Keeping my dog on an Orijen Six Fish diet?

[LarryL]

Hello everyone, 

About 6 months ago I noticed Oliver, my 1.5 year old Golden Doodle, started itching a bit more than usual.

The vet checked him out and saw nothing on his skin, and since it wasn't severe or anything, said he can benefit from some fish oil in his food.

Instead of the actual oil, I just switched him from regular Orijen to Orijen Six Fish, and he was itching noticeably less.

I wanted to give him some variety, so after 6 months of fish, I switched to a bag of Orijen Tundra, and maybe its a coincidence or not, but now hes itching again.

I'm wondering if its healthy to keep a dog on something like the fish permanently?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Of course it's healthy. It's perfectly fine to feed only fish as a protein source, if that's what works best for your dog. 

However, Spring and Fall are the times of year when itching from seasonal allergies are going to be most pronounced, and seasonal allergies (also called inhalant or environmental allergies) are the most common type of allergies in dogs. 

So the recurrence of the itching may have had nothing to do with food. 

I'd go back to the 6 Fish and see if the itching gets better. If so, I'd stay with it. If you want to add variety, wait to switch his food in winter, when the chances of seasonal allergy symptoms are lowest.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Personally, I wouldn't feed all fish indefinitely. This is because of the increasing problem with contaminates in fish due to pollution in the oceans. My cat has eaten all fish cat food for some time now and our holistic vet advised us to get her off the fish diet due to the above reason.What we do now is add fish oil (some companies test their product for purity)  to her non fish diet.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

All Orijen formulas contain fish, and all of the Acana formulas except the Singles line do too. So I guess if this is a concern, you'd have to avoid almost every Champion product, which would be a great shame, IMO.

I will have to do some research on the contamination issue. Do you have any reliable fact-based info on this?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I do know that all fish Champion uses is fresh and wild caught in Canadian waters.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

From Champion's website:

 Although our fish are fished from clean northern lakes and the Canadian North Pacific, our suppliers provide heavy metal and mercury test results, for which we also test our final food products.

All fresh fish are passed ‘fit for human consumption’, meet all Government of Canada food regulations for daily consumption

http://www.orijen.ca/faq/

[Tracey & Spike]

To further on Karen.... Canada's food guidelines are STRICT. It's caused many a company to cross the border. They don't fish around up here! There's my sense of humor at midnight :p

[Rica + Margot]

Also, if you're avoiding contaminants in fish like heavy metals and mercury, using fish oil isn't the best method. Those contaminants accumulate in the fat. You might want to ensure your additives are safe, since the chemicals might be even more concentrated in the oil.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

There are several fish oil brands out of Norway that prepare their product in ways that eliminate or minimize contamination. They also have their products tested for impurities by a third party and you can access the results on their web sites.

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

It's good too know they are testing their product. :)