Cheaper alternative to Hills canine z/d food?

Ronnie3

Hi


we have an 18 month old male german shepherd who has been on Hills low allergen z/d prescription food (dry) for about a year.

We currently mix in some tinned Chappie with the dry food to make it a little more appetising but he can also tolerate small amounts of other tinned food mixed in

We are trying to reduce our outgoings and I wondered if anyone could suggest a cheaper alternative that is also low allergen _ we are spending over a hundred pounds a month feeding him which we will continue to do if necessary but to be honest he isn t that fond of it anyway and wont touch the dry without something else mixed in

any suggestions would be appreciated

thank you

Caroline_a

Have you tried a raw diet? I found this that may help http://www.thedogbowl.com/PPF/category_ID/0_92/dogbowl.asp but my shep (ok he doesnt have allergies) looks amazing on his raw diet.

NB that is an American website, but if you Google BARF diet you should get lots of help.

Fire_Fox

Welcome!

Has your vet run tests or tried an exclusion diet? What ingredient(s) is your dog allergic or intolerant to? Without that information it is impossible to recommend an appropriate alternative. Have you tried increasing the amount of Chappie and decreasing the amount of dry food? This needs to be done slowly to allow digestive enzymes time to adapt. Have you checked whether your pet insurer will pay for the prescription diet?

Ronnie3

Hi,

thanks so much for your responses

I've thought about feeding raw as I know a lot of gsd owners do rate it. We do give him a large raw knuckle bone once a week which he absolutely loves and devoures the lot! - again he can tolerate this fine. We've tried raw chicken pieces but he wont eat them - takes them out of his bowl and drops them on the floor. With raw feeding I think I'm a little apprehensive about getting the balance right and also, having three children in the house, I'm not too keen on him dropping bits of raw meat on the floor - he also likes to bury things - caught him trying to bury his knucklebone in my daughters bed a couple of weeks ago

His pet insurance doesn't cover digestive disorders as we had him at the vets within 24hrs of bringing home due to severe diarrhoea - he was very ill, around a third of the weight of an average 8 week old pup - long story but breeder handed him to us with one tin of i/d food - poor pup was a bag of bones. Although he had puppy insurance when we got him, when I contacted the insurance company to arrange cover beyond the initial period they said they would exclude digestive disorders due to the problems he'd already had. (He was treated for suspected giardia by the vet and responded really well).
At around 6/7 mths old he was diagnosed with a rare neurological conditon which affects his bladder muscles (they remain contracted, preventing him passing urine) ... anyway.. up to this point he'd also been on and off his food a lot, vomiting at times and occasionally getting diarrhoea. The vet recommended the z/d diet which he's been on ever since and has been doing well on........I'm really not certain that he has an allergy at all as he can tolerate the tinned food mixed in with the z/d food, the knuckle bones and also 'dog treats' - the bulk of his food intake is still z/d though.

We added the Chappie to his dry food, very gradually increasing the amounts and would do the same with any food change. I'm sure it would be possible to get tests done to check for an allergy but I thought maybe I'd try gradually introducing a different food first, and see how we go.

I know Arden Grange do a hypoallergenic dry food - not sure how this is rated, or of any other types

thanks again

rising_from_the_ashes

I'd suggest allergy testing if possible - although it can take a while and be very expensive (not sure if your insurance would cover this if digestive "problems" are excluded - may be worth checking with your vet/insurance co). I would suspect that if he had a "major allergy" to something then mixing the Chappie in would've had a detrimental affect (which it doesn't appear to) once it'd been fed for a while.

You may think I'm bonkers (it has been said before & I take no offense!) - we spoke to a Chinese herbalist shop as they do allergy testing on human hair - about testing our old lab. They'd never done it before but, it worked! Best £40 we ever spent - unfortunately, it turned out she had allergies to a load of things (a while ago now but from memory ncl were red meat, wheat, maize, dairy, various colourings, additives, peas (!), carrots etc etc as well as certain types of grass and pollen, mud etc etc ) so we had to be very careful what she ate and where she went (it was a wash down with a damp cloth whenever she came in after being out).

Mr B is wheat intolerant and gets Wainwrights http://www.petsathome.com/shop/dog/dog-food-treats/dry-dog-food/?ref1=1|Brand-|Wainwrights or Skinners Duck & Rice http://www.skinnerspetfoods.co.uk/products/field---trial-products/duck---rice/ which are both good quality and don't contain the "usual allergen suspects".

Good luck

Fire_Fox

Does the bladder disorder mean all the waste usually excreted through the bladder has to go out through the bowel? Or do you have a catheter or some other manner of helping your dog to urinate? Why does being able to eat the Chappie and Hills make you think there is not an allergy? Why are you risking dog treats, these are generally full of rubbish? A small amount of an ingredient that an animal is allergic or intolerant to will cause a minor reaction, this may be limited to the the immune system being on constant alert and low grade inflammation. This may not cause 'symptoms' but would show up on blood tests or biopsy ('signs').

Has your dog had a course of probiotics (friendly bacteria) and/ or a regular intake of omega-3 rich fish body oils? Antibiotics wipe out the beneficial bacteria in the gut, they won't repopulate successfully if there is intermittent diarrhoea. Long chain omega-3s are anti-inflammatory - along with probiotics they have been proven to be beneficial in irritable bowel and leaky gut syndrome in humans. :T

I'd be wary of introducing another commercial food when you have no idea what the allergy or intolerance is, especially another dry food because they have so many ingredients. Hypo-allergenic does not mean no chance of a reaction, it simply means the most common allergens are excluded, they often don't take intolerances into consideration. If you trigger a reaction you inflame the gut, kick off an immune response that might make make him allergic to another substance. I'd be more inclined to move over to Chappie slowly as that is a known and many vets consider it to be highly digestible. Unless the vet specifically recommends a dry food for the bladder issue?

An allergen is most often a protein so an exclusion diet usually introduces a novel protein - that is one that the animal has never encountered before such as venison or emu. Intolerances in cats and, to a lesser extent, dogs are often grains (esp. wheat and corn) because these are not a natural food source. Rice is often added to hypo-allergenic foods because it is less likely to set off an allergic response but it can still cause intolerances.

I did a halfway-house test with my new cat, choosing a commercial wet food which only has three ingredients - HiLife Essentials (chicken, minerals, tapioca). So if there was an obvious negative reaction in the litter tray, I'd have been fairly confident chicken was the culprit, as tapioca is only present in tiny amounts and not common in cat foods. Then I moved onto another food (Bozita tetrapack) with equally few ingredients but an extra protein source and no tapioca. My theory at present is she struggles to process fish, but still working on identification. With my last cat I cut out grains and his digestion improved overnight, from three stinky poops a day to one non-smelly one.

Raw is another way of excluding allergens because cooking denatures (changes) the protein in meat just the same as when you boil an egg. So if a dog is sensitive to cooked chicken he will not necessarily be sensitive to raw chicken. There are various benefits to this - firstly you can control exactly what is in each meal, secondly raw works with the dog's evolved digestion not against it as (some believe) dry food is. Will your dog eat a small amount of raw mince? People who raw feed don't generally give their animal free range of the house or garden whilst eating due to hygiene - most confine to one room, with a washable floor or laying down old towels or cloths. Eating a marrowbone treat can take hours but eating a raw meal should not, once you get the feed rate right there should not be leftovers to bury!

Fire_Fox

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

I'd suggest allergy testing if possible - although it can take a while and be very expensive (not sure if your insurance would cover this if digestive "problems" are excluded - may be worth checking with your vet/insurance co). I would suspect that if he had a "major allergy" to something then mixing the Chappie in would've had a detrimental affect (which it doesn't appear to) once it'd been fed for a while.

Why do think that?

albacookie

Z/d contains hydrolysed protiens - basically they're broken down into such small molecules that they can be absorbed in the gut without the immune system reacting to them. Only veterinary diets will contain this - maybe try shopping on line to find it cheaper?

woohoo

Hi,
my dog has allergies to allsorts and was on the z/d. I now have her on Burns food which she tolerates fine and is much cheaper. I get the pork and potato flavour but there are several varieties. Seems a bit odd that the dog needs z/d but can eat Chappie though??

rising_from_the_ashes

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Why do think that?

woohoo wrote: »

Seems a bit odd that the dog needs z/d but can eat Chappie though??

That's what I was getting at.

Molls had a huge number of allergies (as mentioned above) - if she ate or touched anything she was allergic to, she had a range of symptoms from:

Skin - red / irritated / itchy / sore looking - rash - hives - sores - hair loss

Stomach - sickness and / or the runs

Temperament - lethargic to absolutely hyper

Other - in rare instances - fits

These can range in severity depending on the level of allergy to a particular thing but if there has been no reaction at all, he cannot be allergic to the ingredients in it.


However, I'd certainly recommend proper testing before switching the dry food to something else as there's obviously loads of ingredients in these which aren't in tinned foods (and vice versa).

Your vet would be the best person to advise.

zebidee1

We have exactly the same issue, our lab is on zd ultra after being diagnosed with colitis as a young pup. Practically anything he ate would result in the runs (inc all quality food like Burns etc.) Eventually tried the zd and although it didn't solve the problem entirely, it helped a lot.

However, after being on this for some time, he got very fed up and started refusing his food. In an effort to change the taste slightly for him, we mixed in some (dry) Chappie. We (and the vet) were surprised to find the colitis became completely under control and he had completely normal poo. If we tweaked the mix, the colitis came back. He's now been on a mix of Chappie and zd for well over a year with no problems other than the fact he's fed up of it again so we changed the flavour of Chappie we bought, still worked well with no effects.

We can't understand why the mix has worked to keep his digestive problems under control, but it has and our vet now suggests this mix for some other patients he has. We occasionally try other things but his problems recur so we always go back to the zd/Chappie mix.