Hello

I am new here and hoping I can ask for some advice. 

I have a dog who is now 4 years old.  He has Hip Dysplasia so always been advised to keep his weight to a minimum.  However he at the moment looks like he is starved and looks like a bag of bones.

I up until about 7 weeks ago was feeding Burns but my other dog was looking very poor and was not looking well and maintaining his weight on Burns.  With advice from my pet shop I changed them to Arden Grange.

My dog has recently started loosing his fur and I can sweep up last thing at night then by morning the Lounge floor will be covered in his hair.  His coat is dull and dandruffy.  When you groom him you can feel his nobbly spine and back bone this is NOT right.

My other dog is doing fine he is a Heinz 57 and the same size and fed about the same.

I am really stuck as to what to do.  I have heard only good things about Arden Grange but obviously it is very strange that my dog has gone so skinny and started loosing his coat.

I want to keep them both on a Hypoallergenic diet and been looking at "Healthy Paws" Rabbit and Brown rice or the Fish4Dogs BUT the protein is 26% and could such high protein content aggrevate my dogs Hip Dysplasia??

When I walk my dog I am sure people think I am not feeding him.

Has anyone tried either of the foods I am thinking of changing to??

Any advice or help but be very much appreciated

Do not think your dog is unwell because of the food, Burns will cause some dogs to be very slim but not AG. If the dog is not well take him to a vet before you start trying different types of food.

Hi

Thanks for your reply

Yep I have taken him infact both of them to my vet and been given a clean bill of health well apart from the Hip Dysplasia but I knew about that.

When I told my vet what I was feeding them on he looked at me like I was crackers shook his head and tutted.

I am not disputing A.G. is a good food, 8 out of 10 reviews I have heard has been nothing but praise but I have them both on the Salmon and Rice so he should certainly not be loosing his coat and looking so scruffy and have dandruff.  He is also given devils claw liquid 1x daily for his H.D.

Obviously I am worried about my dog being so underweight. 

Anyone else with any suggestions???

Could you not put him back on Burns if he was better when he was on it and keep your other dog on AG?

I know it's a pain to buy two different foods but it's the obvious answer if all other potential health related causes for his weight loss have been ruled out.

Just a suggestion,but have you thought of BARF? It's easy to do and you'd be able to feed both dogs on it. Just a suggestion though and I hope all goes well, whatever you decide.

I would put your dog looking poorly back on Burns; if he's better within a month than Arden Grange did not agree with him.  If he's not - it's something else and a trip back to the vet is in order.

Different dogs do well on different foods, I would not get stuck thinking you have to feed them both the same food, even if it is more convenient for you.

I think the advice to return to your previous food is a good one - that way you will be able to tell whether it is the food or something else causing the problems.  I have a GSD sired by a dog from Arden Grange and as a result know first hand how committed AG are to providing high quality foods but not all foods suit all dogs as we know from other threads here.  Sadly my girl doesn't have good hips either and AG gave some excellent advice - salmon and rice did come up as one of the best and as I was already feeding this I have continued - but what I really wanted to say was that their nutritionalist also recommended Grizzly Salmon Oil as a supplement.  I cannot remember where I got it from but I googled and found a UK supplier. 

Louise

I would advise returning to burns as it sounds as if he was better on that.  You can then supplement with fresh raw meat just make sure it has been frozen and defrosted in the fridge overnight before feeding to kill any bugs.  I feed a raw diet to all my dogs (thankfully a small breed) so you can give them things like root veg and even live yogurt, goat is better than cow.

Random personal opinion, I hate devils claw liquid.  It has never worked for me with any of my dogs.  Try him without when you get him looking better to see if it is really doing anything for him.

I know vets want you to have him at a low weight but he still needs to slowly build muscle (gain weight) around the hip joint to try and stabalise it.  Catch 22.

Good luck getting him back to normal

Emma

Just a quick point - Burns is a complete food. So if the OP is going to feed Burns or any complete, they should get away with adding little bits of extras (egg, sardine etc) - but supplement with too much meat and you will reduce calcium intake comparatively unless you give raw bones too. Not good for any dog but especially not one with problems related to the bones and joints. So the OP really needs EITHER to feed a complete diet, OR a BARF diet. :-)

Hydrotherapy is useful for building muscle. :-)

Have the vets done blood tests etc? If it was me I would want things checking that way to make sure everything was fine - but then I am a bit paranoid. :-)

Not true that the OP needs to feed EITHER a complete die or a BARF diet.

It is very easy to add additional calcium to a dog's diet if you  heavily supplement a complete diet with extra protein; without raw bones.  Simply buy (from Holland and Barrett, for example) calcium tablets (without any additional elements, like potassium or magnesium). 

In fact, as I understand it, raw bones would be completely inappropriate to use for a source of additional calcium because they have the perfect balance of calcium and phosphorous - and what is needed is more calcium WITHOUT the phosphorous to balance the phosphorous in the extra meat/fish protein.

Yes it is true. If you are feeding a raw diet you need to balance it correctly. It will not be balanced correctly with the addition of complete food.

"So if the OP is going to feed Burns or any complete, they should get away with adding little bits of extras (egg, sardine etc) - but supplement with too much meat and you will reduce calcium intake comparatively unless you give raw bones too."

Sorry, but the above is NOT true.  If you are significantly supplementing a diet composed largely of a complete food (like Burns in this case) with meat - which is high in phosphorous you need to add a source of calcium WITHOUT the phosphorous.  The only way to do that is to add calcium; for example, calcium carbonate.   

Adding raw bones means you still have too much phosphorous from the additional meat and the calcium tables for dogs always (at least the ones I've found) have added phosphorous; neither of these is good.  So you need a source of pure calcium - which does not include bones.

The poster is not feeding a raw diet - she is feeding a complete food; I think you have it flipped.

Cairnmania,I just wondered what source of calcium you would recommend? I have been adding Beaphar bone builder when I feed meat(I also feed Orijen).It states on the tin that a largely meat based diet is likely to be deficient in calcium and phosphorus.I'm confused!

Hi Helen,

Yes, I agree it is confusing ... very.  My advice is only relevant is you are supplementing a complete food with a significant amount of meat. 
I feed my dogs a mix of complete food and home-cooked food.  The home cooked food is whatever the people in the house had for their evening meal or an alternative; always and mostly a protein of some kind (red meat, chicken, fish and occassionally egg) along with a bit of vegetable and potato or rice.   

For example,  (you can find very detailed nutrional data on a site www.nutriondata.com) one cup of baked, skinless chicken breast has 21 mg of calcium and 319.0 mg. That is way off the ratio of 1:1 to 2:1 calcium:phosphorous ration which is required for dogs - so you can see that if you fed large amounts of chicken you would need to add more calcium to balance the relatively larger amounts of phosphorous.

I did a lot of research on this a while back and below is a quote from some site, which I do not recall, but it sums up the advice:

"Adult dogs need around 800 to 1,000 mg of calcium per pound of food fed. They also require the calcium to be supplied in a proper proportion to phosphorus.The ideal calcium:phosphorus ratio in the canine diet is between 1:1 and 2:1. Meat contains a lot of phosphorus, so the more meat a diet contains, the more calcium will be required to reach the correct calcium:phosphorus ratio. Adding 800 to 1,000 mg of calcium will provide the correct calcium:phosphorus ratio even for a high-meat diet, unless you use a calcium supplement that also contains phosphorus. In that case, moderately higher amounts of calcium may be needed to balance out the additional phosphorus contained in the supplement."

So - to make sure the home cooked food I give my dogs is nutrionally balanced I give the a doggie vitamin (which is probably not necessary) and a few times a week I give them some extra calcium.   I just buy chewable tablets from Holland and Barrett - but any kind will do - you look for calcium-only tablets of calcium carbonate, chelated calcium, calcium gluconate or calcium lactate.   If your family eat a lot of eggs you can also dry the shells and grind them to a powder, one whole eggshell is about 1,800 milligrams of calcium carbonate. 

If the Beaphar supplement is on the low side for phosphorous it's better than nothing for dogs fed a mostly meat-based diet.  However, I don't know what they mean by a "mostly meat based diet".  I assume they do not mean dogs fed raw meaty bones, but your guess is as good as mine.

Cairnmania,thanks for all that info,its something I'd been a bit worried about.I think I'll stop giving the Beaphar bone builder and change to Holland and Barrett.The beaphar stuff is 22.3% calcium and 13.3% phosphorus,when I e mailed them to ask how much to give my tiny papillon they said one heaped teaspoon a day which does seem a really large amount.
I tend to follow the menus on the B-naturals site and mix the meat/egg  with mashed sweet potato(75/25 ratio)then add the calcium and freeze in small portions,then add any fish oil etc just before feeding,thats the evening meal.The morning feed is Orijen with a bit of veggie juice,also any titbits throughout the day tend to be Orijen.
Thanks again for the advice.

Welcome .. and thanks for pointing me to B-Naturals - too bad it's in the U.S. though :-(

Good information there nonetheless and I found the newsletter on supplementing dry foods, which does say to add calcium.   I think it's a good idea to stop with the Beaphar bone builder and use pure calcium instead.

http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter/mixing-fresh-food-with-kibble/

What I was saying is if you are feeding a raw diet then you have to get the correct nutrient balance or you will have problems. If you are feeding a complete food it is just that - complete - and if you start adding meat, especially red meat, you will increas phosphorus and decrease calcium which can cause bone and other problems. Small amounts of titbits etc are not a problem but supplementing with meat on a regular basis ius not advisable. You will find the OP actually has another post saying they are thinking of switching to BARF. ;) But I was responding to malibu's comment re feeding a complete and adding meat to it. If that makes it more clear?

In response to Cairnmania.