hello all

im thinking about changing my dogs food.im considering all options just now so any thoughts and advice would be much appriceated. :-)
well tiger is a chihuahua,he weighs around 3kg and is 18 months old,he is big for a chihuahua and a little under weight just now. ive found it really hard keeping weight on him since day 1 and he has never had a "good relationship" with food he somtimes refuses to eat,he also gets what i can discribe as very bad stomach cramps and wont eat for a day this usualy happens every 2/3weeks and he is in alot of pain when it happens.the vet says that its because of how quick he eats,i didnt agree with this and got a 2nd opionion off another vet at the practice and they did blood tests and found nothing wrong,so im automaticaly putting it down to somthing to do with the food that he is eating.
just now he is fed on cobbydog supreme puppy he has different things mixed in with it,veg,tinned dog food,nature diet,any dinner scraps,somtime some of the cats tinned food and natures menu.
he has the biscuits crushed up smaller and it all mixed up.for treats he has chicken wings once a week and a marrow bone from the butchers also once a week.
what diets do you all think would benefit him? the size of the biscuits doesnt really matter because i crush them for him anyway,he needs a quite high protien level as alot of toy breeds do.
i was thinking about barf??? id like to change my gsd over to that aswell but didnt want just her to be on barf and not him.does anybody have experience of feeding barf to toy breeds?

thanks in advance
heather

Join the Yahoo group BritBarf. They are a mine of information and people on there have dogs of all shapes and sizes who would be able to advise you.

Heather,

If I had a dog with a problem tum I would start off by limiting the variety of foods.  It may be one food that is causing your dog's stomach upset and there's no way of knowing unless you control the diet and can monitor how he reacts.

I agree with you - stomach cramps are not caused by eating quickly - if they were 1/2 the dogs in Britian would be down with them on a daily basis.  IMO it's more likely there are one or two specific foods that are upsetting him - and that ranges from any of the more common types that cause problems (like wheat or beef) to foods that generally do not (like chicken).

I know the BARF'ers might disagree, but until you sort our his problem I would stay away from giving him whole chicken wings or the marrow bone (unless you scoop out the marrow and trim the fat).  If you want to feed raw that's fine, but I'd suggest you either grind the wings or buy packaged raw foods. 

I would also consider visiting a holistic vet, if you can find one.

If it were me i would go back to basics and try very simple foods, gradullay introducing new food one by one and seeing what reaction he has from it. This way you will be able to pinpoint exactly what food is making him ill.
I also wouldnt be putting cat food with it or mixing too much into his food-it may be too much for his small tummy to take hence the cramps.
If he does it too quick you can put his food into a kong or such like so it takes him time to find the food and eat it.

Is it possible your dog could have an intolerence?To gluten or lactose etc - is it something your vet brought up?

If you are going to chance to a completely differnt food then the introductions needs to be made very slowly so as not to upset your dogs tum, but i wouldnt recommend doing that until you have eliminated the problems now otherwise changing foods will just complicate matters as opposed to improving them.

hi, thanks for the replys eveyone

forgot to say...he doesnt eat fast at all he actually eats very slowly so thats why i knew it wasnt that.eveything that he has mixed in with his dry food he has always had since a pup,when the cramps started i stoped giving him different things and just stuck to one at a time to see how he was and there was no reactions to any for quite a few months. then it started agian so i went back and excluded different foods from his diet with no luck it was still carrying on so now he mostley has wet cat food mixed in because out of all the foods that was the only one which he had that made a difference with the cramps.i know its very rubbish quality food (the cat food) but if its stopping the cramps i dont mind him having it.his food is is gluten free ive always got gluten free since my other dog has quite a few allergys.must look in to lactose intolerence though also different types of meat in the kibble.
im think im going to change his dry food it may be that,because ive tested all the other things he has added.there must be somthing in the ones hes on thats just not agreeing with him.

thanks all :-)

Hi kiger,

Why not just stick with Naturediet, which is a complete diet and is usually well tolerated by most dogs and you know what's in it! I personally don't like dry foods and used to feed ND before I switched to raw feeding. Even with ND my lot used to get the occassional tummy upset but it is very, very rare they have any problems now. Many dogs that can't tolerate cooked meats can eat the raw with no problems. May be worth a try?

thanks,

thats a good idea,hes always had problems with drinking enough water and does get dehydrated very easy with me taking the dry food out that will eliminate most of that problem.
did you feed just ND nothing else?
the reason i thought about raw is because he will never refuse any bones or raw meat he is given he will always have it.i joined that group you said about by the way,very informative! thanks very much :-)

Hi there

Yes, if did feed ND and nothing else. I certainly recommend the raw route though, my dogs love it and it's very easy once you get into the routine. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Hi there I am new to this forum, very interested in question about changing diet for a chi. We are just getting a 9week old chihuahua/pomeranian. Pleeese dont lecture me about designer crossbreeds , she isnt designer bred just a pet from a family who accidently bred they have two chi's and one pom and didn't realise the pom was in season!
She is beautiful and all the dogs are very healthy Mia is not our only or first dogand i dont intend to have puppies from either 

Any way -back to my question my gsd is on a raw food diet and I would like to have both of them on raw , will get on to the barf site, but very interested to know how you get on if you go that way. This is the first toy breed I have had but we have had toy breed in the family before on dried . My gsd is doing great but I am a bit nervous with such a small breed

I'd just think of the newcomer as a very small GSD and give the same foods in smaller amounts. Obviously she will cope better with smaller bones rather than the bigger stuff your GSD copes with (I assume you do feed raw bones?), but a dog is still a dog no matter what the size. If you are managing to feed your GSD with great results there is no reason you shouldn't be able to do the same with your new pup.

even though tiger(chihuahua) isnt fed on just raw he gets bones quite often and copes with them fine,he actualy likes the bigger ones so i dont bother getting the butcher to cut them down very much now. he looks very though dragging a huge bone twice the size of him! :-)

Thanks for your coments ,yes gsd is on raw bones I will let you know how we get on with new pup. It will be a little while before we go that way as I want to change her slowly and Ineed to gain confidence as she is sooo tiny. As you say a dog is a dog and thats something I want to make sure happens it seems so easy to turn these dogs into 'handbag' dogs

yes totaly agree with you on that! ive always had such big dogs and when i got tiger i couldnt belive how small he actualy was!!! of course i had been researching the breed for a long time but seeing him in my house and everyday life with him made me realise how delicate he is, but at the end of the day like you said a dog is a dog.
tiger and my gsd get on so well,i never thought they would get on as well as they do! tigers been brought up around alot of bigger dogs and actually prefers them to smaller ones.hes so fast when he runs because hes always had to keep up with the bigger ones.i compete in obedience with him, people laugh at us when we are about to go into the ring,but as soon as they see him working they cant belive how good he is :-) people think just because chis are small they are only good for sitting on peoples laps and thats it,but thats so far from the truth!!! i really want to start competeing in working trials with tiger im sure he can be the first chihuahua to do it! he scents so good! most of the time better then kia my gsd and shes been doing trials for about 3 yrs now! :-D

Have got new pup yesterday. The only food she will eat at the moment funnily enough is small chicken wings  ,she isn't interseted in burns or the butchers the breeder had her on. She is really sweet, big fella is being really good with her but we have a long way to go as he wants to play all the time and she is too tiny for much of that.
She is surprisingly confident little thing and they had us in stictiches last night .I gave both a chew and they kept creeping up on each other to take the others chew and own both. It was like watching little and large lol !