Very poorly Sophie - any suggestions?

First topic message reminder :

Morning all, we are waiting for the vet to open. Over the past few months, Sophie has suffered two (possibly unrelated) health problems.

We have been working with the vet on both. She started being sick once a week or so, just bringing up phlem. This came more and more frequent. The vet suggested (after several dog food changes) that she may have built up an intolerence to dog food. He advised we stop giving her all dog products (except those we know she is fine with for definite eg her nylabone/rawhyde bone). He suggested we put her on a diet of just meat, veg one carbohydrate and some gravy. That worked really well until about a fortnight ago and the sickness has crept back in. Some times, it would be just phlem, others it would be her tea that was returned. The vet said he wasn't concerned if it was just the occasional blip. She doesn't have pigs ears or anything else that may aggravate her tummy and her erm bottom end is usually ok.

We gave her her advocate yesterday. The vet had advised we put her back on it, even though she has had some reaction to it in the past as it is the best protection against lungworm and we have a large number of slugs in the garden. Anyway, she slept soundly all day (reaction to advocate???). She had her tea last night, chicken, veg, pasta and gravy.

About midnight, she was sick and returned some of her tea. She slept soundly until about six this morning when she was sick again, this time there was something red, possibly fresh blood. Nothing she has eaten can justify this.

We have already spoken to the vets about putting her under, should the problem persist to do bloods, x-rays and ultrasound on her tummy. We will be ringing at nine to book her in for these if the vet now thinks this is the route we should now be taking. I was also going to ask him if he thinks there would be merit in doing an endoscopy at the same time as we want to obviously minimise the number of anaesthetics she has.

The other problem, she has been getting very thin on her undercarriage fur wise. This has been going on since Christmas. When she was spayed in January, the vet did a skin scrape which came out negative, but the problem is getting worse and she is now really thin underneath. She suffered from demodex as a tiny pup and that was treated successfully and she has had advocate regularly which should keep any nasties away.

She is very highly strung and the vet suggested we just keep an eye on this over the summer as due to her being so hyper it may be stress related.

Could there be any connection between the two?

Apart from when she has been sick, she is her normal bouncy self. There is definitley nothing in the garden she has injested and she carries a toy on her walks and is just road walked due to being attacked at the local country park (thankfully not injured).

Sorry for the long post but wanted to give as much info as possible.

i have just read about the stag bars i think i might give it a go, Trubs cant cant have rawhide as it comes from a cow but antlers ok i would think (venison which he is ok with)..sorry if i sound a bit thick but these are the sort of things i have to think of

bobs i have a long list of dog foods that would be available to you that i was given by my vet they contain no grains and are for dogs with sensitive skin , i feed my Trouble science plan salmon and rice , i too was worried that just feeding him chicken and rice he would not get all his vitamins ...(yes i tried the vitamins u can buy for dogs but they all contain yeast )

Bobs let me know and i will scan the list for you in a seperate topic

roz w wrote:i have just read about the stag bars i think i might give it a go, Trubs cant cant have rawhide as it comes from a cow but antlers ok i would think (venison which he is ok with)..sorry if i sound a bit thick but these are the sort of things i have to think of

bobs i have a long list of dog foods that would be available to you that i was given by my vet they contain no grains and are for dogs with sensitive skin , i feed my Trouble science plan salmon and rice , i too was worried that just feeding him chicken and rice he would not get all his vitamins ...(yes i tried the vitamins u can buy for dogs but they all contain yeast )

Bobs let me know and i will scan the list for you in a seperate topic

Shaz, the missus here.

Any help or suggestions of which foods would be really helpful, though Sophie was sick on chicken and rice. Having said that, it was some time ago. We know pasta also caused problems, hence sticking with the potato and chicken combination.

She has had her rawhyde bone for brief periods for the past two days and so far, so good. We wait in anticipation for the arrival of her stag antlers as it sounds this would be preferable to the rawhde. She is just so grateful to have something to get her teeth into if you know what I mean. Chicken / potato is ok, but it must be like eating baby food for her and show me a staffie that doesn't need to chew.

ok gonna go find his list

gonna start a new thread for you as this is gonna be quite long i will also give you tips that i was given

Was just wondering how Sophie's getting on?

Hi Shaz here. Sophie is doing great in some ways. We took the diary sheets down to the vet and he said not to worry keeping them any further. She is doing brilliantly on her chicken and potato.

We have reintroduced her raw hide chew and also a stag bar with no ill effects. We are also now including carrots in her meal and again, so far, no problems. I want to give her as many 'safe' food stuffs as possible to ensure she is getting as many of the essential food groups as possible.

The only negative we have is her underside is virtually bald now. I know fur loss can be caused by so many things eg stress, allergies etc. She is on advocate so that rules out any nasties, flea's or parasites etc.

She is fit and happy in herself so we are trying not to get too paranoid but she previously had a thick covering of fur underneath.

I did find a website that showed pictures/causes of fur loss and nothing looked similar.

We are hoping now she appears to be doing so well with her diet that it may have a calming effect and allow the fur to grow back naturally.

We are going to keep her on a wheat / gluten free diet for the future. We do know it may take a while for the fur to return.

Will keep you posted. >< >< ><

roz w wrote:i have just read about the stag bars i think i might give it a go, Trubs cant cant have rawhide as it comes from a cow but antlers ok i would think (venison which he is ok with)..sorry if i sound a bit thick but these are the sort of things i have to think of

With stag bars, allergens don't seem to matter because they're not meat, they're compressed hair! That's why they're a good choice for dogs with various allergies.

I can vouch for the stag bar as Rocky has got one and he loves it. Will definately be getting him another too.

Glad she's had no more stomach problems have you tried introducing the Fish4Dogs at all yet?

Hi Shaz here. We have got some freebie samples that arrived a couple of days ago. As we have introduced carrots and the stag bar this week we haven't tried her with the fish4dogs yet. We are taking things very slowly indeed but the softly softly approach seems to be working.

Will let you know when we do. ><