oh dear!

greenlivery

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Today is not going well!
My 9 month old Dane is very underweight, I slowly changed her food recently to something higher calorie, to help her put some weight on, and it seems she can't cope with it, she has pooped over the carpet in every room in the house and is still going, huge cow pats! The house stinks!
Poor girl, think its back to basic food!
 
Oh no :( Seems a rather extreme response on behalf of her gut to a gradual change in diet? What did you move her onto? Has the vet had any advice re: weight gain?
 
**passes the Shake n Vac**

Sounds like a sensitive spud, ditto, what was she on and what were you trying to change her to? Are you sure it was just the food? Can't have snaffled something nasty? Calories/protein in commercial dog food can be a bit hit and miss, even my vet told me that...it doesn't actually matter what the percentages are on the back, it's more about the quality of the ingredients - how do you think she might cope with raw?
 
Thanks for the advice, she is one seriously sensitive pup. Rescued from a home where she was seriously under weight, so her body is not used to any kind of decent food. She is also has to be on a low protein diet. She has butchers and tripe with very basic terrier mix, it seems to be the only think that suits her, she often has chicken and fish with it, but moved her onto a higher calorie mix, despite it being very simple/basic its clearly too much for her to handle. She is also now on higher amounts and I think her system is finding it very hard to cope with. I might go back to three or four smaller meals a day, and stick with butchers and some chicken. I'm keen to try raw, but don't think its the right time to give it a go as she is suffering with any kind of food change, and her weight is seriously low.
 
Give KarynK or Katie Lou a PM or check out the stickie at the top of the page if you are interested in raw.
Certain types of raw feeding add weight well (fish and fish oil are great for adding condition) but they can advise better than I can.

TBH I would stick to what works for her, never mind packets or percentages or calorie counting, I never dreamed I'd be using the food I use but it keeps my dog on the level and he has a few raw days a week and it seems to work for him, horses for courses and all that.

Good luck, take things slowly, as you say she has been through a lot and it must have been a shock to her system.
 
Give KarynK or Katie Lou a PM or check out the stickie at the top of the page if you are interested in raw.
Certain types of raw feeding add weight well (fish and fish oil are great for adding condition) but they can advise better than I can.

TBH I would stick to what works for her, never mind packets or percentages or calorie counting, I never dreamed I'd be using the food I use but it keeps my dog on the level and he has a few raw days a week and it seems to work for him, horses for courses and all that.

Good luck, take things slowly, as you say she has been through a lot and it must have been a shock to her system.

Thanks for the advice, I will definitely think about Raw in the future, when she is more stable, and will speak to my vet for some help in the mean time! Tried my little terrier on Raw but he stopped eating, fussy bugger, still I do try and add chicken and fish when I can. Right, I'm off to scrub the carpets with as much cleaning product as I can!! Night all! xx
 
I'd probably also bump her back up to 3, if not 4, meals a day. If she's come to you very underweight I'd go for 'little and often' regardless of the food she is on. I haven't used or looked into Butchers so can't comment in that arena :) The raw diet is highly spoken of by everyone I know who uses it. Science wise there are arguments as you get with pretty much everything dog related! But much of the premise is very sound. If you want to keep her on biscuits for now, I'd change over very, very slowly and do so on a 3-4 meal a day routine. However I'm neither a vet nor a nutritionist so a phone call to your vet would give you more specific and generally worthy advice :)

ETS- basically the above is what others have said/you're already doing. Just wanted to add.... enjoy the carpet scrubbing! *runs*
 
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