Food for GSD with a sensitive stomach

Tauriel

Hi All, we have a six and a half year old GSD. Recently, he has been to the vet because of a very nasty rash on his belly and nether regions which resulted in him tearing out his fur and those areas of skin turning black.

The vet get us a special shampoo to use twice a week for the next few weeks and believes that this skin irritation is as a result of a negative reaction to food. We are to only feed him dry nuts going forward.

At the moment, we have him on Glanbia Gain Crunchy Nut but are thinking of changing to Redmills Working Dog Food. Would anyone have any experience with this dog food?

Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this.

VonVix

I'm gonna assume that your vet is right and that it's food based and not environmental (such as a grass allergy) I just looked up Gain Crunchy Nut and that's pretty low quality stuff you were feeding, has a lot of vague/mystery, filler ingredients.

Gain Crunchy Nut
Cereals, Meat & animal derivatives, Derivatives of vegetable origin, Oils & fats, Products from the processing of plants

My GSD has a sensitive tummy and when he was young I had him on a chicken based food, he was quite itchy and twitchy for a lack of a better description. I believe chicken is one of the more common ingredients to cause allergic reactions in dogs. He is now on Barking Heads Lamb and doing brilliantly on it. http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/barking_heads/580670

Barking Heads Lamb
51% lamb (includes 26% lamb, 20% dried lamb, 3% lamb fat, 2% lamb stock), brown rice, oats, white rice, lucerne, 4% trout, peas, 3% salmon oil, seaweed, tomato, hip & joint care [glucosamine (350mg), MSM (350mg), chondroitin (240mg)].

Red Mills have a "Sensitive" version which may be of interest to you, I personally have not tried it however: http://www.redmills.ie/Pets/Products/Leader/Leader-Adult-Sensitive-Large

Red Mills Sensitive
Dehydrated Lamb (27%), Brown Rice, White Rice, Sunflower Oil, Potato Protein, Whole Linseed, Minerals, Alfalfa, Seaweed Meal, Hydrolysed Liver Protein, Yeast Extract, Chicory Inulin, Yucca schidigera.

If I were in your position I would get reading the ingredients on dog food you are interested in, avoid any mention of chicken, or maize, cereals and wheat as main ingredients. It would be worth seeking an allergy test for your dog if at all possible to help narrow the issues down that he may have.

Tauriel

VonVix wrote: »

I'm gonna assume that your vet is right and that it's food based and not environmental (such as a grass allergy) I just looked up Gain Crunchy Nut and that's pretty low quality stuff you were feeding, has a lot of vague/mystery, filler ingredients.


My GSD has a sensitive tummy and when he was young I had him on a chicken based food, he was quite itchy and twitchy for a lack of a better description. I believe chicken is one of the more common ingredients to cause allergic reactions in dogs. He is now on Barking Heads Lamb and doing brilliantly on it. http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/barking_heads/580670


Red Mills have a "Sensitive" version which may be of interest to you, I personally have not tried it however: http://www.redmills.ie/Pets/Products/Leader/Leader-Adult-Sensitive-Large


If I were in your position I would get reading the ingredients on dog food you are interested in, avoid any mention of chicken, or maize, cereals and wheat as main ingredients. It would be worth seeking an allergy test for your dog if at all possible to help narrow the issues down that he may have.

Thanks for that, the vet is going to hold off on doing any allergy tests at the moment but if things don't improve in the next 3 weeks or so, she will go down this route. He did have a sensitive stomach as a pup but he seemed to settle on the Gain food, after trying a few different brands.

We have taken him to a new vet as we weren't happy with our usual vet's diagnosis, which was to plaster him in canesten duo and they never mentioned food allergies.

I can't see it being a grass allergy, as the back garden is fully cemented and we wouldn't bring him to fields to run around unless the weather was very good.

Cherry Blossom

As a starting point, no cereals, no derivatives of any description, no chicken, no 'poultry fat'. If there is no sign of improvement after 6 weeks you may need to do an exclusion diet. You will be spending a lot more on dog food per kilo but will be feeding substantially less of it.

Latatian

Try Red Mills Engage Duck and Rice.

Different dogs will obviously need vastly different dog foods, I tried a LOT of them with mine and this helped her. But that's no guarantee it'll be the same for yours. She did well on it though.

thierry14

I was at a dog show recently and nearly everyone is feeding a raw diet

A lot of them had issues like you in the past OP

Sensitive skin thoroughbreds coming out in rashes etc and all agreed raw diet is best for overall health

No matter what nuts you get they won't be anyway near the quality of raw

You can get a 1kg pack of chicken legs in tesco for 2euro etc

GSD would do brilliantly on a a raw diet

I buy from here now and again to mix things up

http://www.slaneypetfoods.ie/index.php/products-prices/

cocker5

I buy my RAW from here and find it excellent so far:

https://carnivorekellys.myshopify.com/

tk123

I raw feed too but IMO for large breed dogs unless you have some decent freezer space it can be expensive. A 30kg would be starting on say 600g a day x 7 = 4.2kgs a week. Also raw fed dogs can still have allergies. Somebody on a raw group I'm on had great success with Mercola Probiotics for her dog's allergies. If you do want to try raw you'd be best to go with single proteins - so no chubs/boxes unless it's a single protein. Often they can have say chicken mixed in with a duck or turkey mix so not ideal.

jonnybravo

We feed our Dog with Leader Sensitive and find it good. She's allergic to a lot of things and this suits her anyways.