[rhynes]

Going to try this one more time. Stop throwing so much at the dog. One thing at a time, wait for results. Discuss this with your vet - I have done so.

If you're dealing with a real food allergy - which is rare in dogs by the way -- then you should see a near immediate reaction to specific foods. My pup is allergic to wheat, he eats bread or anything - milkbone etc, he starts to sneeze, reverse sneeze and water at the eyes. There are time where it looks like he is crying, and a sneeze sprays tears everywhere. That is allergy.

If you're dealing with anything food related - chronic intolerance is more likely due to years of buildup from eating kibble. Your dogs pancreas is either stressed or damaged or both, and it's probably not the only organ. Either way, it needs time to heal - and that isn't going to happen overnight.

Food trial needs single protein - period, end of sentence - for a period of at least 2 weeks, more is better. One meat protein, nothing else. No squash protein, no vegetable protein, no fruit protein - nothing. No sugars, no carbs - guess what, the pancreas doesn't need to do much at this point, and a pancreas that's not at work will heal.

Throughout the first couple of weeks, your dog likely will scratch, they will go through a detox period while trying to flush the old proteins and anything affecting them out of the system. How do we know this? Many dogs that are considered allergenic to humans actually become not so allergenic when switched to raw. You see, humans are not allergic to the "dog" -- they are allergic to the "proteins" the dog is shedding - through the skin and through saliva etc. Changing to a strict raw diet puts fewer numbers of proteins in the dog - that they need to shed in some way.

Lets look at the gut - or better yet gut health. Your dogs gut isn't healthy, that's a given. Every living animal on the face of the planet that has a gut and it's not just for digestion. A healthy gut is going to protects us. From what you ask? All the germs, bacteria, viruses etc that live on us - and in us. When your gut is off - what viruses, bacteria etc are allowed to cross the barrier and invade your body. Common sense right?


If I was in your position, here's what I would do.

Stop all meds, metacam is only buttering over your dogs symptoms, putting them to sleep so to speak and creating it's own immune condition. So you're really not going to know if what you're trying is effective or not because the body isn't going to react properly. Anti inflammatory - what does that mean?

I would put the dog on a strict chicken only diet, stay away from commercial diets.

That means go to the grocery store, go to a farm if need be and buy chicken - ask if said chicken has been plumped with saline. If it has, steer clear, you don't want added salt. Not just any chicken, but boneless and skinless chicken breast. Pick any fat off the chicken, just a nice lean chicken breast. Weigh it out, 2% of your dogs weight for a single day - and feed your dog as 4 meals - so the dog isn't digesting too much at one time. First day, meat only - wait for results. The dog will likely have a softer stool, hopefully not the runs. It will take time for the dog to clear the kibble out of the gut.

Second day, remove some of the chicken breast, and add chicken necks to 10% of the meal - even backs or ribs, that will be your bone content and there's not alot of marrow in the vertebrae or back. Here's the kicker with chicken necks - you'll likely get a little bit of seepage of T4 from the thyroid gland. This is not a bad thing - according to your blood results, a little extra T4 won't hurt the dog - and it just might help.

Chicken and bone only as meals, no organs - no treats. I would definitely suggest adding supplemental enzymes - you can get these in a powder form. The idea behind supplemental enzymes is to take the load - at least temporarily - off the dogs pancreas and other organs. The whole idea here is to let the dogs organs - and gut - heal up. Until these organs actually do some healing, you're on a merry go round and you're not getting off.

Do keep a daily diary - and do fill it in with as many details as possible. You will need a reference point to go back to in case anything happens.


That's just my 2 cents.