OMG!!! No wai!
Way. There's kind of a long story there, and there's a ton of stuff I need to post about and haven't had time. Soon! But I couldn't wait to tell you that my dog - Yes, the one who will eat anything edible (including dried up crunchy worms, a delicacy!). The one who I have yet to find a food he won't eat, including all manner or grain, vegetable (even brussells sprouts!), and fruit. The one who prefers real food, but eats his kibble like a trooper and without complaint. The one who instinctively stays away from all things non-edible, like tree seeds, rocks, bark, and uncooked lentils that I've spilled all over the kitchen floor (because I'm me, and that is my life). Yes, that one. - He won't eat the Science Diet I/D dry food.
This is the stuff that you're supposed to give your dog when he has an upset tummy. This is the stuff that, while supposedly easy on their system, also has a first ingredient of corn. There's also soy. This is also the stuff my vet pressured my husband into buying after he told them we've been feeding Theo chicken and rice. A ten pound bag of it. A month's supply, supposedly. How is it that chicken meal and rice processed heavily (to the point where all the nutrients are cooked out of it) with corn, soy, and other fillers that are hard to digest are better for my dog's digestive system than fully cooked chicken breast and brown rice?
Aside: My old professor who I talk to on Facebook says that most vets don't take classes on canine nutrition in veterinary school. I told her that I had never taken a class on canine nutrition either. I do, however, possess enough common sense to work it out for myself. What can I conclude, except that my vet does not possess common sense?
In other news, I will now be finding a new vet.
Anyway, this 10lb bag of processed disgustingness? Money down the drain. Theo took one look at his food bowl last night and gave me a look that very clearly said "Seriously? This is my dinner? How am I supposed to eat this!?" He picked up a few bites, but they mostly ended up on the floor next to his food bowl. After a couple of attempts he just walked away. He walked away with all the food still in the bowl! And then he upchucked. Yeap. He had a look of pure misery on his face. From the upchucking or the ingestion of that swill, I don't know.
About an hour and 2TB of pepto bismol later (OMG, is that ever another story! And with pictures! Ooooh, I hope I have time to post about that this week!), Theo was back to his normal self. And he happily downed the chicken and rice we gave him. No issues. Seriously, he went from pathetically run down to normal Theo in less than 5 minutes. It was kind of amazing. We were ready to throw the I/D in the trash, but I had a thought this morning. What if his disdain for the kibble was due to the fact that he wasn't feeling well? Had we let our preconceived notions of the crap food lead us to conclude the upchucking was a result of the food rather than the other way around? So I gave him another bowl for breakfast. I got another one of those looks. But this time he powered through a few bites. And then he left his food bowl when Husband sat down to eat his breakfast. He left his food bowl with food still in it in the hopes of scrounging a morsel or two from the floor around Husband's feet. This is about as unlike Theo as you can get. It really is a testament to how nasty that stuff is. Eventually I mixed in some chicken and rice just to get him to finish eating.
And now I'm left with a dilemma. Do I chuck the bag of vet-prescribed disgustingness? Or do I continue to mix crap food with real food? That good ol' common sense I was talking about tells me I should just nix the crap food, but the goody two-shoes rule-follower in me says I should try and stick with what the vet says since Theo wasn't getting better on chicken and rice. *sigh* What to do?
More on Theo's tummy woes later. Nothing serious, so no cause for worries. Unless you're worried about me getting my uninterrupted 6-7 hours of sleep every night, in which case, be very worried.
16 comments:
woah that is serious, a corgi not eating?!!!
Ok I'm not a vet nor am I a nutritionist, but I say nix the I/D. I/D is just a bland diet to provent upset tummies but it can't accomplish anything that just feeding burger and rice (or chicken and rice) can't. I also agree that I don't think I/D is the greatest of qualities but neither is any of the other foods most vets try to push on you.
I would take the I/D to an animal shelter; wonder if they could use it? pointless to keep it around if Theo won't touch it; it must really be bad stuff! Koda has stomach issues too; I wonder if it is a corgi thing because they eat everything in sight and then some things don't agree with them or are hard on their stomach. We have to be careful with the treats we give him (even doggie treats) and have to pull back when he gets a bit "loose" on things to figure out what made that happen. Ranitidine (generic Zantac) is also good for their tummies (vet told me this but I found this to be true too); 1/2 of a 75 mg one helps quiet Koda's tummy down.
also when Koda had major tummy issues after we moved down here, the vet said bland food (like chicken/rice) she said cottage cheese too. I give Koda plain bagel too and baked potato (without the sour cream and chives of course).
hope Theo feels better!!
I had to laugh though when I read your blog; these corgis!
betty
Chelsea has a tender tummy, too. I feed her Eukaneuba. (Did I spell that correctly?) We don't feed "People Food" EVER. we do training treats and chew bones. She is 15 months old and I give her 1/3 of a cup a.m. & p.m. and she is fine- we walk a lot and so far, she still has a "waist." I plan to keep her around 20lbs if at all possible.
Good luck, I hope Theo feels better!
Hugs, Cheryl in IN
WHOSYERGURL
Girl, throw that crap out! And, no, vets get one nutrition class, which is taught by a Hill's rep. All it takes is reading the label to figure this stuff out.
Now, about Theo's diet. Giving him Chx/Rice is GREAT. But, you must supplement him with a good doggie vite. He won't get all his nutrition from just the chx/rice.
PS: There are some great foods out there. And if you dribble a bit of no salt no fat chx broth on it, dogs eat it up. And they can be good for the tummy. And they give Theo all the nutrients he needs. And they're processed better.
Give Theo a hug from The Clan...
Our vet pushes science diet too... I think mainly because science diet pays them too. Their eyes usually light up when I say I feed Gibson Wellness, so they must have some knowledge of nutrition. I had to get the I/D for Gibson when he was sick, but he got the wet kind. He must not be as picky as Theo because he gobbled it up..
Betty, taking the leftover I/D to an animal shelter is a great idea! I might just do that. :)
So far Theo is eating the I/D as long as I mix it with chicken and rice. This is actually pretty close to his usual diet, which is half "whole foods" (i.e. protein like chicken, whole grain like brown rice, cottage cheese, chopped veggies, fruit, and some flaxseed oil (not all of that in one meal of course), and half kibble. We use wellness regularly.
xtreme, good point on the nutrients. Do you know of a good vitamin supplement? I've never been impressed with the ones I've seen at the pet store. His regular diet has plenty of nutrients, but he's been on a limited diet for a few weeks now. That's partially whey I've kept him on half I/D. It's crap food but at least they add some vitamins. :p
Kelly, we've never used the words Theo and picky in the same sentence (unless there was a not thrown in)! Hehe. That's why we were so surprised. :)
Thanks everyone!
haha yeah, I knew picky was the wrong word after I posted it. What I really meant was maybe the wet would be more appetizing to Theo than the dry stuff (if he really needed to eat it for an upset tummy).
For vitamins, I use Pet Tabs for Caleb. I crumble them up and they mix right in with his wet & dry food. I also used to use Derm Caps for his coat, but since we switched to Wellness, his coat hasn't needed it.
Science Diet is crap, don't feed him that, but don't just chuck it either - I'm sure there is a place you could donate it to like a local shelter or even a plain old foodbank.
Philip has been eating a new diet for several months now and he is doing amazing on it. It's a refrigerated premade raw-ish diet, it's called DeliFresh and sold at PetSmart. They make chicken and turkey variety, I get the chicken. It's a bit more expensive than buying kibble, but I thought I'd throw the idea at you just in case anyway :)
It's also not recommended to mix kibble with normal food because kibble digests much slower, and that can cause upsets in sensitive stomachs (sounds like Theo has one), so try to stick to one or the other.
Ok, you just blew my mind. No kibble and real food together!?!? I've never heard that before. No way! Ahhhh! As I said, mind blown.
There aren't any petsmarts close to me, so I don't know how feasible it is. But I'm definitely open to the pre-made raw-ish diet, as long as the ingredients are good.
Are you going to the meetup this Sunday? We'll be there and I'd love to see Philip!
For upset tummy, Cloud's vet recommended three days with no food and just pedialyte and water, broth. Freya's vet recommended to only feed plain white rice 24 hours after "vomitus" as he called it.
I think plain oatmeal would also be good as the slimey part (muesli--I think is what it is called) can help soothe the irritated stomach lining.
Yeah, totally donate that Hills diet.
I've heard and read that several times, I'll see if I can find some links for you, but in a nutshell there are two main reasons why I've heard it's bad.
One is the different digestive times which causes lots of extra digestive juices left with the kibble once the other stuff is gone - that can create bacteria, etc.
The other is that kibble is (or should be) nutritionally complete, and adding extra stuff to it can throw the balance off too much, providing too much of some things and no enough of others.
Both should not be too big of a problem for most dogs, but sometimes you get one with a sensitive stomach and then it's not so good. Might be worth a try to have Theo stay on one or the other for a week and see if it help.
The ingredients are very good, Philip only gets the best :) See here:
http://www.delifreshpet.com/products/cvr.htm
You can also use their locator to see where it's sold near you, looks like it's not just in PetSmart.
We'll be there on Sunday, haven't seen you guys in a long time, I bet Philip will be super excited!
Oh wow, that food looks great! I like that it's cooked but not overcooked to the point where it's no longer recognizable as food. It's basically cooked to the point where people would eat it, it sounds like. I think I'll try it! They sell it at the Petco right by me. The ingredients sound great!
It's going to be hard to convince Husband if it costs too much though. :(
Oh no, he just looked up the price. He's not happy. !!! He claims it's 10X more than what we currently feed him.
I don't really think Theo has a sensitive stomach, actually. He's been on this diet for almost 2 years now, and he's never had problems. I think it's something intestinal. Like an infection of some kind maybe. He doesn't seem to experience any kind of discomfort when he eats, or after. It just...comes out the other end wrong. Hehe. We'll see what happens when we try the new vet. They might actually care enough to investigate it!
It can't be that much more expensive, I think his calculations are off. I buy the 6lb bag, and it's good for two weeks, so that's about $80 for the whole month. On kibble (Blue Buffalo Wilderness) it was a $50 bag and it lasted just a bit over a month.
Yeah it's hard to know what it is when food isn't digesting properly, it was just an idea :) Another thing that pops in mind is some kind of worms.
I've been very happy with my vet, so if you haven't settled on a new one yet, I can bring you the contact info on Sunday, and they are actually much closer to you than to me haha!
I actually already know which vet I want to take him to. Just about all my neighbor friends with dogs go to this place, and they swear by it. It might even be the same place. ;) Let's talk on Sunday!
Oh, it's in bags? I was looking at the slice and serve logs and I saw them on amazon, $40 for a 4 pack, which is not even 2 weeks worth if you follow the serving suggestions. So yeah, about $90-100/month. I won't get into how much we spend now because there's lot of ingredients to tabulate, heh. But it's not that much. But I'm working on him! I'm going to stop at Petco this weekend and pick up some to try. I'm trying to convince him that the convenience factor is worth the extra money. Since he's not the one who is constantly cooking up chicken and rice!
It shouldn't be worms because they've been doing fecal tests. Though they STILL haven't gotten back to me with the results from this latest one. Grrr. I'm actually hoping it's something like that just so I'll know what the problem is and how to treat it. I'm not looking forward to lots of blood work panels and xrays and what not.
I was referring to the logs heh, that's a better name for them :D
Yeah, let's talk Sunday, I'll stop advertising food on your blog and turning it into a short book ;)
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