Roll Over Rocket: Can your Dog’s Food Affect His Health? Dazzle Dog Delight

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Friday, May 14, 2010

     When we first took our eight month old pup, Rocket, home from the East Bay SPCA, we noticed that his poop was always very mushy.   Rocket was eating a premium dog food that our previous dog had eaten for years without any problems. We did not suspect that his health problems were related to his food.
   At one point Rocket experienced a case of acute gastroenteritis, when he had pretty severe diarrhea and vomiting. It even got to the point where he was pooping blood. We thought we might lose him. Fortunately the illness cleared up, but his poop remained soft.
   During the acute gastroenteritis, we of course took him to the vet, and she ran tests to find out if Rocket had Parvo (canine parvovirus) or stomach cancer. Puppies are very susceptible to Parvo, which can be fatal because it prevents a puppy’s digestive system from absorbing nutrients. The test results came back negative for Parvo but positive for parasites.
   The vet prescribed an antibiotic which cleared up the parasites but still his poop was mush (and very unpleasant to pick up, I might add). His energy level increased noticeably, though. So much so that we had to change his afternoon exercise from a half hour walk around the neighborhood to an hour long hike in the hills.
   Finally the vet suggested that his problem might be a food sensitivity. She recommended we experiment with various dog foods, so we tried a more holistic premium brand. The new dog food didn’t help very much. We had heard that some dogs have problems with their anal glands if there is too much grain in their food. If a dog’s anal glands fail to properly express, they can become infected. Some signs of this problem are: a fishy odor coming from your dog or your dog’s poop is mushy.   Over a three month period, we went through many types and brands of dog food and couldn’t find one that worked. We asked the vet to suggest a specific brand and she recommended a “limited ingredient” food that contains only two ingredients: fish and sweet potato (and some vitamins and minerals). It worked! His poop firmed up immediately. The company also sells dog treats with the same ingredients, so that’s about all he eats (we also make him homemade treats made of tiny pieces of sweet potato baked at 325 degrees for about an hour, plus the occasional teaspoon of peanut butter which he tolerates just fine). Rocket is now a happy and healthy dog. We are guessing that he has a sensitivity to grains in general or gluten in particular. We may never know for sure but it doesn’t really matter because we’ve solved the problem. The vet says it’s fine for him to eat only this dog food pretty much for the rest of his life. Woohoo!