food intolerance issues belgian shepherd - Page 1

I've had my belgian shepherd for about 8 months now.  He's about 5 years old, obtained from pet rescue almost starved to death I was told.  However it's now apparent he has major food intolerance issues.  If he has the wrong food he gets explosive diarrhea and now vomiting.  I've found some vet prescription fish and potato biscuits that stop these issues but they are very expensive and Beau doesn't want to eat them all the time.

I've tried slowly introducing one animal protein at a time.  His foster mother had fed him almost exclusively on raw chicken necks and wings before I got him & I wasn't told about any diarrhea.  However he was seriously underweight when I first got him so I suspect there was an issue present. I tried him on cooked chicken and rice and this seemed to upset him....even though I was told he could eat chicken.  Is raw chicken more easily digested in food intolerant dogs?  i also tried cooked lamb added to biscuits which was fine for a week but then gave a reaction.  Maybe too rich?  He definitely reacts badly to cooked beef.

Beau seems to be able to eat small amounts of smoked trout (!) but definitely not sardines (without oil). 

Can anyone give me some advice here as I don't want to have to feed my dog expensive biscuits for the rest of his life...and he doesn't want to eat them either!

Are you talking a belgian sheepdog, malinois, or tervern (sorry about the spelling).

Can you contact the foster mom and ask her if he had the same problem there with her and how long did she have him?  I ask because you could be dealing with an EPI issue, my GSD boy would do that until I found out at 18 months he had whip worm;  gave him 2 treatments;  5 day treatments; 3 weeks apart with panacur;  took care of the problem and never had it again.  Took me a long time to find out with stool samples as whip is sometimes hard to detect.  Have you talked to your vet?

I would go back to raw for him.  I would probably SLOWLY introduce yogart or better yet, pro-biotics the human grade 50 billion variety and start to strenghten his digestive system.  His whole digestive system will be better on raw;  I would do exactly as his foster care giver did for him if there were no problems and try to introduce new things very slowly for him; keep him on probiotics, give him some raw eggs, add some raw fresh tripe into his diet small amounts at a time at first.  Best of luck  Nan

Definitely talk to his foster mom and find out if she took him to a vet and what the vet told her. Dogs can get very thin from having digestive tract problems. At any rate,  you should take him to your vet to check for intestinal parasites or infections. Some of those little bugs are hard to find, so your vet may prescribe an antibiotic just in case. A probiotic supplement could help to increase the good intestinal bacteria but don't give it with an antibiotic. You can buy probiotics like BeneBac or you can try yoghurt but it may have to be goat yoghurt if that's available where you live. (Dogs digest goats' milk more easily than cows' milk.) Dogs can take Imodium or a product called Pro-Pectalin available OTC at pet supply companies to treat ordinary diarrhea.

Dogs can also be allergic to or intolerant of certain foods, usually the common grains or proteins in commercial dog foods like corn, rice, beef, chicken, etc. Allergies will manifest as either skin problems (itching, flaking, sores) or diarrhea. If you change foods and your dog starts with diarrhea, go back to the old food and see if that helps. Don't change foods overnight, unless you are certain your dog cannot tolerate the food he's currently eating. Explosive diarrhea would be a good sign he's either sick or not tolerating the food, but you are going to need a vet's help to figure out which it is.

There are other things that can affect dog digestion including diseases such as Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (manageable with added digestive enzymes, the diagnostic TLI test is best done by Texas A&M) or Inflammatory Bowel Disease (the doggy equivalent of Crohn's) which is also treatable. These two can only be diagnosed by a veterinarian. 

So take your dog to your vet. Explain the symptoms and circumstances and go from there.

beau,
I agree, before you invest anymore time, money, or heart ache see a good vet, not some quack and find out what is going on with he dog.
Personally I would never use rice as grains go, oats are better, try some quaker quick oats cooked if you must feed a grain.
Add low sodium chicken broth to it.
What I hate about rescues, you have no idea what's been done to the dog.
Many would be better off put down sad as that sounds it's true.
Anyway, see a vet and be ready for hard choices.

Moons.