[pugmomsandy]

The Vital Essentials website was being updated last week when I checked, but you can find it on amazon and probably some other online retailers. I get the 1.5 lb bags and it lasts a while for me since I just use 1/4 cup at a time but I have small dogs and they don’t get it everyday since I feed a variety – kibble, canned, raw. It’s also a great treat size for them too. Freeze dried is much more expensive than kibble so feeding a large dog is somewhat cost prohibitive for some but I do get a discount on it which helps since I feed 3 small dogs!

[pugmomsandy]

It’s basically the Instinct kibble and the Freeze Dried raw mixed in, both of which have their own reviews. Not enough freeze dried pieces in it for me though. I like to put Vital Essentials FD nibblets into my kibble.

[pugmomsandy]

I couldn’t do the ACV with water and honey either but I do like the Bragg ACV drinks. The apple cinnamon and the ginger drink I’ve tried so far.

[pugmomsandy]

Reposting some non pate-style wet food 3-5 stars:

Earthborn Holistic tubs
VitaLife tubs
Ol’Roy tubs
Blues Stews, Family Favorites
Merrick
Wellness Stews
Nature’s Variety Prairie Stews
Nutrisca & Dogswell
Fromm 4 star Nutritionals

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/IMG_6547_zps4472cbb4.jpg

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/IMG_6558_zps1a69d081.jpg

Nutrisca

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/IMG_6560_zps3f0db980.jpg

[pugmomsandy]

I’m not sure if diet rotation creates picky eaters since all mine are always excited to eat whether it’s just kibble, kibble with canned, kibble with freeze dried, raw food, kibble and raw food. They never leave anything in their bowls.

[pugmomsandy]

Thesamster,

You can also add fiber to the diet by adding some canned pumpkin or ground psyllium.

[pugmomsandy]

Wysong Epigen is tiny also and comes in 2 lb packages. The Brothers Fish kibble is the smaller than the Red Meat kibble which I think is small as well. Back to Basics, Nature’s Select GF and Nutrisource GF Lamb Meal are also very small.

[pugmomsandy]

Mine eat outside when they get RMB and get plenty of grass and some dirt with them.

Maybe you can train yours to eat in one area like in an empty kiddie pool.

[pugmomsandy]

Nutrisource grain free. 4Health GF. Addiction. Authority GF. Avoderm Revolving Menu, Canidae Single Grain Protein Plus (rice), Back to Basics, Earthborn, Horizon Legacy, Innova Prime, some of the Nature’s Select formulas don’t have barley and wheat and sweet potato, Instinct LID, Nutrisca, Pinnacle GF, Pronature GF, some Victor formulas are barley free, Zignature.

[pugmomsandy]

Here’s an article titled “When Vomit isn’t Vomit” incase the link doesn’t work. Have you ever discussed reflux with your vet? Do you use a holistic vet?

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/12/17/vomiting-vs-regurgitating.aspx?e_cid=20121217_PetsNL_art_1

[pugmomsandy]

KGM801,

Also feeding different forms of food can be beneficial like incorporating some canned food, freeze dried or dehydrated and even raw. You can even add eggs or sardines to the kibble. Right now I’m mixing in some Vital Esssentials freeze dried nibblets with my dogs kibble. Sometimes it canned and kibble. Then some days they just get a raw meaty bone or whole raw sardine.

[pugmomsandy]

weimlove,

Search for MBM (Martin Brower) or Bassham.

[pugmomsandy]

mydogisme,

My small dogs love gnawing on beef rib bones. They don’t eat them. They do eat pork ribs and lamb ribs though. You can trim some of the meat off if you think you need to.

[pugmomsandy]

You can also find pork necks and marrow bones at Kroger, turkey necks at walmart, turkey backs/wings/soup bones, occasional gizzards at Sprouts. Chicken feet, pigs feet and other weird stuff at Asian/Mexican supermarkets.

[pugmomsandy]

JessicainNYC,

Wagatha’s biscuits are organic but not grain free. And I believe Grandma Lucy’s has organic treats as well.

[pugmomsandy]

You’re welcome!

[pugmomsandy]

Glad Gemma’s found a good home!! My first adopted pug use to bring rocks to the back porch! Never ate them, but just wanted to start piles of rocks!!

[pugmomsandy]

Maltipoo,

Have you gone to Nature’s Logic website and used their store locator?

[pugmomsandy]

Miss Tootie, Karmella, Mocha, Emmaretta, Nilla, Jillian, Tinker, Tiger Lily, Clarabelle. I mostly get boy fosters! When I get wild little girls I just call them lil’ toot!

[pugmomsandy]

here is a link. I haven’t investigated it.

http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/index.htm#What_diseases_has_it_been_useful_for

quotes:

I encourage you to discuss off-label use of naltrexone with your MD or veterinarian; consider printing some overview info from a web site that you’ve looked at, and take the copy to them. Be prepared for blank looks and then anything from mild interest to concern to outright resistance. This use of LDN is NOT well known; there’s no significant money behind it. Using LDN is spreading based mostly on word-of-mouth suggestions like mine. There are NO large, long-term, double-blind published clinical trials proving anything about the efficacy of LDN, because there’s not enough future profit. The availability of the 50mg tablets at current low prices (under roughly 6 different brand names) makes it impossible to recover the huge cost of such trials at 1/10th that existing dosage. Thus, existing trials are small and slow to be funded. You’ll have to rely on things like the Yahoo groups and web sites you find, and be willing to trust people talking about their own personal experiences. I don’t need trials to affirm what I’ve seen with my own eyes and what others report about their direct personal experiences. Do your reading; get comfortable at your own level of research; THEN take that background with you to speak with your (or your pet’s) health professionals.

From the woman I quoted in November:
“We use it especially with our geriatric dogs like Buck at 17 and Blessed at 12. A dog that is Silken sized [note: Silken Windhounds range 25-50 lbs from smallish females to oversized males] uses 1/3 to 1/2 mg per day. It comes in 50 mg pills for about $9, so it runs less than $9 per month [one 50mg pill provides 100 doses at 1/2mg nightly]. You can find info on how to dissolve the pill here (only dissolve 1/2 of a pill at a time

Sebaceous Adenitis is an auto-immune problem. Here’s information from a woman I know, about the off-label use of a drug called naltrexone. In its off-label usage, it’s referred to as “low-dose naltrexone” or just by the initials LDN. This is based on the ability of this drug to boost the immune system when taken at doses lower than 10% of the official FDA-approved use. Here’s info from one of this woman’s recent posts, in which she recommends someone consider LDN for her dog’s severe allergy problems (since allergies are now understood to be an auto-immune problem).

***quote***
… It is possible to strengthen the immune system easily and cheaply with Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).

Chuck was deathly allergic to poison ivy, to the point of nearly being
hospitalized at the thought of it. He started LDN on May 1, 2009 just to accompany me in taking it for my multiple sclerosis, but found that by the next summer, he could play in poison ivy with no reaction at all.

My Mom has been severely lactose intolerant all of her adult life. She takes the LDN for her Crohn’s, but finds now that if she goofs up and has some cheese or ice cream, there is no problem. As an aside, my MS and her Crohn’s are totally under control, too.
[Side Note: I met this woman during the time she followed all the rules for managing MS–she lost significant memory function, was completely debilitated by heat, and was losing physical control of her body. When forced to give up all the best drug therapies available (due to loss of insurance) she learned about LDN. With NO other therapy, just a single daily dose of LDN has restored her to the point that you can’t see any outward signs that she ever had MS to begin with! She’s not cured by any means, but her body is fighting the MS much more effectively. The result: instead of getting worse and worse every year like when she took the costly but officially approved drugs, this woman’s health has actually been *restored.* She got her body, her memory, her very life back!]

[pugmomsandy]

beef brisket bones for eating, rib bones and knee caps, split knuckles or marrow bones for recreation. My pugs can eat turkey necks and wings and backs. The legs are large so I haven’t offered them actually. My dogs are 30 lbs or less.

[pugmomsandy]

MelissaAndCrew & Aimee,

There is talk on other message boards about the off label use of Naltrexone. Low dose naltrexone (LDN). Just posting if anyone is interested. Testimonials report that it is helping people and their pets.

[pugmomsandy]

I feed wild caught whole sardines. They are small fish low in contaminants.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/IMG_60801024x821_zpsad7d39eb.jpg

[pugmomsandy]

No problem! Took me a few minutes since I had to go find the pictures and load them up in the middle of posting!

[pugmomsandy]

Amicus (by Horizon), Epigen (by Wysong), Brothers Complete, Nature’s Variety Instinct and Great Life Grain Free, and Merrick Grain Free are ones I’ve used and consider tiny to small. For grain food Nutrisource small/med breed puppy’s kibble is tiny triangles. Blue Buffalo Wilderness now comes in small breed.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/nutrisourcepupandgflamb_zpse9d9aadf.jpg

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/kibbles2_zps62503aae.jpg

[pugmomsandy]

I’ve been ordering from petflow since last year and so far none of my packages have been in disarray. I’ve ordered kibble (30 lb bags) and freeze dried from them. The 30 lb bags fit nicely in the box and don’t have wiggle room and then they fill the rest of the box with packing bubbles.

[pugmomsandy]

You’re welcome! Enjoy the grinder! It’s great!

[pugmomsandy]

This is another whole food supplement. It doesn’t have rice or natural bacon flavor like the one mentioned just above.

http://natureslogic.com/products/fortifier.html

[pugmomsandy]

Some people rub cooking oil on the parts like olive oil. And be sure to coat the threads on the outer ring so it will come off easier than if you don’t coat the ring! It was a two person job to remove the ring this last time. I didn’t coat it. And after removing the whole thing from the motor, and removing the outer ring, I thump the end of it with a hammer to get the other parts out!

[pugmomsandy]

I’ve used the small breed puppy and the grain free formulas on my fosters. The dogs always had formed stools (smaller on the grain free) and easily rotated between flavors.

[pugmomsandy]

Amicus and Epigen are tiny also.

[pugmomsandy]

It’s been over a year since I’ve used Core but the Core Ocean was smaller than the original and low fat Core. Was triangular and not flat. The small pugs had no problems eating it.

[pugmomsandy]

I currently use krill oil, probiotics and enzymes couple times a week. Mostly mixing it in with their kibble or canned food. I don’t supplement raw food usually although hiding a capsule in a ball of raw meat works very well. I’m currently using the Mercola brand but there are several others. Nordic or Grizzly for fish oils. Nzymes brand. OnlyNaturalPet.com has a selection. Sometimes I just give them a raw whole sardine instead of fish oil and then sometimes I just feed them raw tripe which has enzymes and beneficial organisms. Another brand I use is Garden of Life.

[pugmomsandy]

Articles and recipes here:

http://dogaware.com/articles/wdjpancreatitis.html

http://dogaware.com/articles/wdjlowfatdiets.html

http://dogaware.com/health/kidneydiet.html

My dogs love green tripe!

[pugmomsandy]

Maybe you can give her a couple pieces of the Vital Essentials freeze dried nibblets as treats. They’re small enough that she would probably swallow them. When I give it to my dogs, they have little nibblet sized poops! Even the Stella and Chewy’s Carnivore Crunch might work as well since they both have ground bone.

[pugmomsandy]

Ground psyllium or coconut fiber per meal for stool: 25# dog – 1/2 tsp, 40# – 3/4 tsp, 50# – 1 tsp. Or you can try pumpkin.

If you give both the salmon oil and coconut oil, the total fat content might affect her stool, so just watch that and just give one or the other if needed.

Dr Harvey’s has a green powder joint supplement as does Only Natural Pet. And there’s also Actiflex 4000 liquid. http://www.coxvetlab.com/products.asp 25-50 pounds: 1 tsp. daily loading dose for 5 days, ½ tsp. daily maintenance dose (Actiflex 4000). The K9 version has “beef flavor” but the horse one does not.

Are you able to grind up chicken wings or feet? There’s some good all natural joint supplement there. Or you could grind up tablets in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestal!! (sp?)

[pugmomsandy]

Give a multistrain probiotic and a digestive enzyme with her meals. It will help with gas and digestion. You can rotate through grain and grain free if you can’t make up your mind as food rotation is a beneficial thing as well. That way she isn’t getting grain all the time. There are some foods with millet which is not a true grain and is gluten free – like Nature’s Logic, or another gluten free choice Solid Gold Sundancer (but that might still be a Diamond produced product, I’m not sure. You’ll have to check on that). Quinoa and millet are gluten free so a better choice than say barley and rye and oats.

[pugmomsandy]

mspaulypompom,

What food(s) did you try that resulted in bad diarrhea? How much were you feeding as compared to what you were previously feeding? Do you go by calories? Or were you feeding the same amount of previous food as you were the new foods? Has your pom been eating a variety of foods or just mostly one kind most of her life? And what has she been eating and how much? Have you used any probiotics or other digestive aids (canned pumpkin, digestive enzymes, yogurt, raw goat milk)?

I have lap dogs. They do absolutely nothing but follow me around! But they eat foods that have at least 30% protein and moderate fat. This includes kibble, canned, raw, freeze dried and dehydrated. They are able to maintain a steady weight but more importantly, they maintain a good body condition score. Keep in mind pugs are short, cobby, thick dogs, but they still have an abdominal tuck, a tapered waist viewed from above and not much fat pad. They will never look like a greyhound but for pugs they are in great shape. Weight is not everything. In fact mine are overweight to obese if you just look at the number (24 lbs). I’ve recently put some photos in the Dog Food Calculator section while discussing weight loss and body condition with another poster in December. Check them out. They’ve actually gained weight and muscle mass on this type of diet. These are my overweight pugs: (click on the photo)

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/IMG_2852640x539_zps1c019b19.jpg

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/plutoharness2_zps6d5c006c.jpg

I didn’t know about probiotics and digestive enzymes a couple years ago when I went to a grain free high protein food so one of mine took maybe 2 months to transition. Had soft poop but no diarrhea. But now that I’ve been using probiotics and enzymes (periodically still) they are able to eat anything and have formed stool. Their gut has become healthier over time and they are able to eat a variety of foods as they should. I also feed less volume of a mod/high protein food. On their old food, they would’ve needed 1 cup to 1.25 cups but right now they only get 2/3 cup. Overfeeding a mod/high protein food can be another reason for poor stools (that and a not healthy gut) or transitioning too fast. If they have undesirable stool, cut back the amount of new food until they firm up. No need to transtition a dog in a week or 10 days.

Also you can start your pom on a moderate protein grain free diet instead of going high protein off the bat like EVO. I’ll use Nutrisource Heartland Select and Grain Free Lamb Meal as examples. They are 25% and 28% protein and my fosters eat it and only take a week to transition to it cold turkey. No diarrhea, just some soft stools initially. I also give them ground psyllium in the beginning. And I have no idea what the fosters have been eating their entire life before coming to my house.

As far as more energy goes, I like to think of it as more vitality.

[pugmomsandy]

Nutrisource has grain and grain free and is around $50 for large bags retail and under $40 wholesale.

[pugmomsandy]

Marmaduke,

I give krill oil capsule or a raw whole sardine.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u651/pugmomsandy/pictures%20for%20posting/IMG_60801024x821_zpsad7d39eb.jpg

HoundDogMom has the E dosage in the Raw Menus thread I think.

[pugmomsandy]

Other than getting a kibble for large breeds, the biggest kibble I’ve come across while finding food for my pugs is Core Reduced Fat and Core Original. It’s sort of triangular last time I used it and would consider it medium sized. I thought it was a little large for the smaller pugs. Although kibble is hard to digest so getting a larger kibble would make digestion more difficult. The smaller surface area and diameter of kibble the easier it is to breakdown. (Although size of kibble is not the only factor in good digestion). I’ve read here that some large breed owners dogs did better with smaller kibble versus large kibble. Specifically someone’s large dog did better digestion-wise on EVO Small Bites (which he accidentally bought) vs the regular size EVO. Same flavor of kibble, just purchased the wrong size. That being said you have the option of adding a probiotic/digestive enzyme to help with digestion if you go with a larger kibble. Most dogs don’t chew so a large kibble might be a choking hazard. If your dog likes to play with food how about putting the small kibble into a treat ball (like an IQ ball or Kong) where he has to work to get it out.

[pugmomsandy]

I can see the photos. She looks so sweet.

[pugmomsandy]

My vet suggested vit c to help with urine acidity. I started giving Garden of Life Raw C. One daily along with increasing protein intake.

[pugmomsandy]

Have you considered acupuncture? Two fosters (not mine) are improving with this therapy. I thought one would need a cart but he is doing great!

[pugmomsandy]

We just started Vital Essentials freeze dried nibbles. We use it as treats. They love it but honestly, I don’t think there’s anything a pug would refuse!

[pugmomsandy]

Do you mean you need a medium to large kibble?

[pugmomsandy]

Some folks in another forum give raves reviews for Acti-Flex. I’ve also just came across these two that I’m going to look into:

http://www.vetionx.com/arthro-ionx.php

http://www.petresearch.com/product-info/

[pugmomsandy]

More probiotics and digestive enzymes and maybe your butcher can get you some green tripe.

http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/the-stink-on-tripe/

[pugmomsandy]

A raw diet will result in smaller, solid, less stinky waste! My raw fed dog’s stool is probably around the size of a nickel – or like small bird eggs.

[pugmomsandy]

It helps to keep the treat soft. Depending on where the glycerin comes from might make a difference on its safety. For that you would need to ask the maker of the treat. There is an article on glycerin in the DFA library.

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