Golden Retriever with recurring skin inflammation/outbreak/infection?

[ShrekDawg]

There are complainers everywhere, it is important to switch slowly and to find the right food for your dog. I wasn't offended, I have found on TOTW my five dogs all have firm poop, one of the reasons I chose it, I tried 4 health, Merrick, and earthborn, I stopped on TOTW because all my dogs looked a acted spectacular. If I were to switch I might try Acana next. I went crazy and researched dog foods and ingredients for a while. My favorite ingredient that I came across was pork plasma, which I believe is used in science diet, yuk.

It does occur to me that I only use the wetland and the Pacific stream formulas, the others can have too many forms of peas as ingredients which can make looser stools.

That is very true!! Although I'll be honest we usually just switch cold and my dog does fjne but if he didn't I would go slower and sometimes I do still try to switch slow. There's people who have it for days and leave a review. IMO even if they don't get sick, you cant possibly know how they do that fast int terms of energy, coat change, etc. I'm glad you were not offended and knew what I meant. And as for your second message, you are absolutely right, it may have simply been a different formula than you feed! But yeah, that's why we stopped searching too. I do like to rotate flavors or brands though to add variety but once I found brands that work I stick to flavors within those. Also we recently bought one of those vitta vaults/gamma lid food storage containers and he continues to eat and love his food. He used to get bored halfway through the bag and would eat but not with enthusiasm. Now I guess the food doesn't get stale. We have tried all of those brands except4 Health and Acana. He liked Earthborn (it was recommended we try Primitive Naturals) but we just haven't bought more. 4 Health not sure why I haven't tried it. Only reason I haven't tried Acana or Orijen is because of the ridiculously high prices I too did a lot of research plus was constantly finding new suggestions due to the connections with other dog friends and that's how I came up with the list. I haven't done much research into individual ingredients though besides staying away from corn, grain, and excessive chemicals. Science diet and lot of other "prescription foods" I find to be way overpriced for what they are and higher quality foods often solve most issues

 

[ShrekDawg]

I have 7 dogs. They are all on TOTW bison & venison dry food. I did a lot of research into different dog foods and decided on this because it costs significantly less than blue buffalo, but has basically the same ingredients.
I worked at a vet and once asked if grain free food was really better, because one of my dog's skin had cleared up dramatically when switching to TOTW. He said that it wasn't the grain free that did it, it was the natural ingredients.
My go-to advice for choosing dog food: if REAL meat isn't the first ingredient, it can't be good food. Meat "meal" is okay, as long as it isn't the first ingredient.
Table scraps are fine if you eat healthy food. French fries and fried chicken should definitely be avoided.
Think about it this way: if your dog's food contains an ingredient you wouldn't want to consume yourself, you probably shouldn't be feeding it.
Blue buffalo is too expensive but I get 30 pounds of TOTW for $52. Stay away from places like petsmart for food. I prefer farm supply stores. The prices are more reasonable and they often have all of the best brands. My store even has a dog food club, where you get a free bag when you reach 500 lbs of food. We've already gotten 3 free bags in the year and a half we've been here.

Hope this helps!

I think it must have just been a specific formula or sensitive dog.

This is all good advice though and I too find farm stores to be the best and you are right, ours has all the great brands. They do have a couple poorer ones though but mostly not. My only problem is a store we found about an hour away is a few dollars cheaper than our local one and when we rotate one brand, i have never seen it in any stores.

I find that while pet stores often csrry some of the good brands you're right that they are very expensive and I find the one place to definitely avoid is grocery store foods.

And you are right about meat being first. Also by products and meal arent necessarily bad since theyd eat it with whole prey anyways and often meal,has higher protein but the thing is to be sure it specifies what kind of meat like chicken, beef, turkey, pork, etc etc instead of just saying animal or poultry because you have no idea whwre that meat comes from. I usually try to avoid corn and grain and excessive chemicals too.

Going by that a lot of these brands are great brands

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Just a quick comment:

Meat meal or byproducts is actually what you want as the first ingredient, not "whole" meats. Anytime you see whole as a descriptor, it means wet weight. dog food companies use this as a tactic to make it look like they are adding more meat (it looks like more because it is the first ingredient) when in reality, it is much less than having just meat meal in the top few ingredients.

Meat meal is made up of lots of good organ meats and offal which is a very good source of protein for dogs.

My professional opinion is that you do have to be somewhat careful about the higher cost foods because a lot of the foods cost more but may not be that different or any better than the mid range food. Also, not all dogs transition well to grain less foods. Most corn and other grains are included in food as a source of fiber (basically, it bulks up the poop) and I've had unhappy owners complain about the sloppiness they encounter after switching foods.

I rather like wellness and think it's a good option. I've been hearing some contradicting things about blue buffalo lately but I think TOTW is a decent choice as well. I'm also not against the foods people commonly condemn because many dogs and cats do just fine on them (really, those foods offer everything the dog needs in very precise amounts)

Another interesting tidbit is that dogs and cats that do develop allergies to food more often develop allergies to the protein (meat) source and not the grain.

I would not recommend the serum allergy testing. That is really only useful if you want to do allergy shots, and even then, the serum antibody test only really tests for pollens, molds, and a few parasites. The allergy test that I think is more worth the money is the actual intradermal testing but unfortunately none of these tests will test for food allergies.

As I mentioned earlier, some vets will try steroids to see if things improve. If signs improve on steroids, it is less likely to be a food allergy. Other vets would rather try novel protein food trials (steroids can have a lot of side effects).

Did he vet do a skin scraping? (I know you said they did a lot of tests so they may have done this already)

I still think a trip to a dermatologist would be money well spent.

 

[enola]

I tried TOTW when my min pin developed her allergies. She did great on it. But, when it wasn't in stock one week we tried 4Health Sweet Potatoe and she liked it and continued to do well, so we stuck with it.

I like the price better too!

 

[ShrekDawg]

That is a very good point and I actually have heard that meat meal has higher protein because its put back in the broth and dried up or something which is why i dont avoid it in dog foods but that said, I wouldnt not buy a good food just because it has whole meat first. I know that's not what youre saying but i think as long as its in the first couple ingredients its fine.

These are all very good points though and there actually is a test for food allergies but cant remember the exact name

 

[ShrekDawg]

Quick Google search turned it up faster than i thought haha

http://www.nutriscan.org

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Quick Google search turned it up faster than i thought haha

http://www.nutriscan.org

There are tests for food allergies. I think Idexx has a serum test for it also. The problem is more that they are expensive and not really reliable. A dog or cat could have antibodies to lots of things but that doesn't mean they have clinical allergy signs. (We were allowed to do a free Idexx serum test on our dogs here at school and my dog had antibodies to pretty much everything, and most things were outrageously high. I know she has some allergies to pollen and stuff, but if she reacted to everything she has antibodies against she would be a walking ball of histamine!)

I guess what I should say is I think a good trial is a better way to spend money to see if diet changes will help.

 

[ShrekDawg]

There are tests for food allergies. I think Idexx has a serum test for it also. The problem is more that they are expensive and not really reliable. A dog or cat could have antibodies to lots of things but that doesn't mean they have clinical allergy signs. (We were allowed to do a free Idexx serum test on our dogs here at school and my dog had antibodies to pretty much everything, and most things were outrageously high. I know she has some allergies to pollen and stuff, but if she reacted to everything she has antibodies against she would be a walking ball of histamine!)

I guess what I should say is I think a good trial is a better way to spend money to see if diet changes will help.

Ahhh okay. Yeah, that makes sense. But yeah, I wouldn't just do it if they had no signs but I think that if they had allergies or reactions to stuff then the test may be useful to find out what they could be allergic to. Plus even though I think the cost for that is kinda high at almost $300 it's definitely cheaper than repeated trips to the vet and testing. Although that said, you're right that food elimination trials or even just switching to a different brand and seeing if they do better are definitely much cheaper and easier. Although some people have tried switching foods and they're still allergic so it may be useful for them. Mine never had allergies and they said thirs has been on this food a while but some people do try lots of different foods. Althougb even then I am sure that most people do jot try every single protein source before jumping to expensive tests like this. Although that said, by the time you try multiple bags of dog food it could end up being about the same

 

[ShrekDawg]

But you're definitely right that I would recommend simply switching foods first but I was just pointing that one out since i had thought you said there werent food tests but the new way you explained it makes more sense

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

A lot of the food trials use really novel proteins like kangaroo (and sometimes rabbit). I always thought that was kind of funny, but it seems to work since most dogs here have never had kagaroo!