🐱 NEW!

Introducing the Cat Food Advisor!

Independent, unbiased reviews without influence from pet food companies

8 Week English Bulldog – Food Allergy?

Viewing 3 posts - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • April 15, 2015 at 4:10 am #70580 Report Abuse
    Eliseo M
    Member

    Hello everyone. My English bulldog puppy, Tyson, is now 8.5 Weeks old. We got him on 29 March. They gave us Royal Canin. I read up on Royal Canin and also found this site which led me to purchase Blue Buffalo Chicken and Brown Rice Recipe for puppies. This is kept in stock on base (I am stationed at USAG Yongsan, South Korea).

    Over the last 2 weeks his stool has been more pudding diarrhea than solid. Thankfully it hasn’t been uncontrolled (he almost always poops on a pad). It also isn’t “brown water”. He has had no vomiting. He drinks a normal amount of water. He is still active and playful and is putting on weight.

    We played with his amount of food and now he gets more solid stools (still has a pudding diarrhea towards the end of the day). However, we noticed he began tearing a lot, to the point he is getting small stains. He also recently began scratching at his ears.

    Today we had his 3rd round of vaccinations. The vet looked at his ears, face and eyes. She also looked at his paw pads (between toes). She said he may have a small allergy to the food.

    We bought Royal Cannin Hypoallergenic food at the vet office. There is nothing on base and our options at the time were limited.

    How do we best go about figuring out this food allergy?

    How long should I feed him the hypoallergenic food?

    Also, once I am ready to switch back to a puppy food I was thinking of going with Wellness CORE Natural Grain Free Dry Dog Food for Puppies. My thinking is this is a 5 star food and is also grain free which he may be having an issue with.

    Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance 🙂

    April 15, 2015 at 5:09 pm #70609 Report Abuse
    Autumn
    Member

    I have a 1 year old Great Dane who has gone through this. I first started him on a grain-free lamb Taste of the Wild formula and the same thing happened to him. In between his toes was always red, he had rashes, scratch at his ears constantly, had little bumps underneath his chin etc. I also fed him the Royal Cannin food, and I kept him on this for about 2 months. His symptoms improved tremendously but I couldn’t afford to pay 60 dollars a bag with a dog who eats so much food! My vet suggested that I try a novel protein-limited ingredient diet. I wasn’t sure what this meant at first, but it basically means all proteins that your dog has not been exposed to. So, Kangaroo, Duck, Bison, venison with just one other ingredient like rice or potatoes. I put Sully on grain-free Kangaroo and Duck formula but he just got worse. Surprisingly, I tried the food that your dog is on now (except for large breeds) his symptoms were completely gone! He’s been doing so much better and I’m so thankful because he was so miserable. What I would suggest doing is staying on the hydrolyzed (royal cannin) for about 2 months just to see if his symptoms go away, and if they do, then try out the limited ingredient novel proteins. Chewy.com has some great ones, they ship really fast too!

    In my case, I think that Sully was allergic to some of the ingredients in the grain-free foods I had been feeding him (thank you to the kind individual on this message board who pointed this out to me), not necessarily the type of protein. However, I’ve read that a lot of dogs are more allergic to the most common proteins like chicken or beef, so that could be what you’re experiencing. So definitely stay on the hydrolyzed and then try out limited ingredient novel protein diets.

    April 16, 2015 at 8:34 pm #70733 Report Abuse
    Eliseo M
    Member

    @AutumnH
    Thank you for such a detailed response. I am glad you were able to sort out the food situation for your Great Dane.

    Just after 2 days on the Royal Canin Hypoallergenic he had a whole day of normal dog poop. We followed the Vet advice and started him completely on the Hypo food without mixing old food. She said with allergy it was better to just eliminate that food altogether.

    We are feeding him the same amount (cup wise) but I have yet to look at kCal and adjust because I read that I may have to slightly increase his food amount due to the decrease in nutrition density. We will stick with this until all signs are gone of his allergy (eye tears, red face/paws).

    Thank you for the information about Novel proteins. I will start looking at brands and of course the review list 🙂

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 3 posts - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • The forum ‘Editors Choice Forum’ is closed to new topics and replies.