[Mia’s d]

Hi everyone,

I have a mix german shepherd dog – about 10 months old.
From the first day we got her she had bad skin problems (hard itchiness, and white scales falling of her). Finally after many visits to the vet, the conclusion was that the dog has an allergy to specific food types – after scanning through the main meat dry-food options (chicken, fish, lamb), we found that the only food that was good enough for her skin was “Eukanuba Dermatosis”.

Few months (and food bags) have past, and her skin became much more healthy. So we were hoping to find a cheaper alternative to this food, that will still be good enough for her. We tried several suggestions from the pet store (which according to them is considered “semi-medical”), but nothing was quite as good.

So as last resort, before we give up and accept our ^expensive^ future – I was hoping to get this forum recommendations on other dry food brands/types. The more – the merrier (since our local pet stores food variety is quite lacking…)

Thank you so much!

[Pitlove]

It’s going to be hard to find a food that has THAT few ingredients

CANINE DRY:
Potato, fish meal, animal fat, dried beet pulp (3.9%), fish digest, dicalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, sodium hexametaphosphate, fructooligosaccharides (0.39%), potassium chloride.

There are a few companies that make LID diets that are fish and potato based.

Merrick- Salmon& Sweet Potato
Natural Balance- Fish & Sweet Potato
Zignature- Trout & Salmon
Wellness Simple- Salmon & Potato

These foods are all available on chewy.com if ordering online is something that could work for you. You can also take a look at their full list of Limited Ingredient Diets here and see if another might work better for you: http://www.chewy.com/dog/dry-food-294/limited-ingredient-diet,FoodFlavor_facet:Fish

I already filtered it to only show fish based foods. Best of luck!

[InkedMarie]

It shouldn’t be hard to find a food without chicken, fish & lamb. There are foods that have beef, kangaroo, turkey, duck, goat, rabbit. For the dry skin, have you tried salmon oil?

[Mia’s d]

Thanks for the answers.

First, Pitlove – what exactly is LID diet, and why do you believe that this will solve our problem? Is this based on the ingredients of our current “Eukanuba Dermatosis”?

And second, InkedMarie – what should I do with Salmon oil? add together with the food (if so, how much and how often?), or apply on her fur?
I actually heard once about Coconut oil, but again, I’m not quite sure how to use it.

Thanks again.

[DogFoodie]

Hi Mia’s d,

I’m a little confused.

Are you saying you looked at limited ingredient diets that were fish, chicken or lamb based and none worked – or that those are the only ingredients that she can have?

Do you know exactly what she can and cannot have?

[InkedMarie]

Salmon oil: you can put it in her food. I have 30lb dogs, they get one 500mg human salmon oils daily. You can also buy one made for dogs.

[C4D]

Hi Mias’d

What Pitlove gave you were the LID diets that are commercially available. LID means Limited Ingredient Diet. That’s what they are and if you look them up you might find one that is most similar to what you are currently feeding. You could try any of them to see if they work. Good Luck!

[Pitlove]

Hi Mia’s- An LID is a “Limited Ingredient Diet” which is exactly what Eukanuba Dermatosis is. I concluded that your dog could eat fish given that the main source of animal protein in the Eukanuba vet food was “fish meal”. The foods I’ve suggested and link I provided are other foods with limited ingredients using the main carb source (potato) from the vet food and the main animal protein source (fish) from the vet food. As long as she doesn’t react to any of the other carbohydrate sources in those limited ingredient foods, they could be valid, less expensive options as a subsitute for the Eukanuba prescription food.

[Susan]

Hi Mia, the ingredients in the Eukanuba FP are not the best, beet pulp & potato is the first ingredient, a meat protein should be the first ingredients…. a good premium kibble will have a few proteins as the 1st, 2nd & 3rd ingredients like Canidae has..
Pit Love has suggested some good kibbles, just watch out some grain free kibbles can be pea heavy.. peas will be 2nd or 3rd ingredients..
“Canidae Pure Sea” is a very good grain free LID kibble . http://www.canidae.com.au/dog-food/canidae-grain-free-pure-sea-new-formula
LID stand for “Limited Ingredient Diet”
Just make sure when your buying a new premium kibble you read the ingredients & the Fat% & Protein% & stay around the same amount your girl is use too, you will probably find higher protein in the premium kibbles cause the Eukanuba is a bit low in protein at 22%…. another good kibble is “The Taste Of The Wild Pacific Stream” a few people I know that have GSD are feeding the TOTW Pacific Stream the protein is 25% the fat is 15% & the fiber is 3% pretty close to the Eukanuba FP vet formula
http://www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com/dog-formulas/pacific-stream-canine-formula-with-smoked-salmon/

[Jenn H]

I was also going to suggest LID.
A long time ago I had a dog that couldn’t eat the usual proteins like chicken & beef. This was before there were so many dogs effected by allergies so our options were very limited and very expensive.
If he could’ve lived forever I would’ve probably tried enzymes, pineapple, probiotics, pure pumpkin. All things I have found go help my dogs after him.
If he was here today I would probably be giving him raw goat milk. I swear that stuff is good for everything and everyone.
Good luck on your search. I hope your dog gets some relief soon.

[Author]

Posts