Please Help!!! IBS issues :-(

[brandanamanda25]

I have a 1 year old english mastiff who about 4 months ago started having stomach issues. He stopped eating his food and his poor belly would make horrible sounds. He started vomiting in the middle of the night and would have several bouts of diarrhea with mucus and blood. This issue is becoming more frequent and is starting to become routine. He is currently on the large breed puppy food by Blue and we are in the process of changing it to the grain free by blue wilderness. He absolutely will not eat plain food. Because his belly gets upset, I boil chicken and rice and mix that into his food. When I do this, he eats it all and the symptoms subside but as soon as we ween him off the chicken, he starts all over. We have taken him to the vet multiple times. Theres no bacteria, virus or worms that could be causing this. I've been reading up on IBS and every symptom describes Hank. We are trying steroids this week but i'm nervous. I have a feeling as soon as he is off the steroids, this will all start over. Has anyone had this problem, and if so what types of food have you tried and what helps.

 

[angelbears]

First, I would get him off Blue Buffalo products. A lot of talk out there of dogs getting sick. There is actually a thread on this forum about it if you want to search for it. More than likely this is not the cause but you never know.

Second, I would try the raw diet. Lots of info on here about that. If you can't go that route than most definitely with a grain and chicken free kibble. Some mastiffs have problems with both. For some reason and it is commonly reported that dogs that have an intolerance to chicken in kibble have no problems with it in the raw diet or homemade cooked diets. I believe it has something to do with the way the dog food companies process the chicken.

Good Luck

 

[angelbears]

Here is the link about Blue

http://www.mastiff-forum.com/showthread.php/17704-Blue-Buffalo-mystery?highlight=blue+buffalo

 

[musicdeb]

I agree, it's the food. Blue Buffalo is not a good food. Check out dogfoodadvisor.com for dog food ratings and customer feedback. Check out Earthborn Holistics Grain Free (non-chicken flavor) if you cannot do raw.

Reset his system by going cold turkey to raw diet or feed him boiled white rice with boiled chicken, turkey, hamburger or add pumpkin (not the pie filling) for about 5 days before starting the new dog food.

You may want to check out the raw diet for your pup. Check out the sub forum on raw diet that has a wealth of information. It is not recommended to feed the pup kibble and raw food. Dr. Becker talks about this in one of her videos.

Check out Dr. Becker’s videos on youtube.com for a lot of great information regarding the raw diet. Here is Part 1 there are 3 parts to the series. Well worth the time to watch the videos.

[video=youtube;Qx2YIIpF4cc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx2YIIpF4cc[/video]

 

[DMikeM]

If you can just ditch the kibble and go raw. Do a few days with the chix and rice then switch to raw chicken, then dump the rice.

 

[DennasMom]

Since he was eating the food, and then it wasn't working any more... I'd guess Blue changed the formula on you, or you got a bad batch.

I'd add some probiotics, too... help build up the gut bugs.
Maybe add some slippery elm bark powder (SEBP) for a few days to help soothe the system.
We used "GI Support" from onlynaturalpet.com during some of our food transitions. I think it helped (but our issues were pretty low-key).

Raw diets have helped a lot of IBS dogs - or so I've read, anyway. We feed raw, and I love the results.

If a raw diet isn't for you, check out Orijen kibbles or Earthborn. They have some good options. No need for the puppy formula anymore, either.

Hope your pup is all better soon!

 

[cinnamon roll]

Welcome to the forum.

Get as FAR AWAY from Blue as you can. And then do the 5 day system reset of either chicken and rice or hamburger and rice.

 

[brandanamanda25]

thank you so much for your help... the video was very educational. There are multiple people talking about giving him a raw food diet...... im not 100% sure what that would consist of.... What types of raw food, how much food and how often?? My puppy is my world and him throwing up and having bloody stools is breaking my heart. Im willing to try anything!!

 

[cinnamon roll]

If you go to the raw forum there  is a TON of info on there. I do not feed raw, but a lot of our members do.

http://www.mastiff-forum.com/forumdisplay.php/44-Raw-Food-Diets

 

[musicdeb]

thank you so much for your help... the video was very educational. There are multiple people talking about giving him a raw food diet...... im not 100% sure what that would consist of.... What types of raw food, how much food and how often?? My puppy is my world and him throwing up and having bloody stools is breaking my heart. Im willing to try anything!!

Raw diet is the best decision you will make for your pup. I'm going to be honest, raw diet can be a lot of work. To start, figure out how much food the pup will need to eat. The pup is fed 2-3% of expected adult weight. For example, if the pup will be about 100 lbs then you will feed the pup 2-3 lbs of food per day. You can start out on the high end until you see how much weight he starts gaining and cut back to 2% once he levels out in weight.

For example, you're going to feed 3 lbs of meat per day. You then feed the pup 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% organ meat (Organ meat is slowly introduced after about 2 weeks on the raw diet). There are 48 ozs in 3 lbs, so you would feed 38 ozs of meat, 5 ozs of boney meat and 5 ozs of organ meat.

It is best to start with chicken leg quarters or chicken legs. Slowly introduce new meats after 2 weeks.

The pup will go chomp, chomp and swallow the entire leg. Do not worry that is normal. The pup may regurgitate his food, perfectly normal. The pup may poop every other day or two days, that is perfectly normal. The pup will not drink as much water as he did on dog food, that is perfectly normal.

Examples of meat Titan eats: pork chops, pork roasts, chicken wings, chicken breasts (use boiled chicken breasts for training rewards), chicken feet (great source of glucosamine), chicken livers, chicken gizzards, beef liver, ground beef, beef ribs, steak (when on sale), fish, ground turkey and ground chicken.

I shop at Fiesta Mart and Savers Cost Plus for Titan's meat. Check ethnic markets for chicken feet.

If you can, buy a freezer to stock up on meat when it's on sale. I live in an apartment for now, so I have small freezer which holds about 2 weeks worth of food for Titan.

Hope this helps.