Hi

We have a six and a half month old leonberger who has appears to have an allergy. Our vet has asked us to do a diet trial for at least 6 weeks consisting of only chicken, potatoes and vegetables to see if this will stop his scratching. He is also on a low dose of steroids.

He is having two meals a day but we are not sure how much of each to feed him? Our vet said it was difficult to judge but keep an eye on things. Initially we have started feeding him 300g mashed potato with 250g minced chicken and a dollop of pulped veg (carrot, cabbage, brocoli, sprouts) twice a day. Do you think this is about right? He currently weighs just over 40kg. After a couple of meals he seems to still be hungry but we don't want him overweight with all the carbs in the potatoes.

Is there anything else he needs? We obviously don't want to cause him any long term problems and want to find a solution to get him off the steriods as soon as possible.

Thank you

Gemma and Darren

aww sorry he has an allergy. keep a check on his weight using body scoring although it is much harder to do on a growing dog. IME is better to have an underweight leo than an overweight one. you may want to  ask vet about a calcium supplement, or give him raw chicken wings with the bones, which will be a source of calcium. will also help to keep his teeth clean too as the food he has having now doesnt really provide and crunch factor, to help clean his teeth.
have you spoke to his breeder? he/she might like to know for future reference

defo give him raw chicken including the bones. My 40kg gsd has about 1kg of raw meat a day he doesn't have carbs as well only very occasionally if I have some cooked veg over ( wont eat raw veg) Not saying you should feed all raw unless you and your vet choose this route just giving you an idea of amounts. He has been on this amount since about a year ( now 2 and half) and is lean. I dont know how this compares to leo's Tanya is the expert there I would agree however that any big dog and I include mine in that are better slightly under than over.

yeah i definitely think underweight is far better than overweight. farmfoods have chicken breast in bags. i boil these to add bulk as they are cheap then throw in a few chicken wings which are more expensive then add veg then lastly potatoes. i work about 40% chicken boiled, 30% raw chicken including bones, 20% veg (raw or boiled mine like raw carrot as it is sweet, one will only eat it grated tho, he doesnt like the crunch?) and 10% tatties

Thank you for your advice!

A lot more meat and lot less potatoes then! Hubby may be abit cross that we spent yesterday evening peeling and mashing 24kg of tatties! oops! Think we are doing ok with the veggies.

Kinder loves raw carrots and was having them as treats anyway.

We are a bit nervous about chicken wings as we have never really fed bones. Are they literally just chopped off the chicken and fed? Where do you get them from!

I am going to head off to farm foods to have a look for some more chicken!

Hi Gemma, can I ask what you were feeding him before this? I know alot of leos who have allergies, one of mine for instance just has to lick beef and he starts to scratch.

Rule of thumb for amounts to feed is 10% of body weight for puppys dropping to 2-3% for adults, obviously every dog is different so if he seems to be getting fat drop the amounts and vice -versa. I would say though my dogs are always on 3 meals a day till they are about a year old.

I have never had rolly poly pups, I prefer them to mature slowly, which means they dont often see the champ show ring till they are out of junior, but I'd rather have fit and healthy dogs than a piece of card and a crippled 6 year old.

would you mind PMing me your lads ped name and I'll let you know if I've hard of any relatives with allergies, As Tanya says though you'd be better speaking to his breeder who will be in a better position to advise.

Barbara

yeah they are. raw bones dont splinter like booked ones, they are more rubbery. i would never recommend feeding any form of cooked bones, even big bones as a leo can chomp through in one bite.
i get them from butchers, they normally do a good deal if you buy many at a time, as chicken wings are usually quite unsellable (dont know if its a word :-) )  so they are grateful to get rid of them lol.
farm foods are brill for chicken breasts. not the prettiest of things tho, but who cares how it looks, the dogs wont lol

never realised you had leos selgovae... theres more of us on here than i thought!

Hi Gemma
I am surprised that your vet recommended chicken based trial as this is normally
one of the first things they avoid when looking at allergies.  If your insured perhaps ask your vet for a referral to a vetinary dermatologist
as they sorted one of my Leo's problems out on the first visit and might save your puppy being pumped full of meds unnecessarily.
I have 3 Leo's too but have only been in the breed for just under 6 years so will let Selgovae pass on her experience to you
as she's been in the breed for many many years.
Gillian

Hi, I too have a pup on a food trial for suspected allergy.She is now nine month and been on the trial for four weeks. She is on Venison and mashed potato. This is home made. She weighs 20kg which is ok for her breed but she is often hungry between her three meals a day.I have baked her food into treat sized bites to top her up during the day.

My vet advised Venison as she had previously been fed on chicked/tripe/beef and pasta/ rice. The vet suggested 1lb of rice 1lb of potato and 1lb on Venison a day. I preferred not to give the rice so the vet ok'd 2lb of pots and 1lb Venison.

She has had a skin biopsy to look for mites which was clear.Food trial will be for about 6 weeks then I think next step is the York test. I think carpet mites may be the problem, just a hunch but would love to hear some one's thoughts on that.

Gillian,what did your dermatologist come up with for your Leo?

Lollypop it was an ear problem that my Leo had which the vets said was being caused by an allergy.  After lots of unsuccessful treatments and even talk about having to take bits away etc if it got any worse the vets reffered me.  The dermatologist took a swab,looked at it under the microscope and gave me caneston (as is for thrush!!) drops.  And reccomended putting her on Wafcol Salmon and potatoe kibble with nothing else including treats until things had settled.  Her ear was totally clear within days.  I kept her on the Wafcol for weeks but shes a fussy eater so I introduced other foods one thing at a time until I knew she was ok with them and shes been fine for the past two years.  My other bitch who always scratches and has been on varies diets is now on wafcol salmon and Potatoe and the scratching and nibbling stopped within about 4 days.  I think they are all different so it's trial and error for each individual.

Evening Primrose Oil capsules are one of the best things for helping with allergies, as its a natural anti-histamine.  It doesn't interfere with the effect of the steriods either :)

That is interesting, when we first got Kinder he developed an ear infection? that took ages to completely disappear and several courses of anti-biotics!Bless him his head was dropped to one it was that bad! The improvement of the ear infection coincided with changing his food from that his breeder supplied to JWB - but he soon strated scratching and nibbling.

Kinder has been taking Evening Primrose Oil for a few weeks and that does seem to have helped a little bit!

Hi Kinderleo
first of all you don't have to peel the spuds, you can leave the skins on so that should please hubby ;) 
What meat did your dog have before you put him on the trial diet? Usually to do an exclusion diet, you only feed ONE food source for 2 - 4 weeks, if he's ok with that then you introduce another food, again allowing 2 - 4 weeks and so on. Remember not to give treats in between meals just in case.
One of my Leo's is intollerant to some ( a lot) of food so I didn't have to do the trial but I did have to rethink her diet,  all my leo's are fed a raw diet. Carrots are high in sugar so don't give too many, also different veg contain different vitamins/minerals  - I think there are lots of posts on here about foods/veg and the pros and cons of giving veggies :)

Good luck with the diet, hope all goes well

Hi Missie

Kinder was originally on JWB then we switched him to half tripe half pressed beef pellets with a dollop of the veggie mix! I read somewhere that potato skins - especially the green bits could be toxic for dogs but anyway they were covered in mud so best to peel the spuds. Anyway it kept the hubby out of trouble!

Noted about the sugar in carrots! Our vet said initially to try one meat ie Chicken or fish (but Kinder has never been a fan) together with potato and that veg should be fine. I guess if we get nowhere shortly then we will reduce variety further and then add one thing at a time. I don't know why but i seem to think that it is more the grains in the dry food than the meat but only time will tell! I think we will be going down the raw route but a lot more research will be required

Thank you for your advice

Hi

I do hope the exclusion diet is helpful for you.  Are you giving cooked or raw chicken?  Presumably the potato is cooked but is the other veg raw or cooked?

Do check this, but I seem to remember a calculation for raw feeding puppies is that you should aim for 2.5% - 3% of their expected adult weight as a guide.  I've also seen another calculation which suggests you feed them 8-10% of their current puppy weight.  However, I'm not quite sure how this translates when the food is cooked.

As someone else mentioned you do need some calcium, and a good balance of meat and offal but 6 weeks of any diet is unlikely to do long term harm.  Might be worth checking with your vet to see if chicken liver is OK though.  This is only £1 in Tesco and I'd suggest little and often.  You can cook it but I feed it raw - I blitz it in the food processor and freeze in small amounts (an ice cube tray or mince pie type tray is good).  I add a small amount every couple of days or so.   Don't forget that you can buy raw minced chicken in larger pet shops and you can cook it if you really want to - this will contain some ground bone too. 

I've never had a Leo so it makes sense to get your definitive information from others more experienced in the breed but it sounds like you might not be feeding enough protein.  I'd really be expecting the weight of chicken to be higher, perhaps 2/3rds meat to 1/3rd potato?  I'd also expect that your boy would possibly still be on 3 meals a day?

As a for instance, my 28.5kg adult gundog is on 900g raw meat per day - just over 3% of his body weight, although he's a very active 2.5 year old.  He's an itchy boy too so you have my sympathy.  One problem with steroids is that it can make them pee more and very thirsty. A raw diet is great to keep their fluids up.  Good luck :)

Try including salmon oil if not  with the exclusion diet defo afterwards.

Thank you for all your advice. We have increased the amount of chicken and decreased the amount of potato. We will see how he goes for a few weeks and hopefully we will crack the allergy!

Have a look at the fish4dogs web site, it is really good for allergies, i also give RMB's at times too.