Lupus diet

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troop
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2010 4:50 pm

Lupus diet

Post by troop »

Hi You may or may not remember i rescued a Ute, Harry last year and he was diagnosed with lupus in the first few weeks of me having him (prob part of the reason he was discarded) anyway although he is doing well and has fingers crossed only had two flare ups, treated with steroids etc, i had been thinking about changing his diet as he is still on the thin side and ghis coat is still dry and a little dull. He is lower in energy than i expected for his breed and it seems if i give him to much exercise it can cause him issues so i have to keep his levels calm. Also sometimes he can get a little reactive/aggressive due to the lupus so i dont wish to add to this in any way. Anyway he is currently on a local dry dog food with added fresh fish,veg and fruit with some liver etc on occassions. I cant feed him a totally raw diet as it just doesnt seem to agree with his tummy so HELP please..... i have been looking at orijen and TOTW but am a little non plussed with what i should and shouldnt be feeding him. Oh and i live in the UK
Thanks x
emmabeth
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Re: Lupus diet

Post by emmabeth »

I like ToTW or Orijen if you cannot feed a raw diet, however in what way does raw not agree with his tummy? Some things just don't agree (my deerhound can't eat beef), some things take a bit of adjusting to.

It may be that there are SOME raw foods he cannot have, and some he can - you can mix and match a complete food like ToTW or Orijen (or Applaws, this is also grain free) with raw so I would start on one of those and then experiment with raw ingredients to see which go down well, one at a time.

Even if you end up as you currently are, feeding one of the grain free completes, and supplementing with fruit/veg/fish/offal, I think you will be providing a very good diet, the only other thing I would recommend is the occasional raw meaty bone for teeth cleaning.
West Midlands based 1-2-1 Training & Behaviour Canine Consultant
troop
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2010 4:50 pm

Re: Lupus diet

Post by troop »

Thank you for your reply, thinking on it last night Harry seems to have issues with beef but not chicken. He gets very runny tum when fed bones to except chicken carcass. Somebody suggested feeding him venison??? Would that be worth a try? Should he be on a high or low protein diet or is it just trial and error? I want to be careful cause of the lupus and dont want to stress him unnecassarily
emmabeth
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Re: Lupus diet

Post by emmabeth »

Raw meat isnt as high protein as you might think (lot of water in it!), but protein content is a very sticky issue and tbh one I just ignore! What is written on a bag of dog food is largely irrelevant as in some foods the protein content may be high.. but most of the protein undigestible by the dog!

I am not aware of any dietary requirements for lupus, though with anything I would suggest keeping sugars and carbs low!

Taste of the Wild do a fish based food which I would try, and also experiment iwth other meats - venison is a pretty good one!

A lot of bones are very high in fat (chicken ones wont be, beef, lamb, turkey will be!) and if he has got the marrow out of them that is pretty much pure fat and will cause the squits in most dogs not used to it.

Runny bum in the initial stages of getting used to a new food isnt majorly worrying - what IS, would be dark black tarry poo (it has its own uniquely foul smell to it as well) and slightly less scary is very mucousy poo. The tarry black stuff is indicative of bleeding high up in the system, and the mucous is a giveaway that something is irritating the bowel.

Soooooo.. if the squitty bum was just runny, greasy poo of a relatively normal shade, I would persevere with SMALL amounts of whatever you think caused that, from tiem to time and see if the dog gets used to it. If its either of the two sorts I mentioned then avoid those foods.
West Midlands based 1-2-1 Training & Behaviour Canine Consultant
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