Hi folks.
Some of you are a little familiar to the problems of my gorgeous rescue dog .
Rex has been an absolute dream to adopt from a local shelter. He is unbelievably gentle and sociable with people and other dogs. He is a fantastic addition to our home.
The only issue we have is his fear of noise, that he encounters on a simple walk in the local area.
and I’ve given info on a diet that was recommended by our vet.
Unfortunately the recommended diet didn’t give the anticipated results, so we’ve decided to try a similar food to see if there’s any noticeable difference.
Pooch and Mutt is somewhat cheaper than Breakthrough, that Rex has been on for 2 months, but the Calm & Relaxed food claims to offer very similar remedies.
Interestingly the Pooch and Mutt scores better than Breakthrough using this website’s evaluation method, so technically we MIGHT see an improvement.
Hopefully things are that simple, but time will tell.
I realise that there is no definitive food for our little friends and we can only try to find what works for our individual needs, but hopefully a little shared knowledge can help our wee boys and girls.
Rex has only been on Calm & Relaxed for 2 weeks so far, so there’s nothing to report yet, but I plan to keep him on this for 3 months for evaluation.
Progress will likely be slow, so I can’t promise dates for updates, but I’ll keep you in the frame nonetheless.
It’s been a full two months now that Rex has been on Pooch and Mutt. We have found there to be no change to his fears whilst on this food.
We have found that he was losing weight whilst following the feeding guide, provided on the packaging, so we had to keep increasing the quantity until he balanced out. Obviously all dogs vary, so a guide is simply that.
Having tried two foods that are supposedly formulated for dogs with behaviour problems, we are going back to the vet to seek further help.
Rex will still happily jump in the car to go somewhere quiet, but he is still very nervous of traffic noise. We are able to give him good exercise, but he clearly is stressed at times and I’d like to get some resolve to that issue.
I know that you have spoken to a behaviourist about this but have you thought of trying a herbal treatment? Dorwest and Hilton Herbs both have preparations for the nervous dog. My old dog sometimes gets very upset, commonly due to gunshot and other noises but my veterinary practice are reluctant to prescribe. I would be interested to hear what your vet offers. Please could you let us know?
Food wise, anecdotally we hear of improvement in behaviour with a raw or home cooked diet. Can’t say whether it would be of any help though. I hope that you are able to help your dog overcome his anxiety.
I have seen this stuff work (breakthroughdog.co.uk). It is based on Vals Diet which has been proven to work on reactive dogs for many years and she has now managed to get it into a commercial food.