Low Protein Dog Food

Mondeo10

I am hoping someone can recommend a good dog food with around 20% protein please? My dog had extremely itchy skin and after numerous visits to the vets, we are still no further it started about 2 weeks ago and is getting worse.

We were talking to a breeder yesterday who said his food might be too high in protein, he is on Acana and the protein is 28% so I want a food lower in protein but preferably grain free as well.

I would love to start him on Raw but not sure of the protein in a chicken leg, mince, fish etc but would cook him potatoes, rice, vegetables etc to go with it.

He gets a raw chicken leg a couple of times a week along with his dry food which his loves.

Any advice at all would be much appreciated!

muddypaws

The amount of protein won't be causing an issue, but it could be if there are two protein sources in the food, interacting with each other. If a food is high in fat, then the protein will also be high, and so if there is a high amount of meat in the food, it will be higher than one that has a small amount in it.

Have a look on the packet you're feeding, see if there are two protein sources on it. It may be salmon and potato for example, but there may also be chicken fat in there.

How long has he been on that food? If this only started 2 weeks ago, it could well be something to do with summer, mites etc, rather than the food.

andreac

It could also be the grains and cereals. Try a grain and cereal free food too. Dogfooddirect sell a duck and potato one. It's good value.
I doubt it's the protein to be honest.

Nody

andreac wrote: »

It could also be the grains and cereals. Try a grain and cereal free food too. Dogfooddirect sell a duck and potato one. It's good value.
I doubt it's the protein to be honest.

Acana is top of the line grain free so that's not the issue but do try for different protein source; esp. try a fish only version without chicken fat (for example Acana Pacifica) or even better go for a wet food (in case the issue is the bugs <I can't recall the bloody name> in all kibble) such as Rocco which is also grain free.

andreac

Oh sorry. I didn't read the first post properly. My bad.

Inexile

for low protein Skinners Duck and rice might work.

Its 22% and its ingredients are as follows

Whole rice (40%), duck meat meal (20%), oats, peas, whole linseed, sunflower oil, beet pulp, vitamins and minerals.

muddypaws

Just had a look on the Acana website, if its the chicken and burbank potato you're feeding (which I'm assuming it is, as its grain free and 28% protein) it has chicken and fish in it, so that could be the issue. All of their food seems to contain the two protein sources, so it looks as though you'll need to try another food, with a single protein source and see if that makes a difference.

mymo

I have found the foods with chicken fat added are a problem for my dog, I'm currently feeding lamb and rice barking heads "good hair day" dry and lukkulus wet food. But I think barking heads changed the recipe, so have to find another.
Taste of the wild made him incredibly thirsty, I was actually worried how much he drank, but he was otherwise fine on it.

DBB

The chances of it being protein are pretty small OP. Protein, at least meat protein, does not tend to have a bad effect on carnivores! Protein gets a bad rap from people with no justification and no evidence, but if my dog were itchy, I'd be investigating a whole load of other possibilities before I'd consider protein as a guilty party.
The fact that it has suddenly started would also make me suspicious that there's a seasonal aspect to this, it might possibly be an indirect relationship with food. Or it might have nothing to do with food.
Are there any symptoms apart from the itching? Any smell from his skin? Any difference to how his skin and coat feel? Any bald patches? Redness?

As Muddypaws has already suggested, it could be mites. It is a bit early for them, but the warm weather has certainly woken up the harvest mites in the environment... they're everywhere, and they are extraordinarily itchy (as I can personally attest:o). They tend to affect around the feet, legs, armpits, groin, chest and bum before they'll affect other parts, as they tend to make their way up from the feet. You just might catch sight of them between the toes, or in that little fold in the outer edge of the year known as "Jacob's Purse". You might also see them at the base of whiskers, eyelashes and eyebrows.. they're very small, and they're orange. You'll see the typical staining pattern they leave on a white dog, it's like an orange staining all up the legs and across the chest in a horseshoe shape, but you won't see this on a dark dog.. you might just see it a bit on your dog's white chest, particularly between his front legs (if I remember correctly, he's a Bernese?)
Or, it could be that he's allergic to storage mites in his food. They are in all dry food, be it hypoallergenic food, cereal-free food... doesn't matter. They are a chief cause of allergies in dogs that tend to become allergic to things.
It could be that your dog can cope with both separately, but they've both come along at the same time and his system just can't cope.
Your vet can confirm with skin scrapings, or with your vet's blessing you could just treat for them and see what happens. There are a few spot-on products that kill them off that your vet will sell to you, but I'm also a big fan of sponging susceptible dogs off after walks with a solution of 1 part apple cider vinegar to 4 parts warm water, even dipping the dog's feet into a basin of it after walks... this is for harvest mites.
To avoid storage mites, it's a matter of getting him off dry food altogether, for a minimum of 6 weeks, and see what happens.
But, as I say, my suspicion is that this is related to the season/heat. But I'm not a vet (and I assume the breeder you spoke to isn't either), so I'd try to do a whole series of eliminatory possibilities before taking the breeder's advice. No offence to the breeder, but that "too much protein" line is too much of an Old Wives' Tale for my liking.
Good luck!

andreac

I have had issues with one of my Rotties chewing at his paws to the point where he had them raw. Initially i thought it was the food, so i put him on grain & cereal free food, then i decided i would move to raw to see if that would help too. I've had to take him off the raw as it wasn't suiting him, he wasn't putting on any condition, was losing it actually. I was spending a fortune on the raw and unless i pumped a lot more in to him, he wasn't going to put on weight.

So, i moved him back on to the grain & cereal free Duck and Potato, along with minced tripe. I also added coconut oil to his food and have been giving him some antihistamines as well. It has made a huge difference over the last 2 to 3 weeks. I have hardly noticed him chewing at his paws at all lately.
So you could always try something like that?

irish_goat

You could try bringing him to a more specialist vet that deals with skin problems. UCD has one. I'd not take the advice of a breeder over a qualified professional anyway.

tk123

DBB wrote: »

To avoid storage mites, it's a matter of getting him off dry food altogether, for a minimum of 6 weeks, and see what happens.
But, as I say, my suspicion is that this is related to the season/heat. But I'm not a vet (and I assume the breeder you spoke to isn't either), so I'd try to do a whole series of eliminatory possibilities before taking the breeder's advice. No offence to the breeder, but that "too much protein" line is too much of an Old Wives' Tale for my liking.
Good luck!

Agree with this - my own allergies have gone nuts the last few weeks and shock horror the two allergic dogs I know are the same. Both dry fed - one on GAIN at the breeders recommendation because yep - you've guessed it his other food had "too much protein" and the other on proplan I think? Both going through courses of injections costing 100's but still feeding dry food.
I'd try wet food if it was one of mine and I wasn't feeding raw - some of the Rocco varieties on zooplus are single protein sources and are pretty good value with the 800g cans.

Mondeo10

DBB wrote: »

The chances of it being protein are pretty small OP. Protein, at least meat protein, does not tend to have a bad effect on carnivores! Protein gets a bad rap from people with no justification and no evidence, but if my dog were itchy, I'd be investigating a whole load of other possibilities before I'd consider protein as a guilty party.
The fact that it has suddenly started would also make me suspicious that there's a seasonal aspect to this, it might possibly be an indirect relationship with food. Or it might have nothing to do with food.
Are there any symptoms apart from the itching? Any smell from his skin? Any difference to how his skin and coat feel? Any bald patches? Redness?

As Muddypaws has already suggested, it could be mites. It is a bit early for them, but the warm weather has certainly woken up the harvest mites in the environment... they're everywhere, and they are extraordinarily itchy (as I can personally attest:o). They tend to affect around the feet, legs, armpits, groin, chest and bum before they'll affect other parts, as they tend to make their way up from the feet. You just might catch sight of them between the toes, or in that little fold in the outer edge of the year known as "Jacob's Purse". You might also see them at the base of whiskers, eyelashes and eyebrows.. they're very small, and they're orange. You'll see the typical staining pattern they leave on a white dog, it's like an orange staining all up the legs and across the chest in a horseshoe shape, but you won't see this on a dark dog.. you might just see it a bit on your dog's white chest, particularly between his front legs (if I remember correctly, he's a Bernese?)
Or, it could be that he's allergic to storage mites in his food. They are in all dry food, be it hypoallergenic food, cereal-free food... doesn't matter. They are a chief cause of allergies in dogs that tend to become allergic to things.
It could be that your dog can cope with both separately, but they've both come along at the same time and his system just can't cope.
Your vet can confirm with skin scrapings, or with your vet's blessing you could just treat for them and see what happens. There are a few spot-on products that kill them off that your vet will sell to you, but I'm also a big fan of sponging susceptible dogs off after walks with a solution of 1 part apple cider vinegar to 4 parts warm water, even dipping the dog's feet into a basin of it after walks... this is for harvest mites.
To avoid storage mites, it's a matter of getting him off dry food altogether, for a minimum of 6 weeks, and see what happens.
But, as I say, my suspicion is that this is related to the season/heat. But I'm not a vet (and I assume the breeder you spoke to isn't either), so I'd try to do a whole series of eliminatory possibilities before taking the breeder's advice. No offence to the breeder, but that "too much protein" line is too much of an Old Wives' Tale for my liking.
Good luck!

Thank you for the long reply, it started about 2 - 3 weeks ago and we are at a loss what it is, have had him at the vets a few times so far, he has had antibiotics, Malaseb baths - about 6 now, it's getting worse and yesterday he was put on steroids. A skin scraping was taken but will take 2 weeks for results.

It's not my Bernese, she's never had any problems (touch wood) it's my puppy, he's 7 months old and we imported him. Due to his fluffy hair type, he's a Chow Chow it's hard to see his skin and at the start it was hard to spot the problem, my groomer spotted it and it was minimal.

But now he's losing hair and is scratching himself, his leg is red raw, the top of his head, the side of his face and his body has sore patches, steroids seem to stop the itching but I don't want him on them long term

We had him at the Louth Show on Sunday and he was worse yesterday, so back to the vet. The breeder owns and breed Chow Chows and was giving us tips on him, which we appreciated and mentioned about his breed and high protein, I googled it when I came home and it does seem to be a problem in the breed.

I am willing to try anything, I am putting apple cider vinegar in his drinking bowl every day, I put him on him a few times but my house smelled like a chip shop and because of his coat it takes hours to dry I will do it again if needs be!

Mondeo10

The dogs get treated with Advocate every month and are wormed regularly because we live in the country and walk in the fields. Due to him being washed so often I got a Bravecto tablet off the vet yesterday in case of fleas or ticks getting him.

DBB

Ahhh... He's a Chow! That means he's the one breed that actually may have potential problems with meat protien... What were the chances of that, huh?! It'll teach me to check in future
Chows are very prone to skin problems alright, they're right up there with the most prone-to-skin-problems breeds.
The steroids will tide him over til the skin-scrape results are in, and once you have them, then you'll have a better idea of what battle you're fighting here, or at least, what battle you're not fighting. If it's not a parasite problem, then you certainly need to mess around with the diet, perhaps think of researching a Chow-appropriate home-made diet for a couple of months?
But if it's neither parasites nor diet, you may be looking at an autoimmunity problem, which is a bit of a nightmare as it does mean lifelong management and firefighting. Given his breed, I hope it turns out not to be this, but something you can sort out environmentally.

Celestial12

Hi. My Pugs also had terrible skin until I changed their diet. They're doing great since I moved them to Lily's Kitchen in 2012. For the past year I've been mixing it with Acana though, and they're doing well on it. Chances are it is diet related so I hope you can get to the bottom of it.

Mondeo10

So I thought I'd update.

Had vet scrapings done, a bacterial skin infection was found so he has been on antibiotics now about 1 month.

Everything was clearing up nicely until now. He has started to get bald patches and flaky skin. I don't know how to post photos but it seems to be spreading each day. So rang vet and back in tomorrow

He might have a yeast infection from being on the antibiotics

maggiepip

Was just reading through this and saw you use advocate spot on every month, you know its possible that could be causing a problem. One of my dogs got a terrible skin flare up from using this and I never use them now at all. They're quite severe.

Mondeo10

Thank you for your reply!

We haven't been using Advocate in a while because he was being washed frequently with Malseb, the vet gave us the Bravecto tablet instead to use.

He had a skin biopsy done today and blood tests so hopefully we will get to the bottom of it.

Now I'm just worried he will pull out his stitches so watching him like a hawk but I'll bet he does it as soon as my back is turned

The joys of dog ownership, he's lucky I love him so much

maggiepip

The skin like everything else is related to the immune system, and the gut bacteria is hugely important in producing a strong immune system so it would be no harm trying a dog probiotic, I absolutely swear by them. The one I use is Jarrow Pet Dophilus, you can purchase it online from iherb and even with delivery charges it doesn't work out particularly expensive. It has definitely played a big part in helping one of my dogs skin issues and my other dogs tummy issues. Can do no harm so perhaps worth a try. Hope things go ok for you.

tk123

maggiepip wrote: »

The skin like everything else is related to the immune system, and the gut bacteria is hugely important in producing a strong immune system so it would be no harm trying a dog probiotic, I absolutely swear by them. The one I use is Jarrow Pet Dophilus, you can purchase it online from iherb and even with delivery charges it doesn't work out particularly expensive. It has definitely played a big part in helping one of my dogs skin issues and my other dogs tummy issues. Can do no harm so perhaps worth a try. Hope things go ok for you.

This is interesting. My friend's dog has skin issues - scrapings, biopsies, special food, (which they switched to gain of all things following their breeder's advice that it was too much protein:rolleyes:) and is now on a course of special injections and they're not working. When we're out at the weekend and stop for coffee I give the dogs a chew to keep them busy and she was saying he's clearing the room with his farts that evening - but not a toot out of my two!! Maybe he needs a probiotic!? (I use the Jarrow one two btw ) They also religiously use Advocate which probably isn't helping things either

maggiepip

tk123 wrote: »

This is interesting. My friend's dog has skin issues - scrapings, biopsies, special food, (which they switched to gain of all things following their breeder's advice that it was too much protein:rolleyes:) and is now on a course of special injections and they're not working. When we're out at the weekend and stop for coffee I give the dogs a chew to keep them busy and she was saying he's clearing the room with his farts that evening - but not a toot out of my two!! Maybe he needs a probiotic!? (I use the Jarrow one two btw ) They also religiously use Advocate which probably isn't helping things either

Yeah I hate those spot ons, I honestly think out of all the supplements I use the probiotics have probably been the biggest lifesaver. Stopped my collie poo eating too, as I assume all the bad bacteria in her system were making her crave horrible things! In fairness I also changed her diet but the probiotics were the icing on the cake. Definitely contributed to Oscars skin condition clearing and has hugely helped my labs troublesome ears. Ive been using them now for years 4-5 times a week, always. Id imagine they would definitely help your friends dogs wind problems anyway:)

Mondeo10

I will literally try anything at this stage!

Have switched him to Natures Diet wet food in case it was the dry food, he gets a chicken leg for his tea, changed his treats to dried chicken strips and have started him on Flax oil because of his dry skin.

I googled the Jarrow Pet Dophilus, do you mind me asking if you use the powder or caps? Is it from America so how long would delivery take?

Thank you everyone for your help, just wanted him sorted, he is really tired but not in any pain yet!

Stitches are in for 7 - 10 days, his blood results should be back Friday and biopsy next week (hopefully).

Does anyone know how much bloodworm and biopsy would cost? I'm dreading the vet bill

tk123

I get the powder. If you pick express delivery you'll have it in a few days BUT I got hit with customs charges on an order from iherb before so I always keep my total order including shipping in and around €23 to be safe. Naturediet has rice in it so I personally wouldn't feed it in case the rice is causing problems - one of mine gets mucky ears from rice. You can get good quality wet foods on zooplus that are grain free and single protein source too e.g. Rocco Sensible or Foldglade also do grain free varieties. I'd also be careful with chicken too as a lot of dogs are allergic to it - I don't feed any chicken at all (except feet) because one the same one who has mucky ears is sensitive to it. You could maybe opt for some turkey mince from slaneypetfoods.ie or carnivorekellys.ie?