Thanks. Got it now.:)

:thumbup: totally agree .. I see lots of people posting about home cooking for their pups but not adding supplements and it is worrisome

Aww ..thank you. In many ways, I am the lucky one. I so love these little characters. :)

How is Miss Annabelle doing?

I would say great, as she's been like her old self for a couple of days now, very playful and energetic. But I'm questioning a couple of small wet spots on the rug, which either means she threw up or Turner, her brother, has been lying there and obsessively licking and chewing himself--they have allergies and he does that a lot but that's another thread.

I've been giving them boiled organic skinless boneless chicken breasts and rice. The last couple of days I've added a little baby food sweet potatoes, but not much. And because I ran out of the boiled chicken last night, I've substituted some strained baby food chicken and broth, which is low fat and recommended years ago for another dog I had who had pancreatitis and kidney disease. Just to be safe, though, I'm discontinuing the baby food and getting ready to cook some more chicken to go with the rice.

Her vet says the Hills Rx I/D low fat canine digestive care canned food is back-ordered at Hills. So I'm trying to find some somewhere. They have the dry food in that Rx but I've read that a lot of dogs don't care for it, so I wanted to start her on the canned. Maybe if I got the dried and for the time being mixed it with chicken and rice? I don't know at this point.

I want to put her on a nutritionally balanced diet and Hills is what they carry (usually). I know there's another one called Royal Canin but haven't looked into that one and the vet may not be as familiar with it. And with Thanksgiving tomorrow, this is probably all going to have to wait until Friday.

I worry that currently my dogs are not on a balanced diet. We ran out of the Blue Buffalo Grain Free Kibble they used to eat--and Anna couldn't eat that now anyway--so they're both on cooked food now. I want to put them both on that same low-fat food, just to make sure Anna doesn't get into whatever higher fat food I would be feeding Turner. The vet said it would be okay for them both to eat low fat. (I could always sneak Turner some balanced doggie treats that aren't low fat from time to time.) Ultimately I'd like to put them back on self feed with some kind of kibble but also give them canned food for maybe one meal. Lots of decisions . . .

Anna
 

Thanks for the update. It seems that Anna is doing well on the home cooked low fat food you are making for her. It is a good bland diet that most of us feed when our dogs are sick. Yes it is not completely balanced but I would think for a few days that will not matter.
Sorry the Hills ID canned is not available yet, but I am sure it will be relatively easy to come by. As far as the ID kibble, my dog eats it OK alone, but adding some canned or a little topper of chicken and rice makes it more acceptable. I now feed my dog the ID kibble plus a small amount of chicken and boiled rice, but he will eat kibble on its own as well!
So when your baby is completely better you can use the ID kibble plus some mixer if she will not eat it alone. It certainly is easier to feed than the messy canned, and less expensive too!
It will be good for Turner too as it will keep him slim and hopefully P free! As you say you can always give him some more tasty extras on the side:)
It would be hard to keep Anna out of Turners food, if it were different.
I don't like the BB food as I had issues with it when I fed it to my dog before he got the P.
Hoping the wet spots are only innocent and that Anna is really on the mend now. Even if she did throw up a bit of liquid it should not be concerning unless it becomes more frequent and in large amounts, especially if it contained undigested food.
So try not to worry any more and keep doing what you are doing, as it is working :)
Enjoy the holiday with your babies…but keep them out of the 'human good stuff"!! Hard to refuse them a few bits of our holiday dinner, but it is not worth the risk.
In situations like this I just give a little veggies and chicken so they don't feel left out.
Praying all is well now and Happy Thanksgiving!

My vet carries mostly Hill's but does also carry some Royal Canin products. I prefer Purina RX foods over some of Hill's so they order it for me. Perhaps if you ask your vet, he could order the RC for you.

A few days or a week is not going to matter in the long run...when I was switching a couple of mine to home cooked, I tried different foods without supplements just to see what they liked best. Then, I had the diets formulated by the vet nutritionist.

So happy to hear Annabelle is doing so well. I so know the stress of having a sick pup....I know you will have extra stuff to be thankful for tomorrow. :)

You can get your vet to write you a script for RC gastrointestinal and get it at Petsmart (Banfield) if there is one nearby. You also can order it online at Chewy.com and your vet can authorize it. If you fill out the info on chewy, they will call your vet. We used the RC gastrointestinal kibble for Barney and he liked it. He currently eats chicken breast with sweet and white potatoes.

I would feed white meat chicken and white rice or chicken and white baked skinless potatoes until you get the Rx food in. By the way, I usually cook my own chicken for the dogs but in a pinch I grab a rotisserie chicken without salt.

if it's only a week or so without balancing the food, I would not be particularly worried. I would be trying to get calories into the dog with small frequent bland low fat meals.

Yes and worse than no supplements is when I see people posting and it seems they are just throwing random ingredients together in a bowl. People mean well and think home cooking is better because of various factors they cite as important (fresh, organic, no preservatives, additives, chemicals, etc) but if they are not doing it right, they are going to have problems eventually. They may not even know until it's too late.

I know, that's the part that is bad. It is bound to show up later on... and the poor pups will suffer as a result.

Thank you for your support. Anna seems good tonight. And you couldn't pay me to give her holiday, fatty foods after the scare I've had seeing her so sick.

It's encouraging to hear that your dog will eat the kibble on its own, and I hear you on the cost of this stuff. I used to pay a dollar a can in 2006, though it may have been the k/d. I'm not sure; he had kidney disease as well as a history of pancreatitis--I think just once. I found the canned i/d today, though it might not be the same thing because it was on Amazon, and it was $72 for 12 cans.

Anna just came up to me with a ball and a hopeful/taunting look in her eyes. So good to see. :)

Have a good holiday, and thanks again for writing.

I absolutely am thankful that both babies are happily gnawing away on their Nylabones and seem healthy and well. I'm going to try some kind of prescription dog food and maybe later will talk to a vet nutritionist. Right now I just want to put their diet in the hands of an expert because I'm not comfortable guessing. So Friday I'll call the vet and see what they say.

Thank you for your help and encouragement. They both seem to be doing well tonight, and better a short time eating an unbalanced diet than trying to balance it and giving them the wrong thing. I can call the vet day after tomorrow and talk about options. There is a PetSmart/Banfield close. I tried some pet site today and the site was malfunctioning. But who knows? Maybe that was a good thing. I can figure it out Friday.

It's just so good to seem them both playing and to have them nagging me with a ball again.:)

Happy dogs:)
 

I am so glad to hear your babies are playing and feeling better.
I hope your vet will agree that if you do choose to feed a commercial food, a food such as Prescription Hills ID Low Fat ( either canned or kibble) or the RC or other equivalent is the diet usually recommended for P.
As for price I pay around $3 a can or $34 per 8 LB bag of kibble at the vet. The Amazon price seems really high. Also 12 cans may be a lot to order at first. She may not like it, and you may decide to convert to kibble. I only fed my dog the canned for a couple of weeks before I weaned him off that and fed the kibble. If you have a Petsmart nearby, as suggested in the above post, they will probably have the food if your vet gives them a script.
I know you are concerned as to what to feed, but in my case I have found the Prescription food is well tolerated by my dog and he keeps really well on it. I feel for him having to eat the same low fat kibble all the time, but he is always hungry and eats it all up every meal. I feed him four times a day and he does well on that regimen. The one issue I have found is that the low fat diet meal seems to be absorbed quickly and he gets hungry again!!
After he was really free of the P and eating just kibble, I started adding about a thumbnail's worth of boiled chicken breast and about a tsp of boiled rice mixed in each meal. These additions seemed to satisfy him better and made me feel I was cooking for him a little. LOL! In my worrywort way, I did retest his P panels and they looked good, so the additions are doing ok for him.
For you it will soon be time to get that bird in the oven:)
Wishing you a peaceful day with two happy and healthy dogs playing under your feet as they enjoy the lovely cooking aromas in the kitchen.

Thanks. My vet gave me a recipe out of a book but said if I decided not to home cook, he'd prescribe some low fat dog food. I suspect he's been there before and figured I'd eventually go for the prepared, balanced food. And he was right. I like the idea of, later on, adding a tiny bit of boiled chicken and rice for "dessert." Have a good holiday. I just took a computer break. Gotta get back to the kitchen.

Just an update. Anna's vet prescribed Hills I/D low fat Digestive Care and we picked some up at PetSmart's Banfield vet. To my surprise and relief both dogs ate the kibble that night without a problem. I also gave them some of the canned Hills food, which they loved.

The next night I recalled with a gasp that you are always supposed to switch a dog's diet slowly, so I've been mixing rice with the canned food for one or two meals a day and am gradually decreasing the rice. So far, so good.

It's such a relief. I'm going to be very careful and, with fingers crossed, am hoping that she doesn't have another attack.

Thank you all for your support.

I think the switch will be fine. When dogs are sick in the hospital, I/D is often the food that they are given.

She really should do well on it....but if it is the lower fat one, they both could lose weight. There are two I/D formulas. Both are low fat, but the one is lower and one of my pups who has had pancreatitis was losing weight on the lower fat one so they put him on the other. In the end, I changed him to Purina EN which is pretty much the same food.

So glad things are looking better for Annabelle!! :)

Thanks. I'll watch for weight loss.

Funny, a low fat diet had the opposite effect on me. Of course with human food they often add sugar to low fat foods. I doubt they do that with dog food.

Annabelle
 

Thanks so much for the update. Yes the Hills ID low fat seems to be the go to food for P dogs. Glad you were able to get the Hills from Banfield and that both your dogs eat it ok. I have never dared to go to the Hills ID but stick with the ID Low Fat variety.
When my dog got sick on regular kibble and I had to change to the Hills, I have never had any issue with an abrupt transition....usually to the canned ID first. When I converted to the ID kibble mixed with the canned, again no problem. Nor with the kibble alone.
I think the ID food is so bland that the dogs accept it without a problem.
My dog had the opposite effect, he is always hungry and tends to put on weight:). I later added the small amount of chicken and rice to try and add some components that would take longer to digest than the ID. I think I have it down now as his weight is fairly constant. Interesting to see how your dogs react to the Hills diet.
Hoping Annabelle does well on the restricted diet and that she stays in good health. Please keep in touch to let us know how both dogs are doing.

Just a note, the first ingredients in the kibble anyway is mainly carbs.

LOL...nope. :)

I use Greenie pill pockets, I buy the Capsule size, cut it in quarters for small pills, cut it in 1/2 for capsule pills.

Annabelle is doing fine. My other dog, however, woke my husband up to take him out in the middle of the night and didn't make it to the door. Very loose stool, which my husband threw paper towels over and left for me.:rolleyes:

I opened a different can, which I mix with rice for one meal, so maybe it was the difference or the amount I fed them. I have trouble knowing how much to give them because they've always been on self feed with kibble. Anna's about 9 lbs. and Turner's about 13. They're both bigger than their mother and father. Turner's bigger than both put together. They're not fat but could be more fit. We play fetch with them every day--usually more than once--but we live on a narrow, busy road with no sidewalks and have to drive somewhere to walk them, so they don't get walked every day.

Could also be that I changed the ratio of canned food to rice and went too heavy on the canned food. He seems to be okay today. I let him go 12 hours without feeding and then mostly rice.

He's enjoying a kibble snack right now and I'm keeping an eye on him. He seems to feel fine. Annabelle says he's a wuss.:yorkieg:

dog
 

I want to share this info about my Spud and his pancreatitis. He had a really bad bout last Christmas. I cried at our Christmas party I was so upset. My vet after meds, put him on a strict Hills Science Diet zd dog food. He gets the wet canned food and I grind up the dry food also. There are biscuits that are in the zd diet he gets. Now, after much prayer my Spud has been well for this whole year. He has not had any trouble. I hope this helps someone who is struggling with this awful disease. I do believe in the power of prayer and when you pray I know the Lord Jesus hears and grants favor. He did it for me and my sweet dog, Spud. He can hear your prayer and your hearts desire too!

Thank you for caring. I'm so glad that Spud had been doing well and that you care so much for him.

Thank you. Just saw this post. I've been able to take a little piece of meat from the canned Hills, hide the pill in it, and then follow it quickly with another piece of meat. They swallow the first one quickly because they're eager to get the next piece. Thanks for your suggestion though. It was getting hard to give them pills before I got the canned Hills.

Oops. Meant to say "has" been doing well.