[Therese M]

FirstMate is made in Canada. They also make Kasiks. Our super picky dog loves the Pacific Ocean fish (she loves fish, hates salmon, ugh). We’re stopping that because it’s grain free and the vet is recommending all her patients switch to grains. I just noticed that they make grain inclusive food now so that’s fabulous! We’ll give that one a try.I emailed their customer service a lot before buying a big bag and they were so helpful. I even remember his name- thanks Josh!

[Therese M]

Do you know if the price changed? I’m assuming not. I don’t mind grains but I don’t like paying the same for more grains, since they’re practically free compared to proteins.

I’m considering switching my dogs to Fromms Gold. One doesn’t do well with grain free AT ALL, but does okay with potatoes. The other one is a new guy and he has to have grains. The vet recommended Pro Plan but I think that’s still too rich for him. My first dog did fine on Gold a few months ago- not sure why we switched honestly.

[Therese M]

I like Fromms Gold better than the regular adult one, as did the dogs. Compare the ingredients and decide for yourself. Make sure you compare the ingredients on the website- if the Gold has duck, it’s the old one.

[Therese M]

I was just at the vet this week and asked about this. She said you can add a 250 mg supplement that should cover the uptake issue. She also said this is caused by the peas and potatoes blocking the conversion of cysteine and methionine into taurine. She said switch to grain inclusive food with the next bag (we’ve been on a potato based food, just because my first dog is so picky and that’s what she liked- I never bought into the grain free thing, and the vet said it’s silly and happened after gluten free happened in people, and is based on no research whatsoever). She feeds Purina Pro Plan, with corn, and said that corn is fine for dogs, what do you think the prey they eat had for breakfast? Fair point. She also said corn gluten meal is very healthy as an ingredient and gets a bad wrap because it sounds like leftover junk. So the next bag I get will have corn in it. Rich foods don’t work for my dogs anyway, so everything listed on this page as 5 star makes them terribly ill, and most the 4 star stuff does too. We do a rotational diet so it’s easy enough to switch around if something doesn’t work. Currently we have Canidae ALS and Muenster ancient grains chicken open, and no one is scarfing it down, but they’re both new, so we’ll see how it goes in a few days.

I am not a fan of how the FDA is handling this- a big announcement that freaks everyone out that isn’t a vet, and is so vague no one even knows what exactly it even means, if anything.

[Therese M]

Thanks for the replies. She’s an underweight rescue so we’re looking for higher calorie food which is how we found firstmate. Sheceats the same volume every day so we need to pack more calories into that until she gets a little bigger. She’s getting 2 cups of firstmate per day and one cup of some other random thing she doesn’t love that we’re trying to get rid of. Yesterday was signature duck. Today is fromms gold.

She absolutely loves the firstmate but I really wonder if it’s worth $70 a bag. There aren’t many other foods that cost more. It doesn’t seem particularly awesome except she likes it and hasn’t liked prob 20-30 other things we’ve tried. She doesn’t have food allergies, is fine with or without grain, hates salmon, does poorly on overly rich foods. We also tried the firstmate chicken but she didn’t like it. She seems to not love chicken in general. We’d like to keep her with a food with roughly 500 calories per cup for at least another month. If there’s another option I’m missing I’m happy to try something else. She really likes the firstmate fish combo and no one else has that so we’ll stick with that (firstmate or kasik- both are the same) but maybe rotate it with a different lamb food? Or am I overthinking this and just give her what we have now? Thanks for any thoughts you have.

[Therese M]

I totally understand your issues. My vegan friend’s dog is very ill right now so I’m cooking chicken for her. It’s gross enough for me but not mentally damaging like it would be to her. I get it. I have my own lines.

[Therese M]

I have actually! She loves it. I also tried whatever comes in the whole chicken- a heart, liver, and gizzard I think? I have some frozen beef liver but I haven’t done anything with it bc I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Just boil that too? Is it okay to give liver often? I put some plain chicken breast in her food today to at least get her over to it. Sometimes she’ll eat more once her face is in it already.

[Therese M]

I like to buy locally if possible but delivered to my door is pretty great too. They just started selling at a new place here so that’s awesome. Looks like a good store with lots of good brands. Plus they gave me coupons so I need to use those!

Left the reject food out for 2 hours. Didn’t touch any of it even with crumbled freeze dry on it. Ugh. Getting tired of returning all these open bags. They must hate me.

[Therese M]

It wasn’t TOTW wet food. According to this site, Diamond makes TOTW and Kirkland, not Evanger. Evanger would never enter my house, so I’m sure I checked. If this site is wrong, then that makes me pretty uphappy, but I go by the information I find here. She’s very picky- she wouldn’t touch either kind of Kirkland canned food.

I’m confused about why you’re listing fat content? I don’t want low fat- she’s already underweight. We were told by the vet to get high calorie food, over 500 cal/cup if possible. She’s not sensitive, she’s picky.

Today’s samples included Zignature Duck (fail), Fromm Game Birds (fail), FirstMate Lamb (huge success!), FirstMate chicken (fail), FirstMate Fish (also huge success- she normally hates fish but they dont use salmon). Plus the rest of the bag of Bil Jac bc she was still hungry after not eating most those and I only had samples of the FirstMate. Unfortunately I cant get FirstMate locally so everything I have that she doesn’t like can’t be traded in for any. I’m going to try Zignature Lamb and hope it’s the lamb in the High Prairie and the FirstMate that she likes and it’ll get her through the returns at least.

[Therese M]

I threw out the bag 🙁 I assumed she would eat it and didn’t even think about it. Now I know always keep the bag until the food is gone for expiration dates and recall codes- I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. All our other open bags she wouldn’t eat went to Hurricane Harvey dogs so I’m very excited that’s being put to good use. We’re just stuck with this right now. I’ll probably give it to a friend if I still can’t get her to eat it this weekend. Always small bags now too- I learned!!!

[Therese M]

Thanks she’s much better. Gained 7 lbs! Vet is very happy, says 3-5 more and we’ll be good.

She won’t touch the dry if there’s any liquid with it. Go figure. We had been sprinkling dehydrated raw on it and that’s when she started eating dry but then I tried liquid and she didn’t touch it. She drinks a lot so I figure it’s fine. Yesterday she ate the dry straight so that was super exciting! She still gets at least one can a day, mainly bc we still have some. Not sure if we’ll keep that up or not.

The Bison NutriSource looks similar to High Prairie but I’m not sure we have that brand around. I’ll look for it though. I think I’ll try the Zignature lamb since High Prairie has a lot of lamb in it. We had tried a couple kinds of Fromms and she wasn’t a fan but since I have the coupon I figured it might be worth another try. Worst case we’ll just donate it. I just can’t figure this dog out at all, except that she seems to hate fish, which is the biggest bag of food we have, so of course she does.

[Therese M]

Thanks for your continued concern. Susan, where did you go to vet school? Have you examined Lucy? Do you have her past medical records that include more information than what is posted on here? I’m married to a physician and know how much medical professionals hate people doing their own research, and when I know nothing about how dogs, how am I supposed to know what information is correct? Why would you think enzymes are only for pancreas problems? Enzymes break down food into easier to digest forms. That’s just chemistry. If it were harmful why would my professionally licensed vet not only be okay with it but recommend it? How did you end up with more knowledge than my vet? 🙄

[Therese M]

I’m not doing research on anything. We have a great vet and do what she says. She said no heartworm treatment until the giardia is gone. It’s a little complicated in that the heartworm treatments are coming from the vet at the rescue (we dont pay so we’re going back there), but they can talk as needed. She’s a Texas A&M vet which is the only school I’d take my pets to. A&M is the best for veterinary schools, at least in this area. The vet recommended Synacore probiotic which we have and have been using for a week now. She said Synacore was the best bc it has more than just probiotics in it. Potatoes were not given as an option for her diet right now, only chicken, white rice, pumpkin, goats milk until Monday. We’re closely following her guidelines, so while I appreciate other advice, we won’t be following it if it contradicts what the vet says. Last time we were in we got Hill’s ID and she refused to eat it. I dont blame her it looked disgusting. We returned the rest while we were in today. The vet didnt seem to think it was hard to treat at all- she said normally the dewormer alone works but we dont want to wait any longer and have her lose more weight so she added the antibiotic today anyway. She does do 5 days of dewormer instead of the recommended 3 so maybe that’s the difference?

[Therese M]

Panacur granules for 5 days not the typical 3 plus metronidazole for 2 weeks (apparently this stuff tastes HORRIFIC. I had to throw her chicken only diet out the window and hide it in a huge chunk of ham before she ate it. My husband has had it and says even if you swallow fast it’s the grossest thing he’s ever tasted).

The vet said we could do the panacur through saturday and if she wasnt better add the antibiotic but bc she was just on the last antibiotic she wants her cleared out completely. Bumped the goats milk up to 1 cup a day and approved my probiotic on top of that. Said keep the probiotic through the heartworm treatment which is now on hold bc of this.

She was lethargic before- I assumed she felt crappy from the antibiotic and the vet wasn’t concerned. Now she’s fully awful. She fell asleep during the vet appt and in the car on the way home. She ate almost a whole chicken (YAY) and is asleep again. She normally stirs when I walk by but right now shes fully out.

Shes a hard one for sure but I cant imagine her being anywhere else but with us. She’ll get better. Right now it’s hard explaining to the kids how awful she feels. They’re not old enough to really get it. Hopefully by monday shes turned around and I can go back to the food discussion. :-/

[Therese M]

Well she has giardia. Vet said chicken, rice, goats milk, pumpkin, nothing else. Easy enough. Poor girl is miserable. Thanks for your continued suggestions.

[Therese M]

She hasn’t had any food today. I don’t think I said she had? We’re doing what the vet says. Just asking about the product in case the vet says pumpkin which doesn’t work for us.

[Therese M]

We have Answers goat milk but I dont see anything else available around here. Which products do you use and how do you feed?

Lucy had bloody diarrhea this morning so we’re headed back to the vet this afternoon. So frustrating. Having the vet do ALL THE TESTS today. We’re having a crash course in crate training today also so rough day her for.

Someone mentioned Diggin Firm Up. Any experience with that? She’s not getting anything until after the vet but I can grab it tonight if it might help. We have fruitables canned digestive stuff with pumpkin but she won’t eat it. 🙁

[Therese M]

I bet if we tried again she might like a different one. We had chicken and switched to the fish. I have $100 worth of the fish sitting in the dining room so I’d really like her to eat that! Pet store said I could swap it though so that’s okay. Right now I’d like her to finish *any* of the bags of dry we have open. Making progress for sure. We live in Dallas so luckily lots of choices and we have an A&M vet.

[Therese M]

Thank you guys so much for your help. She’s doing so much better. She scarfed down a couple cans of purina one smartblend and a can of Costco stew. She even ate the Costco stuff with pumpkin mixed in. Plus some dry with wet mixed in. Zignature is sending me samples and coupons- super helpful and so nice. I’ve also had great customer service from muenster which is the local brand the rescue feeds. I’d love to get her on that to support them but I’ll take what I can get now. Puking stopped, diarrhea is still going on but hoping the antibiotics ending will clear that up. So much less stress right now and she’s obviously happier too. Found some high cal treats to help get her bigger for her next treatment too. Still trying for at least 5 lbs, vet said some extra would be better bc she’ll lose a few during treatment. Funny I can put on 10 lbs overnight but she doesn’t seem to share that genetic disposition.

[Therese M]

Wow mighty dogs worked!!! She ate a beef and a chicken one. Along with a bowl of goats milk I’m super happy with that meal! Trying to get her to eat pumpkin now but this will work for me! Thanks for all your suggestions!

Shes had bloodwork twice- once when we got her and I took her back 10 days later for a followup. Results were normal. How do I know what other issues she might have? Are there symptoms I should be looking for? Especially curious about the pancreas- if the vet didnt say anything about it, is it not an issue or is it being missed?

[Therese M]

I’m not worried about ingredients so much as something that isn’t 16 trays a day! Surely there’s a big dog food like cesars- I just cant figure out what is in that that she likes so much. Hopefully Mighty Dogs will work! Thanks- I appreciate it!

[Therese M]

The vet knows the antibiotics are making her nauseous. She gave us a couple anti nausea pills when we were there. She basically said she weighs enough that just waiting out the antibiotics is okay- I guess for heartworms one antibiotic is the best and that’s what she’s on?

We did the rotisserie chicken and she did eat it, I was just worried about all the salt. If we start mixing things she won’t touch it so I dont think we can mix in the prescription stuff. If we mix with dry food she picks out the good stuff, if we mix with wet she won’t touch any of it. The vet said return that if she isn’t eating it so we will. Vet suggested we try Fromms which she wouldnt touch so I took it back. I’ll get mighty dogs- I know I saw that at target. We only have one tray of cesars left so I need to get more of something today anyway. 🙂

[Therese M]

Thanks for all your replies. When we got her, they seemed to think she was perfectly healthy, which made us comfortable taking her. We all assume that her issues are antibiotic related. She’s been to 2 vets, both think the same. Other than the not eating, she’s overall healthy. We have insurance for her, so if we need additional testing it’s not a problem for us to cover it, but neither vet mentioned anything about it. We’re not giving her back- we’ll work out what we need to to get her better. We’ve had (sick) pets before just not a dog.

I tried Costco canned but I didn’t get the stew one and she hated it, although it looked pretty gross to me too. She really likes gravy- she’ll lick that out of the bowl first then eat the chunks with other brands. I can get the stew kind- I was looking at it last time I was there actually.

This is the info on Cesars: “The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 44%, a fat level of 19% and estimated carbohydrates of about 28%.
As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 45% and a mean fat level of 21%. Together, these figures suggest a carbohydrate content of 26% for the overall product line.
And a fat-to-protein ratio of about 48%.
Above-average protein. Below-average fat. And below-average carbs as compared to a typical wet dog food.”

The paste looks like it would be very helpful- I’ll ask about that tomorrow. I’ll get the costco stew today, no more dry, low fat. Thank you all for your help- Lucy certainly appreciates it!

[Therese M]

No, she wasn’t. When I took her back they tried the standard stuff they’d been feeding her and she wouldn’t touch it. They said keep trying something until you find something she likes. Sigh. It’s almost definitely the antibiotics causing this. She only has 3 days left, but that’s still 3 days. I just got some dog probiotics tonight and put it on her food so now of course she won’t eat the food. She likes pepperoni and peanut butter. We can only get her to take her meds with that, but I’m guessing there’s no dog food that tastes like that by any chance??? She also doesn’t like most treats. Some weird looking marrow ones from target and some yogurt ones basically made of sugar. I have 3 kinds of zukes that she wont touch plus other random stuff. A bone here and there. At first she loved bully sticks but now she doesn’t care much about them.

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