pup not taking to diet

[Neal 1,873]

I'm hoping somebody can help me with some advice. I've been feeding my dogs on a BARF diet for over twenty years (that makes me sound like Keith Fit on Gigglebiz!) without any problems. However, my latest pup (currently eight months old) is having one major problem with it. He house-trained really quickly but I still found that he had occasional accidents in his crate overnight. To cut an extremely long story short...after numerous trial runs on different amounts of different ingredients it always came down to the same thing...chicken bones within chicken portions e.g. wings, thighs, drumsticks etc.

At one point, because nothing seemed to be working I even did something I've not done for years and tried him on some dried food...and it worked fine! It's called Taste of the Wild and, although the poos are bigger, they're a pretty good consistency i.e. not the wet, stodgy things I used to have to try to pick up before I went BARF in the 90s. Basically, I've been repeating the same thing several times over the last few months...dry food works fine so I try him on BARF again and within a week he's crapped in his crate causing the usual problems that go with it i.e. major clean-up operation! However, as I said above, I think I've focused it down to the chicken bones as causing the problem. Although the poos are very runny (the accident ones) and I initially presumed something was causing diarrhoea I'm now fairly sure it's the opposite in that he seems to be producing the runny stuff in a vain attempt to clear out the hard stuff. I'm basing this on occasional hard lumps in the poo and even occasional spots of blood. I'll also sometimes find whole pieces of bone within the poo (like a huge owl pellet). The best way to describe it as though his stomach juices are not doing their usual job of breaking down the bone (as they've done fine with every other dog I've fed on exactly the same diet) so he has to try harder to force it out resulting in an explosion...apologies if you're eating while reading this.

So, do I continue with the Taste of the Wild (which is a good quality dry food and he seems to do fine on it) or try something else and, if so, then what...maybe stop the chicken portions and stick with pre-prepared minced rabbit, lamb etc which I can get at my local pet shop but is more than twice the price of the dry? The latter also wouldn't solve the problem of something for his teeth to work on. One thing to add: I've no "local butchers" close by which is why all my BARF feeding is now done via the pet shop (NaturesMenu) or Sainsbury's (frozen chicken which is ironically a fraction of the price of "dog quality" frozen chicken wings from the pet shop). Thanks in advance!

[socks 32,253]

Can you not get hold of a mincer ? If it’s only doing chicken then you won’t have a problem and a light hand one will do ... that way he gets the bone but ground down so as not to cause him any discomfort......

[MJenks 1]

Have you considered using Imodium 

[Neal 1,873]

Thanks Socks; I'd not considered that.

MJenks: as it's a BARF diet surely it should be prunes...then he can shoot the neighbours' cat when he pumps out the stones!

[gnipper 6,519]

Is it chicken he has a problem with in general? My last lurcher could eat anything but chicken gave him the squits for the first 4 years and then he snapped out of it.

[Neal 1,873]

To be honest, I'm still not certain. I'm in the process this week of trying him on some minced chicken without the whole bones to see if that makes a difference...with a full bottle of stain and odour remover and plenty of kitchen towels at the ready!

[gnipper 6,519]

Try no chicken and see what happens. 

[skycat 6,173]

I had one lurcher that couldn't eat raw chicken including bones, or rather she'd eat it (to begin with until she learned what happened) and then throw it back up within half an hour. Eventually she refused it, but was fine on lamb bones. Every individual is different, and if a dog is fine on what purports to be a good, balanced diet, then feed it, but monitor its health and maybe try to change to something else once in a while. I've had dogs become intolerant to certain things, and also grow out of that intolerance. There's so much going on in a body that we can't always understand the whys, hows or whats.

[Neal 1,873]

Thanks for the advice.

An update: he was fine for a couple of days but yesterday I tried him on minced lamb and chicken mixed with the dry and I had another explosion. I think it was from both ends this time but it's hard to tell as I've known him to produce vomit which looks (and smells) like poo!

I'm therefore thinking it's either chicken that's causing it or possibly combining the dry and mince. I'll try mince only for a few days and post again later next week.

Thanks again for all the advice.

 

Edited February 15, 2019 by Neal

[will 16]

Our dog was doing this it turned out it was the bleach wich thay use to clean the chicken for human consumption,if we were bagging a bit of chicken up to freez you could feel the bleach burn your fingers we stoped getting it from the supermarket and got no more problems, I feed taste of the wild mixed with raw meat and my dog does really well on it, hope this helps

 

[Neal 1,873]

Thanks Sid and Will. Very interesting, especially about the human consumption chicken. The irony is that the human quality chicken is roughly half the price of the "frozen chicken wings" intended for dogs from across the road in the pet shop...ridiculous.

Anyway, an update: since my last post he's had no more chicken in any way, shape or form and his crate has remained vomit and diarrhoea free! I've fed him on various combinations of minced beef and/or tripe with or without the Taste of the Wild. I've also tried minced venison and some lamb bones which I found in Morrisons. Next step will be to try some rabbit and then maybe see what he's like on other poultry by trying turkey and duck.

Many thanks again for all the advice and helping to put my mind at rest. Very much appreciated.

[gnipper 6,519]

It's weird how it affects the odd mutt but most dogs seem to thrive on chicken isn't it. My dog seemed to just get over it though after about 4 years.

[Aussie Whip 4,130]

My mrs chihuahua's couldn't eat raw chicken mince(with the bone in) so we cooked it a bit and no problems.Strangley could eat raw rabbit,but I think because these are frozen while very fresh.

[Neal 1,873]

An update: I had intended to write an update about a fortnight ago to basically say something on the lines of "Thanks for all your advice, everything's fine now since I cut out the chicken,"...but then it happened again.

I did the usual thing of going over everything that had happened the previous day but the only thing I could think of was that my kids said he's chewed on a stick for a bit in the garden. Then it happened last week...and then again last night. My immediate assumption was that yesterday he'd also been given some leftovers in the form of two tiny new potatoes and some cooked lamb stake along with his usual minced beef etc so maybe he's just extremely sensitive to ANYTHING new. But I then remembered one other thing he had yesterday: a rawhide chew. I gave one to Noggin to keep him occupied while I took Ned to the wood with the kids and, because there was a bit left over when we got back, Ned finished it off. I used to give him a lot of rawhide chews as a pup and he's had a couple again recently so maybe it's those either instead of or as well as the chicken? I'd not previously considered the chews but when I stopped the chicken I stopped those too almost by accident as I was so focused on his meals. I'm almost tempted to give him chicken again just to see what happens.

This last incident happened at half one in the night and I slept soundly all through it while, unbeknown to me, my lovely wife cleared it all up for me. What a star! However, she has basically said (understandably) that this can't go on indefinitely so I'm back to clutching at straws again and pulling my hair out wondering what the hell to do. I can't even leave him outside in the run as he's a barker and I have some passive aggressive neighbours who kindly inform me, "Did you know your dog was barking? I'm not complaining but I just thought you'd like to know."

[Gilbey 1,461]

rawhide chews are a byproduct of the leather industry, full of chemicals.

got to be very careful what scraps we give our old dog because he gets loose easily