Pancreatitis Again...Food & Ideas?

[a1r1ka]

Well, Papi has been on 1/2 Wellness Core Reduced Fat kibble and 1/2 Halo Spot's Stew (Chicken) canned for a few days and so far so good, in most ways...

Stools are good, stomach is calm, eyes, ears, etc. all seem clear, but he loves the canned food and hates the Wellness...actually, total avoidance by both of our Boxers. I mix the foods together at feeding time, so whether they like it or not they are eating the kibble, but boy do they try to eat around it.

There isn't any citric acid in the Wellness or Halo, so what about me adding a little water and mixing them together ahead of time to make a big pile of mush?...this will help me store it, keep the ratios and portions correct, and make it impossible for them to pick out the kibble. Anyone see a problem with this?

P.S. - We're going to take him back for retesting this week, but he hasn't thrown up or shown signs of pancreatitis, so we're hopeful we've worked this out foodwise.

 

[a1r1ka]

LolaDog--I think this Halo has been great...there are so few ingredients (it looks like stew with carrots, peas, and green beans), the fat is really low, the protein is good, and both dogs love it. I am curious about the calories, so please do share what you discover. Also, it's spendy per can (like $3.30 here for 13oz), but not as bad as Honest Kitchen, so I am happy with it so far.

 

[DENALIGIRL]

Denaligirl,
The vomiting after large meals could be related to any of the issues you mentioned (Pancreatitis, reflux or IBD). It sounds to me like what you're doing right now is great. Multiple small meals throughout the day is much better for dogs with these issues. Plus, the nice diet you're feeding Zoey is probably perfect for her right now. Do you think you'll home cook for her permanently? I'm sorry if I missed the answer to this in a previous post. I really would like to home cook for Lola since I haven't found a low-fat commercial diet that really agrees with her. I'm just not sure where to begin. I've thought about hiring someone to create a diet for me (I'm so pathetic). Also, with being a vegetarian, I need to get more comfortable with handling uncooked meat. What you're doing for Zoey is fantastic. You are a very good Boxer mommy!

Thanks Loladog!

I am considering home-cooking very strongly on a permanent basis but am overly concerned with getting enough of what she needs. She really loves the home-cooking and it seems to agree with her but I may try to find something I can give commercially once a day to or mix with her home-cooked food to supplement and assure myself she is getting her needs met. It's really very easy and I am finding many short cuts to cooking the food. Our vet recommended chicken or fish - baked in the oven with a little water...SOOOOOO very easy and I don't even have to touch the uncooked meat. Just take it out of the bag and put it ina pan, add a little water and set the oven to 375 and the timer to 60 mins (for the chicken breasts). I then chop them up. Only problem is right now I have containers of boiled ground round, baked chicken breasts, cooked green beans, butter nut squash (that I baked and took the skin off of), boiled white rice, and quinoa..so that's alot of containers!!! Doc says we need to get fat on her so has agreed to let me add back in cottage cheese (very small amounts), some apple cider vinegar, and her salmon oil. For Lola you might want to try the following websites that will charge you for recipes (recommended by our vet) petdiets.com and balanceit.com. I have not personally tried them yet but our vet said you need a referral from your vet for balanceit.com. They will make recipes designed to suit your pet taking into consideration any health concerns or metabolic factors.

Just got her test results back yesterday and her levels came down from off the charts... >1000 ug/L to just 51 ug/L (Control Range: 0-200 ug/L) with her Pancreatic Lipase Immunoreactivity Fast test!!! I am so relieved Only thing is and I don't understand this what does this mean....

Cobalamin Fasting - 250 ng/L (Control Range: 251-908 ng/L) Interpretation: Consistent with distal small intestinal disease, EPI, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Check canine TLI to rule out EPI. Consider cobalamin supplementation.

Folate Fasting - 7.2 ug/L (Control Range: 7.7-24.4 ug/L) Interpretation: Consistent with disease affecting the proximal small intestine

TLI Fasting - 15.2 ug/L (Control Range: 5.7-45.2 ug/L) Interpretation: Result is within normal range

The vet is saying we don't have to worry about EPI but should be concerned with IBD, I personally think we should also look at any thryoid issues and am going to get that test run by my vet to send off to Dr. Dodds. Also I don't think this is the entire results from this test. Last test from IDEXX was like 3 pages long...

 

[Loladog]

Hi denaligirl,

I'm so happy to hear that Zoey's Pancreatic Lipase test showed that her levels were down to within a normal range! What you are doing definitely sounds like it's working. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the other tests your vet ran so I'm not going to have any advice there. I also don't know much about EPI. Mainly, it sounds like the home cooking is really agreeing with her and it's a big bonus that it makes her happy too! Whether she has IBD or not it sounds like she just can't tolerate the highly processed foods. In terms of keeping a home cooked diet balanced, there are many books out there that can probably point you in the right direction. I have many books but I just haven't found the motivation yet! Your story has really got me thinking though. A couple of books that I recommend for cooked diets are:

"Home Prepared Dog and Cat Diets" by Donald Strombeck, DVM

"K9 Kitchen" and "Optimal Nutrition" both by Monica Segal

Monica Segal will also develop a diet for you based on your dogs individual needs. Her website is k9kitchen.com

There is also another website betterdogcare.com where the site owner offers diet consultations. Again, it's all based on your dogs individual needs.

Keep up the good work! It will be interesting to find out how her Thyroid levels check out too.

 

[Loladog]

LolaDog--I think this Halo has been great...there are so few ingredients (it looks like stew with carrots, peas, and green beans), the fat is really low, the protein is good, and both dogs love it. I am curious about the calories, so please do share what you discover. Also, it's spendy per can (like $3.30 here for 13oz), but not as bad as Honest Kitchen, so I am happy with it so far.

So far, this is the info that I was able to obtain for the Spot's Stew Wholesome Chicken Recipe:

Kcal per 20 oz. can = 343

I also asked about the protein and fat max % and the answer was that it will vary no more than .5 above the listed or "as fed" %. So for the protein it would be no more than .5 above the listed 3.5% and the fat would be no more than .5 above the listed 1.5%.

I e-mailed again to obtain the kcal per 13 oz can. I usually like to substitute about a can of wet food for 1 cup of dry food so it looks like in order to do this, I might have to splurge on the 20 oz cans.

I have an order of the Spot's Stew on the way so we'll see how it goes. I had to order from their website since I live in a rural area and we don't have much in the way of good food around here (that goes for human food too)!

 

[Loladog]

LolaDog--I think this Halo has been great...there are so few ingredients (it looks like stew with carrots, peas, and green beans), the fat is really low, the protein is good, and both dogs love it. I am curious about the calories, so please do share what you discover. Also, it's spendy per can (like $3.30 here for 13oz), but not as bad as Honest Kitchen, so I am happy with it so far.

The kcal per 13 oz can = 223

 

[a1r1ka]

How does that 223 cal count rate, high or low?

 

[Loladog]

How does that 223 cal count rate, high or low?

The calorie content of the Spot's Stew seems very low to me. Right now I'm feeding a combination of Innova Large Breed Senior Dry with the Spot's Stew Wholesome Chicken canned. The Innova is 361 kcal/cup so in order to replace one cup of dry per day with the Stew, I would have to use one of the 20 oz cans which is 343 kcal/can. Lola is 60 lbs and from what I've read, she requires approx 1200 kcals per day (or a little less depending on how many treats she gets). The Innova Large Breed Senior dry recommends 3 cups per day for an inactive, 60 lb. dog.

On the plus side, the above feeding combo seems to be agreeing with her very well. She loves the Spot's Stew mixed in with her kibble and it hasn't caused the toxic gas that other canned options have caused.

How much of the Wellness Core Reduced Fat and Spot's Stew are you feeding Papi and your other dog? Is Papi still doing well and Pancreatitis free?

 

[a1r1ka]

I am having mixed results with the feeding...as I said before, Papi and Guapo both HATED the Wellness...they would eat around it no matter what and track food all over the house, so I had to make another switch.

For a few days, I was only feeding them Halo canned chicken (which they loved and physically responded very well to, i.e., firm stools, clear eyes, nice coats, etc.) while I researched quality, low-fat kibble, but Halo is SO expensive (almost $5 for a 20 oz can), so with two Boxers, I was feeding them several cans a day).

The food review site has been down, so I went with California Natural Low-Fat Chicken and Rice based on some searches from this site and they liked that, even plain. In combination with the Halo, they seem really healthy and happy. So I think we're on a good track...I still have to get Papi retested, but I am optimistic about his weight and results.

One side note: I accidentally bought the CN Low-Fat Lamb and Rice at one point and that lead to horrible results...both dogs had water stools, so we will avoid that from now on. Yikes!

 

[a1r1ka]

To answer your question: I was feeding each dog 10oz of Halo and 1/2 cup of Wellness per meal 3-4 times a day. They both looked good and I think Papi dropped those few extra pounds he was carrying around.