Food for sensitive tummy?

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chestnut cob

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Hi guys, I'm hoping I can pick your brains for a bit of help please
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Our 8yo bitch has quite a sensitive tummy. Vet diagnosed collitus (sp?) but just said to give her Zantac (ie the stuff you get over the counter in Boots for I think indigestion?) as and when required, and to feed rice, tuna and chicken when she's upset.

It seems to be set off by stress (parents going away tomorrow and I think she's picked up on all of the activity etc) primarily but is it worth looking at a feed specifically for sensitive tummies? Or would she be better moving on to meat and veg, cutting out dog food altogether? Obviously she can't exist forever on chicken and rice! She currently gets biscuit food with the odd bit of leftover meat, fish and/or veg on.

Thanks
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Thanks
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She's just been to the vet. Vet says she should go onto a bland diet of rice, chicken, white fish and boiled potatos indefinitely. He recommended feeding a broad spectrum vit and min supplement as well - can anyone suggest one?

Most of the doggy vit and min supps seem to mainly be made up of milk powder, fat, wheat germ and random things that really can't be called either vitamins or minerals!
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I would go raw straight away, but that's me!!! Having researched what goes into dog food it is no wonder we are seeing an increase in allergies and tummy upsets, basically most use carbohydrates to bulk the feed which dog's are not designed to eat and anything with a shelf life will have some form of preservative and stabalizers.

My vets were horrified by my feeding raw so you probably won't get a lot of support there. You could try talking to a homeopathic vet as most of them advocate some form of raw diet. You could lightly cook meat for a short period or jump right in and see what happens, but don't ever mix the diets.

Bones are very important to a dog they are a dogs form of bran and it might be that by giving a natural diet you will see a noticable improvement.
 
My Rottie has a sensitive tum & does very well on Chudleys Sensitive. He is very good on Supadog Sensitive but doesn't like it as much.
 
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I would go raw straight away, but that's me!!!

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I would second this! It sorted out my lurcher's sensitive tummy
 
Thanks Karyn.

The vet doesn't particularly want her to have meat at all so for now she'll be existing on white fish, chicken, potatoes and rice, then I'll introduce some cooked veg in a few days. I need to find a broad spec vit/min supp that isn't made up of just milk powder and wheat germ to give her too, as that diet won't supply her with everything she needs.

Once she's back to normal we will start introducing meat but she isn't going to be going back on to to prepared dog foods at all
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Will see about re-introducing bones when she's recovered too - she will enjoy that as they haven't had bones for years!
 
Would try SA37 for your vitamin/mineral supplement, it is the one I have always used/had recommended? Hope you sort something out, both of my dogs developed digestive problems and it is a nightmare
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I ended up feeding a Eukanuba Canine Dog intestinal food which was suggested by Star on here
 
Fairly standard policy on the bland diet front.

I would try if you feel you can, using raw blended veg or very lightly steam it, veg has a lot of good nutirents in it but cooking will destroy a lot of them and many are not available to a dog as its digestive system is geared around meat and bones not plant cells.

Plant cell walls are difficult to break down and a whole host of animals have found ways to do that by having a long sluggish gut with specialist enzymes to help. Basically the more fibre an animal eats the longer the Gut with an Elephant being the extreme.

A dogs system is short and fast, so that they can eat rotten meat, ironically this system helps them avoid tummy upsets from skanky food!! To make veg nutrients available you need to break the plant cell walls and a liquidiser mimics a prey animals stomach by breaking down those walls for the dog. This is why if you feed whole veg it comes out virtually unchanged!!

On raw diet you can use kelp tablets as a supplement if you wish, but I have no idea of supplements for cooked, there are some websites on home cooked diets, these might be better as a lot of commercial supplements are made from artificial ingredients, some of which may not actually be useable by the dog!

A Species appropriate diet for dogs of quality raw meat, bones, eggs, offal and small amounts of veg does not need any supplementation, so if you decide to go that route the diet will provide all her needs.

Far be it for me to question a vet, but few receive any input from independant nutritionalists in their training and virtually nothing on the growing return to raw feeding. I will say though that potato and rice are very starch rich foods. If one of mine gets loose I use lamb bones for the same effect, but they have a good immune system and an uncompromised gut having been on raw some time.
 
Thanks for your reply Karyn, I appreciate it
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Apart from tripe, she's never eaten raw meat before so I don't know how she would cope with it but it's got to be worth a go and better for her than existing on rice forever! She's mostly eating chicken and white fish ATM, bulked out with rice or potato. I'll start introducing some raw blended veg next week and see how she gets on with that, then think about adding bones. We had stopped giving her bones because she gets very possessive over them but we'll have to think up a way around that I guess.

I can start adding eggs to the diet straight away as she likes them and can't see they would cause a problem.
 
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