Storm was diagnosed with collitus back in march, he recently had such a severe bout that my poor boy nearly died. We are not sure what caused such a severe reaction . i am giving him white fish fillets mashed potat and vegatables 4 times a day and the vet has advised to introduce dog food gradually- this will be a trial and error basis finding something that wont set it off again. has anyone any experience of this ?? any suggestions please

The only thing that suited my Lab who had collitis was Nature Diet Lite :)

Lucy
xx

My friend's choc lab suffered terrible colitis and is now doing well on Naturediet too.

One thing you have to be strict on is no treats :) I occasionally gave Min a carrot but anything else we had the squits :rolleyes:

My friends GSD bitch who had severe Colitis was great on Burgess Supa Dog Lamb and Rice for many years until they 'new and improved it'

She became very ill, but she tried or on the Arden Grange Lamb and Rice and she was great on that until her death at 14 years of age.  AG also do a Fish diet that I have heard good things about.

naturediet worked for mine too! and yeo valley natutal yoghurt worked better than any medication the vet gave us and much cheaper too!! we didnt give any treats to begin with except fruit and veg, but gradually introduced treats and she can eat most things now. although we try to stick to natural treats.

Found this link http://www.holisticpethealth.co.uk/Dogs/colitis.htm
Don't know if it's of any use. In humans they tend to recommend an elimination diet to see if it's something in the food that's causing an intolerance. That could be worth considering.

i have always been very strict with his diet only the occasional doggie treat and the kids know not to feed him ANYTHING!!
without Mummys say so. I dont mind cooking for him everyday if i have to but it would be easier to find a prepared food to suit him.
Since i have been cooking him fish/potatos/veg he is ravenous . He has never devoured his food that way he used to eat o.k whrn he had a bit of tripe micxed with his dried (but i dont think tripe suited him either) so i think i might introduce natures diet is that dried??? if so where can i buy it?

here you go :)

http://www.naturediet.net/index.html

thank you missy...

Really sorry to hear of the problem :(

My girl (BSD) has had colitis quite badly to the point where she was passing pure blood and very uncomfortable, going out every few minutes to try to pass something and feel better. It was horrible to see her like that.

My experience is this:

Whatever we tried, or tried to add slowly, carefully, different foods etc still caused loose motions which would lead to mucous etc and further symptoms. I was truly reluctant to put my girl through any more so elected for Hills ID Presciption CANNED. I've put that in capitals as the kibble we tried as treats still caused problems.
After 3 weeks her stools were firm and good to pick up and she was very well.

Over months we tried adding miinute amounts of food - from fish to things we thought no problem such as apple slices - each time we had the tell tale mucous :(

I was able to introduce the Hills ID kibble at last and now use this as reward. Oh - we were able to give tiny amounts of chicken.

We did wonder if fat was the problem - I've spoken to someone recently who felt that even different sized bags of say, kibble can be made slightly differently even if the same brand. Ie sometimes fat will be sprayed onto the outside, or it may be inside the food - even this might make a difference.

My girl is on Hills ID a year later and is very healthy and full of beans. I wish we could use other food as I clicker train and find it hard with only kibble!

Recently we discovered she can amazingly eat raw marrow bones as a treat and to keep her teeth clean :) and these have the effect of making her firmer if anything and occasionally a bit loose but not with colitis symptoms (ie no mucous).

So we are staying with  this for now as at least she's settled :)

Hope you find answers, but my thoughts would be to avoid trying too much and just bite the bullet for Hills ID to start with at least in the hope she will respond to it...good luck :)

Lindsay
x

I really understand what you both are going/went through. My girl (leo) had bloody dire rear for months. She lost so much weight, everything just went through her. I tried RC hyperallergenic, same result just different colour :rolleyes: the only food that made a slight difference was naturediet, but even that didn't last long before it returned. The best improvement was raw. But eventually, in her case, she was diagnosed EPI so once digestive enzymes were added she improved a great deal but still certain foods gave her awful dire rear with mucus, blood. A months worth of antibiotics helped as SIBO was then diagnosed too :( She is now fed totally raw. Not saying that this is what is going on in your case, just understanding how heartbreaking it is when nothing seems to satisfy them and its constantly ongoing :(
I do hope you find a food she likes that suits soon :)

I agree entirely about the natural live yoghurt. It's a natural pro-biotic and brilliant for all sorts of things. If your dog has had a bout of diarrhoea then the good bacteria in the gut and intestines can't multiply fast enough before they are expelled. Live yoghurt tops them up. I also give it to any dog which has had to have a course of anti-biotics. I do think a lot of digestive problems in dogs nowadays are caused by feeding nothing but these awful all-in-one, one-size-fits-all complete puppy foods when the puppies are very young.
When I wean my puppies, they have 5 feeds a day and each feed is different. They are exposed to a wide variety of different foodstuffs, all as natural as possible. I have a breed notorious for dodgy tummies and neither I nor the people I sell my puppies to ever have any problems.

Another food regularly recommended for difficult digestions is Chappie.  I have only used the tins but I understand the dried has been used with success too.

I think if i had a dog with disease,especially a digestive problem possibly brought on by commercial food in the first place, i would turn to it's natural diet :)

Tree Barks Powder from Dorwest Herbs is fantastic natural supplement to sprinkle on any food for cats/dogs that suffer with this condition.

You might find something to help at link below :)

http://www.dogaware.com/specific.html#ibd

Slippery elm powder is very good for d/rear & would be useful in conjuction with a diet that won`t start the colitis off. Heres a link about slippery elm, if you buy it make sure you buy the pure stuff :)

http://www.healthy.net/asp/templates/article.asp?PageType=article&ID=1460

i have bought some nature diet sensitve gold and have been introducing a small amount so far so good. he was having a probiotic powder on his food but ive switched to live yoghurt which he loves im just a bit wary in case that too upsets him. As for the chappie -storm hates it he has eaten it well picked at it is a more appropriate description. i like the idea of raw marrowbones but my petshop only sells those smoked /pre stuffed things my local butcher looked at me like i was a loon when i asked him for the bones(I thought that would be the most obvious place -silly me!!) so will just introduce slowly and see

Glad to hear he seems to be doing better :) If you are at all worried about the yoghurt, then stick with the powder for now. One thing I've learnt having a food sensitive dog is one step at a time, in other words only introduce one thing at a time, slowly, that way you can narrow it down as to what upsets them :)

>i like the idea of raw marrowbones -- my local butcher looked at me like i was a loon when i asked him for the bones(I thought that would be the most obvious place<

I agree,it is the most obvious and best place to get bones.Any butcher worth his salt and who claims to be a true butcher oughtta be ashamed of himself giving you the reaction your butcher did :rolleyes:
Trina keep looking,most butchers are happy to 'unload' their bones to customers :)

Marrow bones come from the butcher.  Most will only charge a nominal amount or ask you to put into their charity box (after all they have to pay to have the bones disposed of).

hooray i tried another butcher and he had lovely big marrowbonesthey had some fatty bits on the end and was unsure if i should remove the but i gave it to him and he was a happy doggie, when i got back from workthough it was no where to be seen so i assume it buried in the garden somewhere

oh and he seems to like the small amounts of nature diet he has tried and his poo looks good (god whod have thought they would ever utter a sentance like that!!!!) so im still crossing everything

Thats great news :)
Glad to hear he's on the mend

Dee