Purina Veterinary Food

[Monkeyhands]

Hi,

I have a french bulldog pupppy who has a massive problem pooing and may need an operation. She was being fed Wolf of Wilderness puppy but the vet has put her on Purina Pro Plan Veterinary diets En Gastrointestinal food following an over night stay where they fed her this and she seemed to improve on it. The ingredients list does contain a lot of fillers such as rice and maize so I want to make sure the food will be ok for her in the long term, on the other hand, it does seem to be helping her condition so I may keep her on it as the vet says it is a complete food. I have tried looking for an analysis of the food on the web site but cannot find one, does anyone know anything about this food and if there are any better alternatives. For reference at the moment, we are not sure what is the problem with the dog and are waiting to see a specialist. Basically, she really struggles to poo even though the consistency of the poo is relatively soft (the closest analogy I can think of is its like a firm McFlurry!) and every poo she bleeds from her bum, she also has minor leakage throughout the day. Blood tests have been done and not revealed anything and we have 2 poo samples at the lab that we are waiting for the test results so at the moment viruses etc haven’t been fuled out but the vet thinks this is unlikly and that the dog has a narrow sphincter that means she is really having to strain hard when going to the toilet, resulting in the blood. The food the dog has been put on does seem to help her go to the toilet but as we dont think she has an actual digestion problem Im not massivly sure I want to keep her on it long term so wondered if anyone knew much about it.
Thanks

Ben

[Dottie]

Hello and welcome to the forum. From your description it would seem that this is a complex problem. The nutritional ratings of prescription foods are usually not high. You can check this yourself by using the Instant Review Generator. I can’t do this for you because I don’t have the ingredient list. It will be on the packet that you have.

The problem is that without knowing the exact cause of the issue you don’t know what type of food to look for. As the anal sphinctre is narrowed, I would imagine that a soft stool will be easier for your pup to pass.

As you are currently under veterinary care and investigations I feel that for now it would be appropriate to continue with the food, especially as it does seem to have helped a little. It might be helpful to enhance the food with some suitable home cooked proteins. This will add variety and boost the nutritional ratings. There is a thread on this here. As the food you are using will be high in carbohydrate, in order to create balance it would perhaps be better to use protein foods such as cooked chicken, scrambled egg, cooked white fish.

Once you are a bit further on re the diagnosis and treatment, using the Dog Food Directory we can help you source a more nutritious food for your pup. We just need to know the specific requirements eg high/low fibre.

I hope that the vet is able to help your pup and that he will soon be well again.