Grain Free vs. Grain

[Tammy M. Jacomin]

My doodle, Gatsby is seven months old.  He has had bouts with diarrhea for several months.  I have him on Acana Grassland.  He goes through periods of not wanting to eat, which is when he has the diarrhea.  Otherwise he does fine with this food.  Over these last several months I have put him on a boiled chicken and sweet potato diet which clear up the diarrhea for a short period of time, then it's back.  I give him a probiotic (I can't think of the name right now, but it was recommended by this group and starts with a P).  A couple weeks ago, I just couldn't do it anymore so I went to the vet and he said Gatsby has bacteria in his stool and put him on an antibiotic.  Now the diarrhea is worse then ever and he won't eat.  I put warm water on his food and coax him to eat with some success but not much.  Yesterday I took him back to the vet and said something isn't right and I need help figuring it out.  Once again they put him on another antibiotic as well as told me to feed him 4 cans of ID a day for four days.  I know I've heard only negative things about this ID food.  But I don't know what else to do.  First of all, I think I need a new vet.  My vet asked what kind of food I feed Gatsby and when I told her Acana, she never heard of it!!! Then I told her what the ingredients are and she said "Why is he on grain free?  Some dogs need grains.....its not like he is a Wheaten Terrier with a gluten allergy!"  I couldn't believe she said that.  Then she said, "Just because that food has good ingredients it doesn't mean they are good for Gatsby and maybe I need to switch foods". 

I really need some advise.  Gatsby has the best disposition and personality and he just so amazing (I know we all feel that way) so even with this diarrhea every few hours he still has not had one accident in the house.  He barks to go out and is amazing.   Can it be the food?  Can anyone give me some direction?  Last night and this morning he ate the ID and acted like he hasn't eaten in months (which isn't far from the truth). 

Sorry for rambling with this discussion, I'm just so flustered and don't know what to do.  The vet said give him four days on this ID and the antibiotics.  Then if the diarrhea comes back switch foods.

HELP!!!! PLEASE!  Any thoughts/comments are appreciated.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

This sounds like a step in the right direction for sure. Please keep us posted.

[Tammy M. Jacomin]

Hi!  Just wanted to update you on Gatsby!  His diarrhea panel came back positive for:  Enteric Coronavirus, Circovirus Realprc K9 and C Perf CPnetEF Toxin Gene. The vet put him on Tylan 1/8 teaspoon once a day.  The diarrhea has cleared up.  Now the vet wants me to take him off of it and see if it comes back.  He said some dogs will be on this tylan their entire life.  I am still giving him the probiotic in the morning and the antibiotic in the evening. 

Thoughts?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Tylan is a very, very benign drug. JD has been on an eighth tsp twice a day since 2012 and will be for the rest of his life. There are no side effects whatsoever. It's so safe that until recently, it was available without prescription and was an ingredient in the Angel Eyes products that people use for tear staining, purely cosmetic. So if Gatsby needs to continue with it long term, don't worry.

Be sure to continue the probiotics. Those too are often used for life. 

Thanks for the update and please keep us posted. 

[Mike H]

I came upon this post and felt compelled to share my own experience - apologies in advance for a loooong post.

Our 8 month old female puppy Denali after a night at the vet

She has been having a rough last couple months. Won't get into the related health incidents (worth another post haha - the goofy leg haircut was for xrays/IV), but she's been dealing with lots of diarrhea and issues with food. Which was a secondary concern when she ended up with a fever/infection from what we believe was an abscess due to a small bite from another dog at the park. She's been on a lot of antibiotics and probiotics, it was exhausting just following them all.

I grew up with a Lab named Jazz, who would eat anything including garbage, so I wasn't expecting so many dietary problems. We started Denali off with Science Diet Puppy food, which was recommended by both our vet (really a group of vets - since our animal hospital is kind of walk-in oriented) and the breeder. She was never really that excited to eat, but eating food was pretty drama free for the first couple months we had her. We fed her about 2-4 cups/day depending on her weight. There were a few early bouts of diarrhea, but nothing some canned chicken/rice didn't fix.

I made the mistake one day of buying a bag of the small size kibble Hills puppy, which she seemed to not like at all. We started putting some peanut butter on the food to try and indulge her. Not really the best approach. Anyways, from that point on, we were dealing with all kinds of diarrhea - midnight bouts, some of which required an immediate bath...ugh. Sometimes she would eat, others, she wouldn't. There were days where it was clearly affecting her demeanor, and one of us had to stay home from work a few times to make sure she wasn't stuck in the crate during an event. I was also taking her to training class, where I was using dog joy treats. I do believe the dog joy treats may have also caused a problem, but I'm not sure. It's difficult to establish causal relationships, because there are so many input factors (we used to use the chewy milk bone treats also).

This all coincided with when we were planning to have her spayed...so we decided to put her on the Hills ID cans for a while, which she really liked and would eat readily. Her stomach seemed to do GREAT with these cans. We were also giving her some probiotics. We then transitioned to the Hills ID dry food, which she seems to still really like. After her spay (it's been about 3 weeks now) and a few weeks of solid stools, our vet recommended we switch to an adult food. I actually found the list of recommended foods here (thanks Karen!), and decided to go with FROMM adult gold. We were told to not go with a grain free diet. I have no idea on the debate (hence why I opened this thread). I do appreciate that the FROMM gold food can be had at a reasonable price (about $50/ 33 lb bag)...which kind of a lesser concern after all the recent vet bills. But I would prefer not spending a fortune on dog food and find the FROMM to be a good balance if it is indeed good food. It's only been a few days on the FROMM, but so far so good.

As far as treats go (I've been doing a lot of training with her including the makeshift agility course in our basement :D), we switched to just cheerios. She seems to like them and views them as a reward. Can't get much better from a cost perspective, and I don't need to spend 5 minutes cutting up anything like I did with the dog joys. We went through a large box and now I'm going to try peanut butter cheerios to make her feel like they are slightly more valuable than a plane jane cheerio.

Anyways, I don't have any advice, and hope things work for you. Just figured it might help to hear someone else's story...I do think these labradoodles can have digestive issues, especially when they are puppies. The vet mentioned that once Nali gets older, it's likely the bio culture in her stomach/gut/intestines will become a little more mature, and hopefully these food issues cease to persist.

[Linda, Charlie Brown and Beau]

Mike ~ sorry you have had so many issues with your puppy.  I hope you will stick with Fromm as it is on the recommended food list.  I am sure Karen (our food guru) will chime in on this but IMO - you may have contributed to your puppy tummy issues by some of the things you are feeding.  Hang in there - and welcome to Dk.  There is a ton of info on this site.  Nali is a beauty!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

As I mentioned in my response to Tammy, above, dogs with digestive problems usually do better on limited ingredient diets. Fromm is a great brand, but they do not make an LID formula. I hope it works for your pup, but if you continue to have problems, I'd switch to one of the LID foods on our recommended list. And I would look for one that is either grain-free, or one in which the only grain is oats. 

I'd also use only single ingredient treats, and if you absolutely must stay with the Cheerios, I would stay with the plain Cheerios and definitely not the peanut butter flavor, which has 4 times the number of ingredients including tons of corn and sugar, and an artificial preservative, BHT, which has been linked to some forms of cancer. Most dogs prefer meat to anything else, and plain pure protein treats like freeze-dried liver are about as high-value as it gets. We also have a recommended treat brands list. 

One final word; there is no nutrition curriculum in veterinary school. That's a documented fact. There's no nutrition curriculum in medical school either, but the big difference is that your doctor doesn't sell you food or recommend certain brands. Many of us have learned the hard way that's it's best to ignore your vet's advice about diet, food, and especially brands.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Oh, and dogs with digestive issues really benefit greatly from the ongoing use of a good probiotic. We recommend Proviable. What you don't want is Fortiflora, made by Purina and sold by many vets.