My 50 pound mixed lab is recovering from lymphoma. She is doing great but every time I try to improve her diet and switch her to raw dog food, she starts to get gas and I have to give her a supplement to help her release the gas.

It's very discouraging. A month ago I had her on canned Alpo for a few months. I know it's bad, but I thought she was dying and she loves the stuff. Well, then (perhaps due to lots of alternative treatments we had tried) we found out she was recovering and the vet has her reducing her prednisone and now she is off of it and she is doing better in many ways.

So, since it seemed she was going to be around awhile and wanting to prevent any recurrence of the cancer or other diseases - I switched her to a 50/50 raw dog food diet. I had tried a 100% raw dog food diet many months ago and she almost died from the gas until I figured it out. So this time I thought I would take it slower.

In the evening she is eating a grain free rehydrated raw dog food (Force). In the morning she is eating a New Zealand frozen lightly cooked dog food that I buy in a tube at Whole Foods. I give her a great probiotic (don't remember the name, but created by a writer for Whole Dog Journal) with no maltodextrin, Standard Process Canine Enteric, a little canned organic pumpkin for fiber, 2 coconut macaroons from Trader Joes for fiber also, and a little 100% cranberry juice to try to prevent urinary tract infections that she is still susceptible too. Oh, and a glucosamine chewable supplement.

After a few weeks on this new diet I can tell by her symptoms that she has developed the gas problem again so I have bought the anti-gas supplement and am giving that to her. But it doesn't seem right that a better diet should do this. It is discouraging sometimes and I almost feel like going back to Alpo because it is cheaper and she does so well on it.

Any ideas?

If your dog was doing so well on Alpo, she wouldn't have been suspectable to urinary tract infections and have gotten cancer. What's her skin and coat look like? Ears? Doggy breath? Does she have crap crudded on her teeth? Fatty tumors anywhere? Usual junk kibble signs and it doesn't = "doing well".

2 coconut macaroons?? Th it's the worst on your list. Just stick with a little pumpkin if you feel you need to give her something.

What exactly are you feeding her for a "raw diet" anyway? One minute you say kibble and then you talk about lightly cooked meat..none of that is raw. Sounds like you need to do some research and start slower.


Some dogs do need to start slow and some dogs do need to start with digestive supplements because years on kibble and years of toxins killed their natural digestive system. Just like some people have problems going to raw food. You need digestive enzymes. Like this -
[www.b-naturals.com]

Read some of the articles on that website and then on www.dogaware.com which has a lot of info on supps to use for certain conditions and basic info on feeding raw or home cooked if you're going to go that route.

[www.rawlearning.com]

Have you tried Nature's Variety dog food?? www.naturesvariety.com
I had my show dogs/performance dogs on Nature's Variety raw medallions. Shiny coats, no buildup on teeth, no stinky breath, firm @#$%&, and they loooove the stuff. Beef was the best. They also have organic chicken raw medallions.

You can also get raw chicken backs from whole foods (grain-fed, no antibiotics, no hormones).

> You can also get raw chicken backs from whole
> foods (grain-fed, no antibiotics, no hormones).


You can get any raw meat from Whole Foods which is perfectly fine to feed raw dogs. But if you don't know what you are doing, it won't be balanced. Be careful how you word things. If someone reads this and thinks they can go buy chicken backs and feed that everdyay and have a "raw dog", they'll eventually have a pretty constipated dog on their hands because it's way too much bone. And the fat on them wouldn't be good for a dog prone to gas as some dogs have a problem digesting it..but at the same time they need some fat.

It's all about balance.

i highly recommend this egroup:

rawfeeding-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

i've learned volumes about feeding my dog
100% raw unprocessed and balanced.

Likeitornot, geez your posting seemed pretty harsh but maybe you didn't mean it that way. Here is more info. She was on dry PurinaOne when she got cancer & infections. We switched her to canned Alpo at first, a step up according to the holistic vet and she did do much better and recovered from the infections. Then I switched her to a 100% raw diet of mostly NDN food and later some Primal. I fed her 100% raw for several months. She still got infections and she also had gas that I had to treat by way of supplements. I thought the gas was from the cancer, but now I think it was from the raw food. So, I know Alpo is junk but it did not cause the cancer or infections.

<What's her skin and coat look like? Ears? Doggy breath? Does she have crap crudded on her teeth? Fatty tumors anywhere? Usual junk kibble signs and it doesn't = "doing well".>

All this is great and she has no problems with any of these. She does have a fatty tumor that developed on dry kibble. I will not feed her dry kibble anymore.

The coconut macaroons are from Trader Joe's and they are usually a good way to give her her medicine and give her some fiber. The holistic vet recommended them.

I was trying a 50% raw food diet this time, for a slower transition. I decided to try a dehydrated dog food this time from The Honest Kitchen that you rehydrate for one meal and then the lightly cooked dog food from Whole Foods for the other meal.

I am giving her a probiotic/enzyme supplement. I used to use Prozyme and now I am using a different one recommended by the Whole Dog Journal. I forget the name of it.

Norena, I will check out that dog food, thanks. But I may not try raw food on her again. I just may have tried this too late in life for her. She was around 9 years old when she got cancer and we had fed her dry dog food that entire time.

This time with the 50% raw food diet she developed a gut infection that she is having a rough time recovering from. It is possible she got a bacteria from the dehydrated raw dog food, so I am going to toss it. I would love to be able to feed our 50 pound dog a natural raw food diet that I prepare myself. But I have 2 limitations - cost and time. At this point, she is not eating much so we are going to feed her what she likes which is probably the Alpo.

She has exceeded the vet's expectations on survival without chemo, so we are happy. They are always surprised at how well she is doing. So, I am going to live in the moment and enjoy her while she is here.

I was just hoping somebody had insights on the gas and I had already tried the various supplements. But now we have the bigger problem of a gut infection that is causing bloody diarrhea and this could possibly kill her. Which is sad, because it looked like from all of the tests that she was beating the cancer (I think a zapper helped with that). Thanks everybody.

I have read that dogs can get gas from cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels) and nightshades (bell pepper, mushroom, eggplant, tomato). I would expect a commercial raw dog food would not include those ingredients, but you may want to check for them. Particularly the nightshades, as apparently many dogs do fine with the crucifers.

Also, be certain the food does not contain any soy products. Soy can be deadly for dogs.

I am sorry to hear your dog has a new health concern. It is sad they can't live as long as us!