My girl is unwell at the moment with gastritis/colitis. I'm awaiting results of blood tests, meanwhile I'm giving her either boiled chicken breast or fish while I look thru various foods. Prior to this bout, I had started her on joe and jacks chicken and rice. Now I'm a bit worried its this thats set her off despite introducing it slowly.
Has anyone got any advice please for a very worried owner.

Chappie original tins, or home cooked white fish (you can get the value Pollock fillets in most supermarkets) and overcooked Rice or potato.

find out results of tests and then it will probably be a matter of trial and error. i found burns was good food when mine had it.

Avoid rice. Boiled chicken and Chappie would be my suggestion too -my daughter has a dog with colitis and boiled chicken always sorts him out and Chappie keeps him okay, alongside raw lamb and chicken and tripe minces -not beef.

When ours suffered badly from colitis, tried many, many foods, some worked for a couple of months & then it would come back with vengeance. Feeding raw has cured them, apart from when then they pick up rubbish. Though I've not tried Chappie, like others have always heard good feedback & like Goldmali mentions personally wouldn't use rice ours never did well with it. Good luck.  

My lad that I unfortunately lost for other health reasons last year suffered from colitis, changing him to a raw diet helped immensely.  Did find that he was intolerant to chicken and beef and it would set a bout off but it was no problem as there is so much other variety.  When he had a bad bout probiotic yoghurt would settle it down in no time. 

I see some are saying its Chappie Original that should be used. I've fed her Chappie for some time now, but I buy the 6 pack which has 4 chicken and only 2 original. Does the chicken one not work then, coz she's had these episodes while on it.?
About 2 weeks before this colitis episode, because I felt she wasn't getting a good diet, I changed to Joe and Jacks chicken & rice after much research. It has 65% chicken and none of these cheap ingedients. Introduced it slowly but could it be this.

Have had one bitch with a colitis inclined tummy and chicken Chappie doesn't suit her at all but the Original one always sorts her out very quickly.  She has it as part of her normal diet anyway and now only has a couple of upsets a year, when all she has for 24 hours is just Chappie original and she's back to normal.  It's brilliant stuff and works better than Vets' drugs.  :)

Yep - another tinned Chappie fan here.  In my experience the Original works the best and is very effective.  A few doses of Pro-Kolin also works well with mine.  With this combination tums quickly get back to normal and I can gradually get them back onto Arden Grange (Lamb and Rice) plus some raw minced tripe.  They love Chappie!

Has anyone used the fish Nature diet. I've opened one today and the smell is absolutely awful, wondered if this is normal ? my girl seems to think its smashing tho. lol

>I've opened one today and the smell is absolutely awful, wondered if this is normal ? my girl seems to think its smashing tho. lol

Sounds pretty normal to me peanut.  One of my dogs started rubbing her neck on me.  Too late I found out that she wanted to share delightful fox poo eau de parfum with me.

It could be chicken that is her problem, mine do far better on Lamb or fish, not that anyone really has issues. 

I prefer Lamb as it is likely that sheep are much less likely to be intensive bely reared like poultry.  Ditto Fish to some extent, though I am not keen on Salmon based foods as it's going to be farmed Salmon, which also has more issues with their rearing..

Has anyone used the fish Nature diet. I've opened one today and the smell is absolutely awful, wondered if this is normal ?

Never used the fish one but one reason for why I stopped using Nature Diet was that it happened quite a lot that trays went off, and if left long enough they'd explode open. Now that did really stink!! I had one in the bottom of a full box once and just could not work out where the awful smell was coming from!

That's a thought Brainless. I never really thought about the intensive farming side of it. We certainly never really know what goes into the food we buy do we, the same must go for produced dog food. Its one of the reasons I went for the Joe & Jacks trays which, they say, is sourced locally. I just hope Joe Ingles wouldn't put his name to a poor food. Talking about the disgusting smells of some of these foods, if you could smell the J&J tray, its so nice you could add a roast potato and eat it LOL

Unfortunately I have a lot of experience in colitis in a dog and finally resolved it literally overnight with Wainwrights (pets at home) wet food in trays and James wellbeloved kibble and completely avoiding anything and everything with chicken in. We stick to one protein only, always the same one and limited carbs, again, just one type which can be oats, brown rice, semolina or tapioca. Try a food your dog hasn't had much exposure too and gherefore is much less likely to be sensitive to .. which could be duck or rabbit for example. For us it's been magic, thankfully. I hope she's well soon.

Hello all.   Here I am again. My girl started again yesterday. I gave her the Zantac syrup last night as well as a dose of Pro-Kolin. She seems fairly ok today.
I've had her on the Wainrights Turkey and veg since the last episode in case she was sensitive to chicken as suggested. Does anyone know if chicken is a different meat protein from turkey ? I've noticed also that some of you posting here seem to vary your dogs diet to give variety. I thought different feeds had to be introduced slowly, Am I wrong?

Try nature diet lite as that was recommended for sensitive stomach issues as it has a higher roughage level and apparently that really helps.

We tried everything with our girl who we were on the verge of PTS as she was so bad but this was the only thing that we found helped and she gradually put weight back on and she lived until just before her 15th birthday .

Have you tried Chappie Original, which is mainly fish protein, as suggested by so many?

Has the vet sent away stool samples? A stool sample collected over three days to ensure all parts of the bowel are covered could reveal a parasite which would also be a cause of colitis. All this rain has caused various problems for animals and puddle type water can cause things like campylobacter which often needs quite aggressive antibiotic treatment. I hope she feels better soon. Wainwrights completely changed our dogs life, Chappie unfortunately made no difference but all dogs are different. We didnt try turkey as it seemed too similar to chicken and he had had turkey before so we used duck as it needed to be something new to his system..but then again..some could argue Ducks a bird too, lol.

Thanks Westcoast. Yes she has been on chappie for some time but as i buy a 6 pack, 4 of them are chicken and rice, so if she goes back on it I'll keep to the original. I only changed to a better quality feed coz chappie only has 4% meat in it and god knows what else.  
She's back in vets today having xray and ultrasound, which is apparently clear of foreign body and tumors so thats a relief. The vet says it could possibly be spasmodic cramping syndrome which is found in Border Terriers, tho rare. I go to pick her up at 3.30 so will know more later. Vet has also taken blood for intolerance testing.
I've got some Nature Diet light so may try her on that.

Hi Elly, No there has been no mention of taking stool samples. May well discus with vet. Thank you

> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> I only changed to a better quality feed coz chappie only has 4% meat in it and god knows what else.

It's not as transparent in listing ingredients as I like but it certainly has more than 4% of it's make up from animal/fish sources.

It's a wet food so you need to remember that your already starting with 70 - 80% of the weight as moisture.

Chappie Original 

Ingredients

Fish and Fish Derivatives (Including min. 14% White Fish), Cereals (min. 4%), Meat and Animal Derivatives (Including min. 4% Chicken), Oils and Fats, Herbs, Minerals

Cereals comes lower than the Fish, and higher than the at least 4% chicken.

Thanks Brainless. I obviously misread it, you're quite right. I'm giving her home cooked fish and potato at the moment but may well return to Chappie when she's fully recovered from this episode. I just wish I knew exactly what is causing it all. I'm hoping the food intolerance test comes back with something, coz I certainly don't accept the cramping syndrome diagnosis.

I've always felt that Original Chappie is the anomoly in the world of processed dog food - it bucks all the normal rules!  :)

Hi may I suggest seeing a Health Kinesiologist who will be able to test for substances , food or otherwise that could be upsetting your dogs system. Most HK'ers are willing to work with animals but will ask you to get your vets permission first. I have worked with horses, dogs and the odd cat with good results. worth checking out anyway.

Here's an update on my girl. Her food intolerance test came back today and guess what, the vet says my girl is not sensitive to anything and thats very unusual. So I'm back to square one. I'm still feeding the home cooked fish and potato. Vet says to add some veg but I think I'll have to give it cooked coz raw comes out just the same as it went in, if you know what I mean.
Meanwhile, my girl seems ok at the moment. She's to continue with the zantac for a few months. So am keeping my fingers crossed it wont return.