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Originally Posted by 107barney  It really depends on the dog. I can only tell you my experience. Barney was on a 15% fat home cooked diet and never had so much as a bellyache for 5 years. I fed him some canned wellness food one night in a pinch - it was about 22% fat and enough to throw him into acute pancreatitis and a 4-day hospitalization. He went back to his regular 15% fat diet with no other issues until again a repeat happened at age 10 - same canned food ironically but at the time I just didn't make the link. Once this second event happened, I consulted with Dr Remillard and she said he is to be on a 3% fat diet for life with no substitutions and no treats. He took a bigger beating the second time, and I don't think it was because he was older, I just think it was worse than the first. I was worried about such low fat, but he has a beautiful shiny coat and aside from a benigh little old-man-liver issue, he is very healthy. I'm sure your Jackson will recover and do just fine for many years like my Barney did. |
Thank you so much for the advice. I really really appreciate this. I'm just freaking out a *little*.
But Barney sounds like he does really well.
I'm going to ask the vet tomorrow about diet, etc, but I am more and more interested in homecooking now. We'll see, I suppose.
I'll cut out canned food, too. I wonder if I'll be able to at least mix chicken in with his kibble to get him to eat. He's never eaten kibble by itself... *sigh* I suppose if we have to, I'll just have to show him some tough love if kibble is all he can eat.
Not sure what I'm gonna do about treats... he LOVES clicker training and trick training so much, I don't want to... stop. I'm going to have to find some kind of soft small treats I can use.
I use Canz Real Meat treats right now... the venison one I have is this: Crude Protein: not less than 25%, Crude Fat: not less than 20%, crude fiber: not more than 2%, moisture: not more than 20%. Too high? I don't know how to differentiate between treats and kibble and canned guaranteed analysis' etc.
But I shouldn't even be worrying about this right now. Just wanna get him better. Will ask vet questions tomorrow....