she should have nice, healthy, shiny coat, in addition to loving her food and being more energetic. I want to introduce her also to having a lightly cooked or raw egg once a week and maybe some sardines too. I will take it slow though – I want them to notice the benefits of coconut oil first so that they know I am not doing crazy experiments with their dog, lol.

[theBCnut]

If those bumps were fatty tumors, then yes, it is possible. Fatty tumors may be the bodies way of isolating some toxins that the body is too busy to get rid of. So taking some of the garbage out of the diet allows the body to have time/energy to deal with those toxins and the reason for having fatty tumors disappears.

[Zach M]

Ginger has a bump on the end if ribcage on rach side of her, do you know what that might be?

[Dori]

Love hearing success stories. Way to go Naturella!!!!!

I agree with BC on the bumps that disappeared being most likely fatty tumors. Hannah had a few before I went grain free and raw that the vet used to tell me where old age bumps (!?!?!). They all disappeared.

Zach: Is bump on Ginger hard, can you move it around? If you press it is it soft and feel a little mushy. If so, then it sounds like a fatty tumor. Is it bothering her? Is it painful, discolored, anything. I think we need more details. Also was the bump there when you took her to the vet regarding the brown spots on her ears?

[theBCnut]

I would definitely not try to guess at a bump on a dog. It could easily be cancer. It could easily be nothing at all. Have it checked by a vet. That is something they are good at. Bumps need hands on at the very least. I had a GSD that if I had described her bumps, anyone would have said they were fatty tumors, but they turned out to be a very invasive muscle and connective tissue cancer. The vet knew what he was feeling immediately, even though it was a rare cancer.

[Naturella]

BCnut and Dori, thank you for taking the time to read through and answer my hidden question! I thought they are fatty formations too, but I didn’t think they could disappear like that! By the time they took her to the vet where she gets her grooming, they were gone and he had nothing to feel for! I am so happy that they trust and let me feed their dog as I see fit – I am very appreciative of it, and I try to be very cautious with what I buy for them, as long as it’s fairly good and a good deal. Basically I wouldn’t feed her something I wouldn’t feed Bruno. To my knowledge she has no known allergies (but she does have fleas and they use a topical… Yuck) but I prefer to give her grain free for as long as I can. The Wysong bag is not grain-free but I like the overall makeup of the food, so I hope she does well on it. I have also brought her a bunch of chews and she loved her lamb ear, and is now working on a stingray tail. She also has a split antler laying around. I am pretty excited she is responding so well to everything so far.

As for Zach, I don’t know much about bumps but I would do as the BCnut suggested. Just get them checked out.

[Dog_Obsessed]

The success you’ve had with other dog owners is amazing! Just to clarify, is this thread specifically for success with dog food and other people, or other dog success stories too?

[Naturella]

Dog_Obsessed, thank you! For all the ones I’ve helped, I haven’t been able to help many more, either through not getting through to them, or not feeling comfortable approaching them with the topic. And you can share anything you consider a success story! Not that I control the thread or anything, lol!

[Dog_Obsessed]

Okay, thanks!

[Naturella]

Hey, guys! So, I am dog-sitting the dog that belongs to the family for whom I also babysit. Her name is Snowy, a shitzu-Maltese looking mix, maybe Lhasa Apso mix, don’t know, but it is one of those fluffy ones. She is adorable, incredibly submissive to humans, but likes her personal space when it comes to dogs. She is okay with Bruno as she is around his size (if she were a bit fitter, she would probably weigh as much as him) and has met him before, but I was worried that my roommate’s dog would eat her, lol… They had met once before but both were leashed and Snowy doesn’t like having her butt sniffed, so she growled at Casey and Casey growled back and Casey being around 60lbs I was worried that they wouldn’t get along. But, I brought her in, and they were both free (unleashed), with me and Casey’s alpha (my roommate) around and after the initial sniffing and slight fussing they were fine around each other. Casey is now in her room (my roommate’s room), and Snowy and Bruno are hanging out between my room and my bathroom. Bruno is being a tad of a bully and every time Snowy lays down on her bed that I brought from their house, he goes over there and tries to rub his smell on it, thus pushing her out, lol. She acts like a grumpy old lady (albeit only 4 years old) and fusses and leaves.

Now, I am so excited because I have permission to bathe Snowy tomorrow and I can’t wait to because she’s a tad smelly and also because I can condition her hair with my blend of oils and she will be soft, shiny, and smell good! I will also wash her bed tomorrow so it matches her cleanliness.

I have a question though – I have been in charge of her menu (foods) and feeding so far, but today one of the daughters had put a ton of food in Snowy’s bowl, and like a good piggy, Snowy ate it all! She ate at least a day and a half’s worth of food! I am really thinking about a giving her a fast day tomorrow, with a small breakfast just because I will be feeding Bruno sardines (Saturday is Sardines day!) and I want to split the can between them. I was going to give her just 1/4 cup of kibble and the 1/2 can of sardines and call it a day for her. Do you all think that would be okay? I would do that to Bruno if he overate one day.

Also, Snowy’s owners said that recently she had begun drinking a lot more water. And she does drink a lot! Doesn’t seem to have trouble holing it in (no excessive urination that I can tell), but is drinking a lot of water not a sign of diabetes? Should her owners be concerned if she’s not also excessively urinating? Or, is she just trying to stay well-hydrated even though I have been trying to feed her “soups” (kibble with water and coconut oil) for dinner every workday (M-F) for a couple of weeks now. The owner said the water drinking started before I switched her over to good food though. Before she was on Kibbles ‘N’ Bits, Beneful, Pedigree, and the like. Now she’s been on Dogswell LiveFree, Wysong Nurture with Quail (now), and I plan to put her on Earthborn next and I am so excited! I will try to get 4 Earthborns on sale and alternate them with some Pure Balance and Victor or whatever other deals I can find, lol. I want to get this pup to be healthy!

I also don’t know if they use any preventative as far as heartworm and other parasites go. She does get her rabies shot every 3 years. They don’t use anything against fleas and she used to have them bad in the summer. Oh, and remember how I said I thought her bumps were gone? Yeah, no, they’re still there, I found them again, and they are pretty hard and don’t move around. Each is on each of her sides, at the end of her ribcage. I wonder what they may be…

[theBCnut]

The water consumption issue needs to be checked out. So do the lumps. They might just be lymphnodes, but they also might be cancer. And if she were my dog, I would give her a small meal with a little bit of those sardines and fast her the rest of the day too.

[Naturella]

BCnut, thank you for your response! I took her out both last night and this morning and her stool is lovely! Barely smells, is formed, good firmness, I think her tummy is pretty healthy. Then I bathed her with my homemade shampoo (castille soap, coconut milk, vitamin E and essential oils) and then conditioned her with all sorts of good stuff, she is now super clean, smells good, and is brushed and dried. I did only feed her 1/4 cup of kibble with 1/2 small can of sardines, and some goat milk. No more food for her today. She cleaned her bowl though! 🙂

As for the water drinking, I will advise her parents to ask about it and also about the bumps… hope they remember to. Also, I stopped her water intake last night around 11.30pm and today she hasn’t been drinking excessively so far.

I am happy I get to keep an eye on her for another day! 🙂

[Author]

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