Speaking to the natural dog food company as one of my dogs is producing rather large soft stools on their food. which is holistic, organic, rice, barley, maize, veg, herbs and chicken, steamed and freeze dried, nothing else added at all.
I suspect her to be intolerant to one of the cereals present in the food. Their advise was to give her small amounts until she tolerates that then up it until we reach her required amount. He said that we should not be eliminating the intolerant food but to feed it in small amounts with other cereal types to de-sensitise the system.
I am doing this at the moment but it is very slow process indeed. She is slim in build, is 19months old and as yet has not had a season. This he wonders whether this is all related to being intolerant/lacking in the diet. I am mixing it with ND at the moment.
I have tried Burns, she was thinner on that and if I upped the amounts produced runny stools. Tried Fromm foods which produced large yellow stools. ND she tolerates but is now developing tartar on her normally brilliantly white teeth, even though she has chews and bones.
Any of you nutrition experts out there got any ideas, opinions.

I would have stool samples tested by vet if I were you.  Although most problems with diet can be solved with gradual changes away from possible problems (like particular cereals/grains etc) there are some GI disorders that are exacerbated by the type of diet you are currently feeding and it is safer to rule out anything sinister - with the best will in the world every dog food producer believes their own products to be safe but telephone conversations etc with their in house nutritionists etc doesn't really provide the whole picture.

It's good news that she currently tolerates ND - keep the finger brush and tooth gel handy though :o)

Good luck, Teri
  

Can't help with the feeding but homeopathic Fragaria is supposed to be good for tartar. :)

http://home.clara.net/theboatcottage/gal/health/health/fragaria.htm

Kath.

Well FWIW dogs were not designed to process cereals, period.  This is not a matter of opinion but a fact borne out by their digestive system therefore I see little point in feeding them at all let alone a mixture of them however "holistic" it proffers to be (ask them how they intepret the word; appears to be an oxymoron in this case)!

If indeed she is intolerant of one of the ingredients it makes little sense to me to keep feeding it to the dog!

The system may not "desensitise" to it and in fact may become hypersensitive to it and develop into a full blown allergy! This will have the knock on effect of causing gastro intestinal upset, unbalance the gut flora, interfere with nutrient absorption and may also affect the skin and various other organs in a "holistic" way!

I do not know what breed of dog you have however dogs, like humans come into season at varying times due to a number of factors, bodyweight, inheritance, breed type etc etc etc.

As the feed is designed to be "complete" I fail to understand why you are mixing it with another "complete" diet?

Tartar can be easily treated by using fragaria, descaling them yourself on a weekly basis etc etc etc

I would like to know why so many cereals in one food; what is the reasoning behind it, why not one?

If it were my dog and I was feeding commercial food, I would want to at minimum feed something else with only one cereal, it appears she tolerates ND? and if I still had a problem have her allergy tested.

Would you expose a sun sensitive animal to the sun in order to desensitise it?

Have you tried your dog on a hypoallergenic food ?

i fed arden grange with some samples but again she produced massive sized poos, looked like they had come out of a horse not a dog. They say their food is hypoallergenic.

Tohme, thanks for your response.
Well.... I am mixing it with ND so as to introduce it gradually, as I up the All in one I reduce the ND, that is why I am feeding two completes.

'they say' the reason for combining different cereals is so that the dog does not become intolerant to just one cereal type...they say that dogs have become intolerant to certain foodstuffs because we have fed them exclusively. I read on a recent thread where a boxer had allergies that Burns said feeding one food could have caused the allergy.

The way I could make sense of it is that if you have an allergy to something homeopaths use the actual allergen to de-sensitize the body. For example, they use a remedy containing horse dander to treat someone with a allegy to horse dander...., they use pollen to treat hay fever, etc..etc..so using this principle it seems plausable dosen't it ??

But on the other hand I could just as easlily agree with you.

One of my dogs also has a food allergy and when researching suitable diets, I contacted Burns for advice as that was the food they were being fed on prior to the results. They said that even though my dog was allergic to oats(amongst a LOT of other things), I should carry on feeding him the normal amount i was giving him and then gradually decrease the amount of food until his digestive system was able to tolerate it.  Now i know a lot of dogs get quite lean on Burns and as my dog is very skinny anyway, it wasn't something I was willing to risk. I now feed him on  RCW Sensitivity Control with either a little AMP minced chicken or a spoonful of naturediet.

My opinion?

Stop feeding the dry stuff, holistic, whatever it is, its MAIN ingredient is something that NO dog can actually digest, meaning whatever is going in, is coming out (you eaten sweetcorn?) so ask yourself WHY is that in there in the first place??????

If the ONLY problem with feeding ND is the tartar, then there are laods of ways round this (and also IMO dry food is only marginally better at preventing tartar...... go eat a biscuit, do YOUR teeth feel clean)....

Chicken wings......... that not only prevents build up, but will remove a considerable amount of crud off teeth (my nine year old saluki. gone from 'really could do with a dental at the vets to scrape off the crap' to 'teeth like a 2 year olds'...)

If you cant bear to feed chicken wings occasionally, fragaria is good, and there are a number of doggy toothpastes around as well.

Treat the teeth as one thing and feed the dog a diet it can actually use!

Apart from anyting else, a company taht tells you to feed something you know is bad for your dog, well, they wouldnt be getting MY money again!

Em

Burns obviously agree with this toleration process then.