mentally stimulating allergy & bloat reducing diet?

[MPbandmom]

In reading all the various posts here about diet and foods and other articles and things I have read, I'm a little overwhelmed. I have recently switched the dogs to higher quality chicken and grain free kibble and treats. I have worries about Sky and bloat as she is almost 5 and built more like a lab than a husky. I am not a cook and don't even cook for myself, so I don't see myself cooking a meal for my dogs, plus the book I have giving recipies for that, seemed to need a chemist/scientist to implement. Which I am not. I am also not yet ready to dive into raw feeding.

Currently I feed the dogs Natural balance potato and Duck formula kibble. Sky gets a cup full 2 times a day. Sirius generally eats about a cup's worth a day. After reading the bloat study, I started mixing the kibble with Natural Balance Duck and potato canned food for the evening feeding. They thought this was awsome, and the food vanished from their bowls at lightening speed. Then I was reading posts about doing away with the dog food bowl and giving the dog more mental stimulation and having them search/work to get their food rather than just woofing it down. (Which also sounds like a good plan for bloat avoidance.)

I have some kongish treat toys, medium sized for my medium size dogs, and I took a cup of kibble and mixed it with the canned food filled the toys and froze them. Well, the one cup of food filled 4 toys (all that I have) with about a third of a cup's worth of mixture left over. So those don't come near to holding what would be a normal meal for Sky, It would take about 6 of them to do that. Plus Sirius still needs to eat. I went to the store looking about getting more, and found instead a weighted egg shaped thing. It will hold a cup of food, and has adjustable size slits at the bottom for the food to come out of. I have been adding a few smelly pork liver based training treats to the mix to draw their interest. They have been eating more slowly, but the egg thing isn't conducive to adding canned food to the kibble.

So, I'm thinking about giving an appropriate amount of kibble in the egg morning and evening as their regular meal, and leaving them each with a kongish toy for during the day. I'm not totally impressed with the Natural Balance dog food though. It seems to be making Sky go to the bathroom more often, and she seems to be working harder at it. Sirius seems to be going less often, but doesn't seem to be going in the yard, only when we go out for a walk, and then she will go a couple of times and again it seems like she is having more trouble going. How long should I give them on this new food before I decide to change? I'm thinking about trying the wellness Core limited ingredient diet. They have been on the natural balance for a little over a month now.

Once I get them settled into a kibble, I'm thinking about adding raw meaty bones for treats/teeth cleaning chews instead of the seemingly greasy pork hide rolls and pig ear strips that I am giving them now. I know I can get packs of chicken wings, legs, and thighs in bulk at my grocers, but as I have been working on testing out a chicken free diet, I'm not sure what are good alternatives to chicken. I have read several raw food threads on here, but don't seem to have come across the non chicken safe meaty bones to get for dogs. Could someone post a link or list please?

Any other tips, suggestions, additions, or deletions that would be recommended?

[Horace's Mum]

I can only say what I do, with a lurchery type dog who suffered a gastric torsion as a very young puppy and hence has a lot of scar tissue, and also has sensitivites to certain foods. He doesn't eat pork of any kind, so it might be worth thinking about avoiding that if the chicken free diet doesn't help.

I wanted to feed yummy food, not just dry kibble, so from the start I always fed wet food or homecooked, or a combination of both - I used naturediet. But I have since cut out rice and other carbs, so I can't feed naturediet anymore. For a number of reasons I can't feed raw. So now Horus has a meal of fish (tinned or fresh cooked) or leftover meat, cooked veg as bulk, and an apple every morning (the apple works amazingly well at keeping his stools firm, better than anything else) along with his supplements for joints and stress, and then in the evening he has a buster cube or dog pyramid filled with his daily ration of kibble - I use orijen which is just meat, fish, eggs, veg and herbs. This way I can put any supplements in his breakfast and he eats very little but feels full, and I get half an hour or so of peace in the evening while he is throwing his buster cube around the house - on nice days I often throw it out into the garden to make it more interesting for him. I am always on the lookout for new kibble toys, I have 3 or 4 different ones and just keep interchanging them to make life interesting.

I believe raw lamb ribs are safe to eat, but one of the barfers will come along soon I'm sure!

[Mattie]

Having had a dog with bloat there are things you can do to reduce this happening, Merlin was at a very high risk of getting bloat again because they didn't have time to tie the stomach to the chest wall when they operated.

Feed little and often, I fed Merlin 3 times a day, I try to get their food to as near 8 hours between meals as I could. I still feed my dogs 3 times a dog, they are used to it and it isn't a problem for me. I split their food into 3 feeds, slightly more is given for their last meal.

Don't exercise for 2 hours before or after a meal. Exercising on a full tummy can cause bloat.

Water must be available at all times, especially if you feed kibble. Merlin never drank much water and would gobble his kibble, I solved this problem by soaking his kibble before feeding it, before I did this Merlin was often dehyrated, he was never dehydrated once I soaked the kibble. The kibble being soak also swells up before the dog eats it, this can also help prevent bloat.

Some say you need to feed your dog from a raised bowl, others say that can cause bloat, feed from the floor, modern research seems to think it doesn't make any difference. Merlin was a Greyhound who are often fed from raised bowls, her didn't like eating from them, he prefered to eat with his bowl on the floor.

They food won't stop a dog from getting bloat but for our dogs and us we prefer to feed the best food we can.

I hope this makes things a bit clearer for you.

[MPbandmom]

Thanks! Sounds like I'm on the right track, I just need to continue down the line (so to speak) I am finding that the Natural Balance kibble that I am feeding now seems to turn into a fuzed blob in the kongish toys when I mix with wet food and freeze. So, I'm checking out the recipies thread for alternative stuffings. The egg shaped food holder seems to be working fairly well. The dogs love it. I just have to supervise and retrieve them out of corners, the other dogs space, etc.