Has anyone successfully fed a mixture of Raw and Dry food?

[Shari Becker]

Hello everyone! I'm new to your group, and I'm hoping you can help me out. We have a consistently itchy 5-month-old goldendoodle. Her breeder started with Fromm puppy, but switched the litter to Pioneer chicken and potato. After we brought the puppy home, we immediately noticed that she itched a lot. Within a few weeks, she was biting her feet and tail all the time.

Out vet, who is holistic, said it was probably the chicken and she recommended we switch her to a raw diet. We started - at her suggestion - on Primal rabbit because it is considered very low allergy. The itching got better (no more tail and feet biting), but did not entirely stop. She is still always scratching and biting at hot spots. After two months of buying rabbit (which is crazy expensive), we switched to Primal lamb. Still crazy pricey, but not as much. We supplement with a little yogurt, peas, cooked carrots and eggs.

However, Lexi is growing fast, and  her appetite is voracious. The cost of keeping her on a raw lamb diet is beginning to feel stressful. I've really come to love the idea of feeding raw, and I'd like to continue in some capacity, but it's not sustainable for us cost wise indefinitely.

I guess I"m wondering if anyone has tried to combine two forms of food. And if so, what kind of dry food you'd recommend for a puppy who is perpetually itching...  Thanks!

[Sally, Echo and Emmi]

Hi Shari! I have 2 ALD's. Echo is 5 this week and Emmi is almost 4. Since puppies they have been fed Orijen or Acana (both grain free) in the morning and a raw diet in the evening (Bravo, Primal, Stella and Chewies). They have done really well on that mixture with great stools and no GI issues!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

What I have never been able to understand is why anyone believes that a particular food being raw versus cooked has anything to do with itching or allergies. If it was indeed chicken which was causing your puppy to itch, eliminating chicken should have solved the problem. Feeding some other protein, to which your pup had never been exposed and to which she therefore could not have developed any allergies or sensitivities, was a good idea. But it makes absolutely no difference whether that rabbit, lamb, or whatever is cooked or raw. If you are allergic to lamb, you are allergic to raw lamb just the same as cooked lamb; same with chicken, beef, rabbit, or any other protein. Your immune system will identify a molecule of raw lamb as the same thing as a molecule of cooked lamb. In fact, the raw food, being more "intact", is more easily identified. This is why Rx foods made for allergies contain hydrolyzed protein...the protein molecules are too small for the body to identify and mount an allergic "defense". 

If i had a puppy who was constantly itching, I would consult a veterinary dermatologist to try to pinpoint the cause. Clearly, it is not entirely due to chicken or food.  Has your vet done a skin scraping to rule out mites, or to see if there is an excess of yeast or bacteria that is contributing to the itchy skin? Mites are a common cause of itching in puppies. Has your vet recommended Omega 3 fatty acid supplementation, specifically DHA and EPA, which is known to help with these issues? These are things that a specialist would do, and much more, before simply putting the blame on food. In fact, it is extremely rare for a young puppy to have any type of food allergy, as it takes a minimum of several months of exposure to the same protein to develop an allergy. And even in adult dogs, only 1 in 10 cases of allergies in dogs is related to food. 

There is no reason you can't feed the Primal raw at one meal and a high-quality kibble at another. Many of us feed prepared raw or homemade cooked foods at one meal and dry food at another. I would choose a grain-free formula which contains either rabbit or lamb, since those are two proteins that seem to have worked well for her. There are many on our recommended list to choose from. Nature's Variety has a limited ingredient grain free rabbit formula that might work: http://www.naturesvariety.com/Instinct/dog/kibble/LIDrabbit

You might also look at the Honest Kitchen dehydrated raw formulas, they are much less expensive than Primal. 

[Vivian & Mojo]

My doodle eats grain free Fromm in the morning and Darwins raw in the evening. I never mix the raw and kibble in the same meal except twice a week when I give him raw egg shells and all in his kibble meal. He is doing very well and has no intestinal issues and good stools.

[Shari Becker]

Thanks everyone for all your input. I"m going to look into the nature's variety for sure. We have used their raw food with no trouble. I also just pulled out the old hallway rug the dog spends most of her day lying on. We knew it needed to be replaced, but we thought it would serve us well for training a puppy. But even my dust allergies were kicking up as she ran around on it. Our vet has her on an EPA suppleement, too. It's not a lot, and I frequently forget to give it to her, so I'll try to be more vigilant. I think we'll begin slowly introducing the kibble. Of course, we'll need to wait a few days since she made herself sick chewing up a soccer ball... Thanks again.

[Joan]

I give my ALD Darwins raw, usually in the eve, and for the morn, it is two grain-free kibbles that i switch between - Brothers Turkey and Victors. No problems with any of these.

[Shari Becker]

Is there any science to whether the dog gets raw in the AM or PM? Just wondering if one is better than the other for the puppy? Seems like you are all doing raw at night, right?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

There's no science involving whether a dog gets raw food in the a.m. or p.m. It makes no difference at all. I'm guessing most of those who have responded feed the kibble in the a.m. because it takes less preparation time than the raw food, and people are busier in the mornings before work, school or whatever. Plus, if the dog doesn't finish the food before you have to leave for work, you can leave kibble in the bowl all day; you can't do that with raw. :)

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I feel kibble in the morning to my guys (NOW) and in the evening I feed  half dehydrated raw (Honest Kitchen) and half home cooking (usually chicken and rice with some veggies added).  This diet works really well for my two who have IBS.