Hello. This is my first post but i have a dilemma about doing the best for my 2 year old cockapoo.
He is currently on Natural Instinct which suits him well - but he still has to have his anal glands emptied every 8 weeks or so and is on tablets for his itchiness. With regards to the anal glands the vet suggested adding rice to his diet…
This has started a thought process and i am wondering if i should (reluctantly) try him on something like Naturediet wet food that has brown rice included. Kibble most certainly caused digestive issues so would not return to that. Has anyone on here moved from raw to wet and found improvements in their dog.
Thank you in advance. x
Hello and welcome to the forum. I had similar problems with one of my dogs. I tried her on raw food for a short while but it wasn’t suitable. Although I am not blaming it entirely for her anal gland problem, it seemed to exacerbate it. This was an older dog who had never needed to have her anal glands emptied.
I suspect, but do not know for sure that the problem with raw food is that although the stool is firm, for some dogs there is insufficient bulk so the anal glands might not be compressed sufficiently as the faeces pass through. Your vet is right in suggesting brown rice because it is a good source of fibre. I switched all my dogs to cold pressed food that has circa 28% brown rice and my dog’s anal glands didn’t need emptying after that. In my dogs it produces a firm stool with sufficient bulk.
Regarding switching to wet food, it would hopefully help but check the amount of brown rice and fibre content. These can be found in the Dog Food Directory. My experience with some quality wet foods is that they can prolduce a small firm stool, not dissimilar to when fed raw food. It depends on how much brown rice it contains. For instance, Forthglade is 4% and is below average in fibre but it contains brown rice. Naturediet has 10% rice but they don’t say that it is brown rice. The fibre content is above average. However, you can always bulk up wet food with a little more well cooked brown rice and perhaps suitable vegetables. The latter should be cooked and puréed to aid digestion.
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Thank you for this very helpful advice Dottie.
I phoned Naturediet and they only use WHITE rice so I will give the Forthglade a go and maybe add some extra brown rice if needed.
x
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That seems sensible. Forthglade sell grain free and with brown rice so see which you prefer. I sometimes give my two grain free Forthglade at dinner time just for variety but not the ones with potato. Adding well cooked brown rice should provide more fibre.
Hello and welcome to the forum,
Just to share my experiences. I feed raw but as Dottie says, the stools are often small and sometimes my dog has a job to get them out. If she seems to struggle, I will feed a few meals of cold pressed food or add the brown rice and some veg to her raw meals. Both work well and I have not had an issue with anal glands since the first few months that we had her. I have also fed the naturediet in the past which is similar to forthglade. This also resulted in healthy looking stools but I had quite a few spoiled containers. I didn’t go from raw to wet though, it was the other way around.
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Re raw complete output.
Some dogs don’t get on so well with some higher bone content raw complete foods which cause powder like stools
Some trial and error or adding veg can help soften things a little. Firm stools should help express glands but too dry &/or too much bone content can cause powder like output.
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Hello Jill202 and welcome to the forum!
Another suggestion that springs to mind might be to continue feeding raw food and to make the stool firmer, simply add a bon-ier raw food to the diet. For example by feeding a chicken wing as a treat between meals.
Or if you want to change to feeding mostly a complete wet food, with some raw, you might consider feeding these on alternate days. So for example 1 day feeding complete wet followed by 1 day complete raw.
Alternatively you could feed a complete wet food diet if that suits your dog, and if you are needing a firmer stool you could add in a raw chicken bone treat!
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Thank you all for your replies.
I am currently weaning Freddie onto Forthglade wet complete (Forthglade have been incredibly helpful and informative). His “output” is certainly more in volume but only time will tell if it helps anal glands and/or itching. I will keep you posted.
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Thanks Jill201. Your feedback will be appreciated and may help others having similar issues.
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Thank you for updating your thread. I would be interested to learn of your dog’s progress so please could you let us know how things are in a little while? It could take a month or two for you to be able to assess the change in diet accurately.
I sometimes give my dogs one quarter of a tray of Forthglade (usually grain free) at dinner time and I find that it produces a stool that is similar to when raw fed i.e. small and hard. However, all dogs are different so I am hoping that the change will be beneficial to your dog.
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Thank you Dottie. Freddie is on the grain free Turkey with Butternut Squash and i will keep him on that for at least a month before trying another protein. I weighed him at the start so i can monitor whether he needs more or less food.
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Hello - I thought I would give you a quick update now that Freddie has been 100% on Forthglade Wet (Turkey and Butternut Squash) for over 2 weeks…
His “output” is great - firm poos but more in volume which i am hoping will assist with his anal gland issues. Freddie has not had any runny poo for nearly three weeks now which i am delighted about.
He is on Apoquel for allergies and this week I have been giving him just half the tablet and so far so good… I know it is still very early days but i am feeling optimistic.
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I am delighted to hear that the changeover is going well. I agree that the increased output is hopefully going to be an advantage in Freddie’s case. The allergy improvement is an added bonus, especially as it is often quite difficult to pinpoint what they are allergic to.
Thank you very much for the update and I very much hope that Freddie will continue to improve.
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I am pleased to hear that Freddie is doing well. Long may it continue.
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