Recurring colitis, now upper intestine problems – diet advice please – long!

[Mrs L]

hi

Need some help please!! My 2 Cavs have a history of colitis flare ups – every 6 months or so… after joining / lurking on Dog Club we’ve normally managed it at home with bland diet, and natural yoghurt. They had another flare up in November and we couldn’t get on top of it, so they had antibiotics in December, and after we put them back onto their JWB kibbles and boiled chicken diet. The colitis came back in one, and we got more antibiotics which he’s currently taking, but this morning he was quiet, wouldn’t eat at first (but did shortly after) and after 30 minutes or so was sick with undigested food, blood in the bile and little blood flecks (red).

we’ve been to the vets and he’s given him a stomach calming drug (antepsin?), although he doesn’t know what’s wrong – there’s no tenderness in the abodmen, and it could be related to the colitis, or it could be a enteritis or ulcer, but my concern is where to go from here with their regular diet…

the vet is saying about food trials / allergy testing, but as they are already on a pretty hypoallergenic diet, I’m not sure if this is the best thing to do? The other factor is we’ve seen a change in the JWB kibbles recently, and I spoke to the makers and they have a new manufacturing process and the different cutting mechanism may mean they have more oil which could have aggrevated them.. they’ve kindly sent an older bag out so we can mix the old and new, but I’m not sure if this is the best way forward either! Don’t want to do BARF really, not sure if Burns is the next route, and generally wanted some advice please as I feel I’m not in control of things and just want to get them sorted.

sorry it’s long!
thanks
Mrs L

[Anonymous]

Hallo Mrs L
Think you shoud give John Burns a ring
Phone: 01554 890482
Fax: 01554 891476
Email: webshop@burnspet.co.uk
I have never been happy with JWB since Pedigree took them over if the oil is to high it won’t be doing your two any good neither are all the AB they are having.
Give John a ring he is a vet and will help you out
Good Luck don’t be a stranger let see some more pictures of your two and stop worrying about long post which infact is not long at all
Val

[*Lassie*]

Sorry to hear they are not well 🙁
Tam had regular bouts of colitis when he was younger, seemed better on JWB but as he got older I made the decision to take him off dry food. My reasoning for this and I am probably wrong was as he got older it would be harder for him to digest as the body slows down and that a wet food would be kinder on his tum. Both dogs are now on Naturediet and doing really well on it, in fact touch wood no tummy problems from Tam since, his sister is on Chappie and doing well on it as it is another food that is easily digested.

[Anonymous]

I think you are right Lassie I have never been a fan of dried food it takes far to long to digest plus all the crap in it Chappie is a brilliant food for dogs with a dodgy gut and those on it alll seem to do very well
Val

[Anonymous]

Hi,

sorry to hear your little ones are unwell 🙁

when my bonnie came she was incontinent due to poor diet and i kept her on burns maintenance fish + rice for months and she was good but as soon as i would introduce anything else she would just turn from solid and housetrained to mush and incontinent 🙁

however, after she settled burns became too dry for her and i was forced to change again – to naturediet and wholemeal mixer.  so i would be wary of burns as i wouldnt want to put dogs like this through another food change.  she’s perfect on her diet now so i would reccommend that (but not the fish it bl**dy stinks) or as lassie and val says – i would also agree chappie is great i’ve not used it personally but have seen many a kennel dog recover from tummy troubles with these magic tins !!

Claire x

p.s. have you read about immune boosing ?  if not search on here for vitamin e / selenium and you should find the info you need 🙂 

[kendal]

[quote author=Val link=topic=13419.msg257304#msg257304 date=1231597814]
I have never been happy with JWB since Pedigree took them over if the oil is to high it won’t be doing
Val
[/quote]

when did that happen.

oh defo give burns a try.

[Anonymous]

Few years ago now they sold out to the Mars Group

[quote author=kendal link=topic=13419.msg257316#msg257316 date=1231601079]
[quote author=Val link=topic=13419.msg257304#msg257304 date=1231597814]
I have never been happy with JWB since Pedigree took them over if the oil is to high it won’t be doing
Val
[/quote]

when did that happen.

oh defo give burns a try.
[/quote]

[Mrs L]

hi

sods law, our t’interweb has been down since I posted this .. back now though (yay!).

thank you for the advice – will look at the immune boost thing now… and really, chappie?! I’ve always been loathe to feed tinned food, and thought that was a nasty one – ah well, goes to show what I know!  😉

good news is that Ozzie is fine now – he’s still having his antepsin before food though, for now.

I’m really unsure what to go for next – I think they actually prefer wet food – Murphy is a gannet and will hoover up anything, but Ozzie has always been funny on kibbles, so I don’t know whether to try the Chappie – and if so, with some sort of mixer?? if not, then it will be Burns I guess. We’ve done Naturediet in the past and that ended up upsetting Ozzie after they changed the factory – think he gets used to products, and then doesn’t like it if there’s a change!  They’re still on chicken / fish and rice / pasta at the mo, so I’ll need to think about weaning back onto something soon.

thanks again  🙂

[rona]

Our Chesapeake has got serious tum problems that could kill him if we are not careful and the only food that keeps him right is Chappie. It always used to be recommended by vets for tum problems before they could make a mint out of selling food from the surgery

[Sweetypye]

Colitis is a condition which is triggered by an underlying issue.

Your vet should check for a number of things such as SIBO and leaky gut syndrome.

One of the best sites for information on these issues is B-naturals which is run by someone who has a PhD in nutrition the other site which has info and links to relevant sites is Dogaware.

Changing brands or types of foods is not necessarily the way to go until and unless you identify the issue.

There are some amino acids and other supplements that can help.

[Author]

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