I just went back for another look at the dial, and the number at the bottom of it reads 13.3% now…
Are you playing with it as we speak, David? ;D
The dry matter dial for fat on the Country Hunter nuggets, rabbit variety is showing 13.3% for me. In fact all of them are showing this. I’ve re-read your post but wonder if I am misunderstanding?
*We posted at the same time! LOL
Yes indeed. Sorry about that. It was an error with the figures on the database. All fixed now though. I’ve also double checked the rest of the NM range and all of the details appear correct.
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Great. Thank you for clarifying that one for me.
pancreatitis is often caused by high carbohydrate level rather than high fat levels, since to digest carbs the pancreas has to attempt to produce more amylase and other enzymes in higher amounts than it really sould, and this stress causes inflammation, and can eventually lead to insulin resistance and diabetes
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Dogmo - just wondering how your dog is getting on with the new food? I guess that you will have a fair idea by now.
My 16 month old beagle is currently being treated in emergency vet for pancreatitis. Reading up AADF article on prescription diets, I want to avoid them.
I am keen to feed cold pressed. Do you think this would be suitable? (Can’t post links but it’s Lukullus Beef & Trout)
Despite being a beagle she is a very fussy eater but seems to like this so I am keen to keep her on it.
Any advice greatly appreciated, many thanks.
I am sorry to hear about your Beagle’s illness - he is very young to be having pancreatitis. Has the vet been able to say what caused it? I hope that following treatment at the vets he makes a full recovery.
With regards to cold pressed food I feed this myself but use Gentle. It is very similar and in fact is made in the same factory by the same company. As has been pointed out on this thread, the aim is for low fat but often with commercial foods this comes at the expense of higher than average carbohydrate and Lukullus is no exception. It is a shame that Dogmo has not returned to the thread to appraise us of progress since using Natures Menu Country Hunter nuggets as it might have been helpful to you. This product seems to have a reasonable fat level and is lower than some of the other prepared raw meals. If you have the freezer space it might be worth trying for a few weeks. The company have a help line if you need further advice. You could also run a search on the Dog Food Directory of this website but set the slider in the Filters section to a lower fat level.
If you don’t fancy raw or haven’t the freezer space, perhaps have a look at Wainwright’s products (Pets at Home). Having recently checked them out, I noticed that their grain free wet food is low fat. Link The dry matter fat level is 0.4 and the carbohydrate on the border line between low and average. However, have a word with the vet and take the dry matter figures with you as it is these that are important. I am hoping that one of the other experienced members will come along and advise further.
There has just been a post on the Gentle Facebook page from someone whose dog has pancreatitis. I know that it is just one dog, and anecdotal but I thought it might be worth sharing it as pancreatitis seems to be a fairly common illness.
Apparently the dog is doing really well on this product after refusing to eat next to nothing for 2 1/2 weeks and losing 4kg in weight. She had been hospitalised for five days so must have been quite poorly. Apparently she was refusing food but has taken to the cold pressed food quite readily and is now getting stronger, although she has some way to go. I hope that she eventually regains full health.
Hi All
I’m new to this site and am hoping the collective brains out there will be able to help…
I have an 11 year old Bearded Collie. She came to us when she was 6 years old and was fed on James Wellbeloved dry food - usually the white fish & rice variety. She did very well on this until a couple of years ago when she started having occasional stomach upsets - early in the morning her stomach would start gurgling very loudly and all she wanted to do was go out and eat grass. She would pass a normal stool but would be clearly ‘down’, lethargic and off her food until late in the afternoon when she picks up and wants her food. The stomach gurgling is sometimes accompanied by flatulence and very occasionally she has a bout of diarrhoea. The following day she absolutely fine and back to full Beardie bounce.
The vet’s diagnoses was possible pancreatitis and recommend a change to Royal Canin Low Fat prescription diet. I know that such foods aren’t always what they claim to be but the change in diet did immediately resolve the stomach problems, so we have stuck with it and she has been symptom free for a good 18 months or so. However the symptoms have now returned and she is now having one of these episodes once a week. Blood tests including a mal absorption test have come back normal and the vet is puzzled. So for 6 days out of 7 we have an extremely fit & healthy Beardie, showing no signs of age, and not on any medication.
The obvious thing is to try her on a different food but I’m struggling to know what to try and have spent hours trying to work it all out. The main difference between the James Wellbeloved and prescription diet was the drop in Fibre and Fat content. The prescription diet is poultry based and does contain wheat, so it makes sense to head for a grain free, fish based food. But the low fat ones I can find, seem to be much higher in fibre e.g. Wafcol Salmon & Potato. Is this a bad thing? Something like Robbie’s Brown Rice & Salmon has similar levels of Fibre & Fats but still includes Oats. So really confused as to which way to go :-\
Just wondered if anyone has any similar experience and can offer advice?
Hello and welcome to the forum. It does sound as if you are having problems with your dog. It is helpful that your vet has ruled out serious illness.
I don’t know anything about your prescription diet. However, having fairly recently searched for low fat food for one of my dogs I have found that the only two grain free ones are Wafcol Salmon and Potato and Fish4Dogs Superior Weight Control. If grain is OK then the choice is wider. Usually they are designated light or mature. Burns have a few products that are low in fat. Another one that springs to mind is Pooch & co light (fish) but there are more.
Did you use the Dog Food Directory to search for low fat food? If not, it can be found here. You just need to set the filters to your required parameters - they are on the left side of the screen. At the bottom there is a slider for fat and if you set it no higher than 10 you should get a variety of products as long as you leave the grain/cereal boxes empty.
The F4D Weight Control seems to have helped my dog but I soak the kibble and she has 4 meals per day, the last one being about 8pm. From experience I have found that Buscopan helps with this sort of problem but it needs to be given as soon as the dog shows symptoms. Metoclopramide is an anti emetic and that too is helpful.
It is a case of trial and error, particularly with meal management but I would definitely recommend soaking the kibble and giving a small meal last thing at night. Please let us know how you get on and I hope that things improve.
some foods don’t appear to be low fat, but because they are low carb the feeding amounts are much lower, which means that the grammes of fat eaten per day is the same as a low fat food, sometimes less. the other advantage is that, being low carb, they also allow the pancreas to work less, since it doesn’t have to produce excesses of amylase, often the trigger that starts pancreatitis in the first place.
Similarly, a “low fat” food can require higher feeding amounts, and the fat intake can be as much as a regular fat food
sorry to make the choice more confusing
Thanks for comments. Having spent hours studying this, I’d come to similar conclusions - think a degree in nutrition is needed! Though this website is great - having all the info in one place and easy to compare.
I think we will be on a long road of trial and error until we find what is triggering the problems - it may not be the fat content at all. At least my dog is extremely fit and healthy otherwise, so that is less of a worry.
I will let you know how we get on!
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We have a 14momth old male Boxer who has had tummy problems since we got him at nine weeks old. He has just been diagnosed with Pancreatitis and IBD. We are struggling to find a food that doesn’t make him unwell. We are resisting the vets recommendation of Royal Canin Moderate Calorie…so far. I have been cooking chicken, rice and veg for him but am unsure about amounts of each and in general how much to feed in total. Does anyone have experience of cooking for their dog and any advice??
Hello Victoria. It sounds as if you are having a difficult time right now with your Boxer. Did the vet suggest that you give your dog a low protein/fat diet? They usually do for pancreatitis. Also, are you giving well cooked brown rice? It is reported to be more nutritious than white.
I read an article about it a long time ago and IIRC the author talked of thirds so I presume it was something like one third protein (meat etc), one third carbohydrate and one third vegetables/fruit. They advised giving a good quality all round supplement and the one that I have used was SF-50. An omega oil supplement (e.g. salmon oil) might be helpful.
Links that might be useful:
How to Make Allergy Food for Dogs
Founders Vet Home Cooking (this is American)
I am sorry that I cannot answer your question about quantity - I think it is impossible to say really because all dogs have different requirements. It will just have to be trial and error on your part, weighing the food accurately and also taking him to the surgery for weighing every so often.
Thanks! Very useful. We are trying to find a dry food that works, but he is so hungry that I am cooking for him because he can keep it down, rather than throwing up because of an intolerance to whatever food we are currently testing.
Sorry to hear your boy isn’t well.
I would suggest you start with a single source protein, grain free, low carb food. I may be better to start with a fish based recipe, such as Eden Catch of the Day, as 2% of dogs are intolerant to chicken.
Low fat (actual grammes not just fat%) is often advised during a pancreatic episode since the fat will be harder to digest, but it is higher carbs that tend to be the cause, since dogs have little salivary amylase the burden of digesting starch falls to the pancreas which then has to work extra hard, and hence the inflammation.
IBD can have many causes, but grains and chicken seem to be the two most common.
Feel free to phone the Eden office for a more detailed chat
I have been thinking about this issue of quantities in home made dog food. Many years ago I had a trusty old pressure cooker and used it a lot to give my dogs a home made diet. In those days we did not have all these dog foods and you could get all sorts of cuts of cheap meat from the butcher e.g. beef cheek. I expect that my dogs’ diet probably wasn’t very well balanced but they survived until old age so it couldn’t have been so bad.
With the problems that your dog has I think you are right in preparing his food yourself but for now I would concentrate more on quality ingredients and in taking it very, very slowly to see if you can elicit what he is intolerant of (if anything). On my own forum we have discussed this and one of our members routinely feeds all her dogs home made food. Here is what she does:
- We feed only root vegetables; carrot, swede, parsnip, sweet potato and a small amount of potato.
- We usually dice the veg and boil it all until fairly soft and then drain and mash it. Occasionally we put in some broccoli or cabbage but they can tend to get a bit gassy when fed brassicas.
- For meat we use a mixture of beef & lamb heart or kidney, neck of lamb or any cheap cut of chicken, turkey, lamb or beef. We never feed pork as I’ve read that’s not good for them. We also avoid liver as it doesn’t seem to agree with any of them.
- We cook the meat in a batch and then dice it up and put it into small bags. The bags of food are then frozen and used as we need them.
- We used to freeze the meat and veg together but found that they like it much better if frozen separately and then mixed at time of feeding.
- Once a week we mix veg with a tin of oily fish such as sardines and also a couple of times a week feed raw chicken wings to give them the calcium they need and a bit of crunch.
The suggestion in the aforementioned article is 40% protein (meat, chicken, fish), 50% vegetables and 10% carbohydrate. The problem with that is that it is a lot of vegetables and I wonder if that might exacerbate the inflammatory bowel disease. As David says, fish is usually helpful for dogs like yours as it is easily digested.
I don’t know what you have tried,but if you go down the commercial dog food route, choose one that is clearly labelled and very simple in terms of ingredients. Wet foods are often better in this respect, particular ones like Wainwright’s grain free, Naturediet and Natures Menu pouches/cans although there are others. These can be found on the dog food directory of this website, using the filters on the left hand side. The problem with some of them is that the fat and protein levels tend to be higher so you ought to ask your vet about suitable levels. Look at the dials at the bottom of each product - they give the dry weight percentages. Although it is not the same as your dog, one of mine has gastric problems and I’ve found that Fish4Dogs seems to be helping. It is quite basic - just fish and potato. I always soak the kibble to help with digestion and she has it divided into four meals per day.
Thank you so much Dottie and Eden. As I Said Oscar has had problems since a very young pup, we fed him on Burns puppy and then moved him onto Skinners Field and Trial, so felt we were feeding him reasonably well, but he has become increasingly poorly. I know I am being churlish but I really resent buying food only available through a vets, although I will if I have to, but am determined to exhaust other avenues first.
So far, we have tried and had to reject Burns Sensitive plus, both varieties. I then gave him a break and fed him home cooked food, chicken, brown rice and veg which he adored. am now slowly introducing Purina Sensitive EN and he hasn’t been sick in the last 24 hours. I have also reduced the amount of rice we are giving him, having taken on board what Eden Holisitic Pet Foods says about carbs, so am hopeful we may be able to move him onto Purina permanently, although am tempted to keep,cooking for him, but would need advice on supplements etc.
I do really appreciate the help, thank you again.
I do hope that the Purina helps. Regarding supplements if you go back to home cooking, as mentioned before, two that are worth considering are SF-50 and a good quality salmon oil. Whilst carbs are currently getting a bad press right now, your dog has particular problems and and he does need to feel that he has had a meal. This website does not look on carbs as necessarily a bad thing but advocates good quality ones such as well cooked brown rice or oatmeal. Sweet potato is also a good choice.