Update - Jack, diarrhea, food

[jacksdad]

Well it's been a long 2/3 months and a tough spring for Jack.

quick history review. Back in April Jack ate a sand crab on the beach and 24 hours later he had diarrhea. after it didn't clear up after 24 hours, I stopped feeding him and took him to the vet. they hydrated him, recommended I continue the 24 hour fast, then slowly reintroduced food starting with just some bland wet and then phase back in the kibble. things seem to clear up, then about a week, week and a half later he had a relapse. one day seemed fine, next morning lethargic, diarrhea and after a short morning bathroom walk, he basically came to a "stop". just sat down and started shaking. by the time I could get him to the vet he was coming out if it. again, back to the bland wet, they gave some antibiotics, wormed him, and apro-biotics. again with in a few days he cleared up, started phasing back in the kibble and he looked good until he got into the dark chocolate. again, with in a couple days he was having diarrhea problems. but this time since there were no other symptoms I didn't go to the vet. but it didn't clear up quickly so I stopped feeding him kibble.

All blood work has shown nothing of concern. stool sample, returned nothing of concern.

So, after stopping feeding him kibble (evo chick/turkey) he cleared right up. about 5 days later I did try a little bit of kibble again, almost instant diarrhea within 24 hours. but so back to the chick only.

For 3 weeks his food was plain boneless, skinless cooked chicken breast, frozen peas, white rice, broccoli, apple, raw carrot and maybe a teaspoon of wet food. a mean might look like this. breakfast, small kong full of chicken, maybe a little rice or pea or carrot or apple. dinner 1/3 cup of chicken and I would mix in again either some carrot or pea or broccoli or apple an some wet food.

he seemed to be doing pretty good, but I noticed a lose of energy mid week last week after not having a bowl movement in 48 hours...not enough food was my thought. so I upped his food, back to regular once a day bathroom, but still hasn't regained his energy. when I took him in to the vet on Saturday to touch bases on his epilepsy meds and an increase in klutziness since the 1/2 a table increase back in march the vet commented that he was a little under weight now. he was 16.4 pounds. So I upped his food some more. some energy improvement in the mornings after waking up, but by evening he is dragging.

I want to get him back to 17 - 17.5 pounds. 18 is getting chunky and losing the waist, but less then 17 and he is a bit on the thin side. when he is 100%, we walk anywhere from 1 to two hours a day. weekdays tend to be more the 1 to 1.5 hour range. weekends can be more depending on what is going on, so he is pretty active.

Something else I learned while at the vet from the nurse who has her dog on the same meds as jack is it's possible the meds have affected his ability to eat kibble. Saturday before learning this I had given Jack a kong full of kibble to see how he would do. By Saturday evening he was smelly gassy, and Sunday when he when potty he showed what I have come to associate with as signs of pending diarrhea.

So, all this could have been related to the crab and chocolate, but it could also be related to the phenobarbital and potassium bromide. To many things have happened about the same time to know for sure at this time. the med increase, the eating of the crab and chocolate etc. however, the end result seems to be he can't handle the EVO any longer.

I actually don't mind, but moving him off kibble all together long term and making his food my self has some OH complications attached.....
So, for now, I am going to try him back on some blue buffalo and I have located a source for Orijen to try.

I have also ordered Give Your Dog A Bone, because I would really rather feed him myself, but it's going to take some time to get my wife on board.

All that to ask this. Am I underfeeding him right now? am I not meeting his nutrition needs? is that possibly a contributing factor to his low energy? I didn't initially worry because the plan had been to phase him back to his kibble while I read up by now. But now it looks possibly he maybe off kibble longer or even all together depending on how responds to other brands and I wasn't quite ready to have to make this change so soon knowledge wise. I know phenobarbital can affect his energy too and we we are cutting back that medicine because of quality of life issues.

currently he is getting a 1/2 cup for dinner of chicken and some variation of the above other stuff. Starting today breakfast is 1/4 a cup and some variation of the above.

[Mattie]

What about raw feeding him? Do you think your OH will accept that?

[jacksdad]

not at this time.

for some reason she thinks dogs do just fine on the cheap stuff and I am "brain washed" for trying to find higher quality kibble or spoiling him by feeding him "human" food. I still can't figure out why, I am the one who feeds him. I am trying to avoid the "until you get up at 2am to take him out when he has diarrhea you have no say..." argument. not good for a peaceful marriage and it's taking a lot of tongue biting.

I did however order a RAW book (give your dog a bone) just the same. who knows what the future holds. IF he can't handle kibble period, I will be moving the raw direction or modified by cooking depending on what he can handle. I draw the line at feeding mystery meal and useless fillers and since I am doing about 95% or more of his care, I think that should give me majority vote...or so the theory goes

[Nettle]

Would homecooked food be a good halfway house? A little chap like Jack wouldn't need all that much, but you'd need to include a doggie mineral supplement because he wouldn't be getting raw bones.

I believe phenobarb causes weight gain - might be worth checking.

[jacksdad]

I am hoping that home cooked is the path to take to start.

I might be able to do raw meeting bones right away...but full meals ironically might not be well received initially. I will just have to take it slow.

I do know, even if I can make the transition because I would be the one doing the work, if I be away, odds are she would want to just be able to feed him some kibble. so I can't see kibble being out of the picture 100% ever.

so from what I am reading just on Ian's web site it looks like I am will need to target 3 to 4% of his body weight if we are very active as the top end. So if 17 to 17.5 is the target weight, that is about 3/4 of a pound of food a day. Am I doing that right? of course adjusted for increase or decrease in activity, increase or decrease in weight, increase in training "treats" etc.

as for him gaining weight, I will double check the side affects of pheno again, but right now he was losing weight due diarrhea and reduced food intake while he recovered.

[Nettle]

Very easy-going measuring here, but basically a meal the size of his head divided into two portions (breakfast and supper) is a good starting point, and then you go up or down depending on his weight - which like ours, will fluctuate slightly depending on exercise, stress levels etc.

If you need to reduce weight, give more vegetables and less meat/fat, but he does need some fat every day because fat is critical to dog health (and ours too). We get so browbeaten about low fat that it is easy to give too little, and dogs metabolise fat for energy, not carbs, of which latter they need very little, and which can best be fulfilled from vegetables rather than cereals.

If Jack can have a chicken wing or a piece of breast of lamb the same size every day, that should fulfil his bone mineral requirements nicely.

[Mattie]

Maybe you should start eating at MacDonalds every day, when asked why say you are having the same food as Jack Maybe not, that will probably cause trouble which you don't want.

I used to homecook for Tommy when she was in the final stages kidney failure, would have done it for Merlin as well but he went from very early stages to the end in 2 days. I used to make a week's meals at a time and freeze it into meal size bags so when she was fed I just had to take out a bag from the freezer, when you go away you may be able to do this, if your OH is still unhappy will one of your children feed Jack?

[jacksdad]

Thanks nettles. If I have min/max range guide lines I find it easier to not over or under do something as well as "wing it" when necessary. I have been thinking of starting with chicken wings and have really been wanting to get him some real bones to to chew on. Let me see what I can do. If it was 100% up to me I would be trying this right now.

Mattie, I think the issue with my wife is two parts. one, she just doesn't seem to see why kibble isn't good enough. she has made comment like "lots of dogs do just fine...." . The other, having a dog isn't quite what she was expecting. A whole lot different than having a cat plus Jack's issues. Caring for a dog in general not to mention a dog like Jack has been pretty overwhelming and completely not what was expected. And now I want to add "more thing" to that feeling by moving away from Kibble..... Remember we didn't get Jack from a rescue or shelter so there was no one to prep us for what having a dog could/will mean. He was a rehome through a coworker.

We have completely different personalities. she tends to pull back when things get to much, I tend to "attack" the problem and try to solve it. Hence probably why I am in IT. I just need to find a way to reengage her with Jack. Updating her perception/feelings of Jack being a "problem/special needs child" to where he is today will help. Things like last night she got to see Jack in action with a Golden Retriever he had never met...nice calm exchange of sniffs are a start.

finding ways to show us making his food, be it home cooked or raw, has positive results, lower costs, not much more effort etc will help too.

[Mattie]

I had something similar when I had my horse, hubby couldn't understand why he needed so much time spent on him or how much his food cost etc. It didn't help when he came home from work to find I had bought him instead of getting contact lens. Told hubby I had saved him £10 on the cost, I had Tumbles for 32 years, I am terrified to try and work out how much he cost in those 32 years.

[jacksdad]

amount of time I have been putting into Jack, might be a factor too. but it's a catch 22. they want Jack to be a certain way or be able to do/understand what they want from him, but they don't want to put the time in to learn how to teach/help him. yet when I do, I spend to much time with him or are babying him etc. they are starting to notice the positive changes in him, but I don't think they fully get what went into achieving them.

sorry, this is turning into a vent/rant. very frustrating sometimes to not have everyone on the same page. even on simple things like yelling at jack doesn't make him stop barking at noises outside the house. or NO is way to general. Or no matter how loud you said "out of the kitchen" it doesn't mean anything to him.

[Mattie]

We are here for the rants as well as the good times, there are times when we have to get things off our chest because they are getting to me, a good rant makes a big difference

If you had got Jack from a rescue it doesn't mean that you would have been told the truth about him, I stopped getting dogs from rescues because of the lies I was told, I find pounds are much more honest about the dogs.

We had the same problem with our sons, they always knew better than we did especially with the dogs, no matter what we said it was wrong. Life became so much easier when they moved out.

[Nettle]

We can really empathise with you, jacksdad, so vent all you like.

Me, I just cannot understand how people in general want to feed their dogs the cheapest food or most convenient food or the food other people feed, and can't make the link between food in=health/behaviour out. Or don't extrapolate it to their dogs - I know people who eat nothing but organic this and home-made that and STILL feed their dogs crap out of a sack.

But - you'll get where you are going. Think how far you and Jack have come already.

[MPbandmom]

Jacksdad, I hear you on the family thing. I tried to get my husband and son to read Scardey Dog. No go. They often accuse me of babying Sirius too.

[jacksdad]

thanks everyone.

[Helen2009]

I feel your pain aswell Jacksdad, if I said to my parents to read Scaredy Dog, they would probably just hand it straight back to me! When I was growing up, they had a totally different view of dogs to me. My husband would be a little more open I think.