Grain Free Dog Food/ Heart Problems

[metaldad]

How many of you are feeding your dogs grain free food? Seems there may be a problem with grain free foods with hi potato or legume ingredient levels.
Recent yearly check up with one of ours (2 1/2 yo) turns up a heart murmur.
Same was found with our youngest (1 1/2) a few months back. Our vet advised us that potential problems with grain free diets with canines, are heart issues. Recommended that we change diets, just to be on the safe side. Enough research hasn't been done yet on this, but there seems to be something to it.
We changed the diets for our 3.
Seems to be alot of info out there.
https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/nu...ee-diet-alert/
https://www.okawvetclinic.com/grain-...rt-failure.pml
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...a-says-n891011
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/h...t-disease.html

 

[greycharger]

My dog lives for Milk Bones. They are cheap and must be pure crap: salt, sugar, fat... The store didn't have any so I looked at other treats. There were some grain free. They were twice the money, but I figured: what the hell. Before I got half way through the bag he started scratching and biting himself making scabs. Took the grain free treats to the dog park, put them in the treat bin, and went back to Milk Bones. He got over the allergy and there is no more scratching.

 

[Ski 61701]

My Akita has skin problems along with typical allergies which he gets 2 shots once a month. He is allergic to grains so we have had him on Under the Sun whitefish dog food for the past several yrs. Since being on the food n shots no more problems, he's a happy healthy 95lb dog.

 

[PP1RT]

Nothing but Old Roy for our dogs. Healthy and happy.

 

[khryslerkid]

How can you trust what these Dog Food manufacturers are putting in the food? It might be more expensive but more and more pet owners are making their own dog food. Lots of recipes out there.

 

[400sforever]

As a farmer I deal with these kind of scare tactics by people who hate farming and or don't know anything about it. .there is nothing wrong with good old fashioned dog food as we've been making it for years unless your dog has an allergy. GMO food labeling is nonsense too. We have the safest food in the world and there is no such thing as a bad gmo food. Just people labeling crap trying to scare others into buying more expensive food that is actually less safe in my opinion. if a brown cow breeds a black cow, that is genetic modification. See my point

 

[Cranky]

Do any of y'all feed your dogs raw meat? If not why not?

 

[biomedtechguy]

Old Roy

Cardboard and Cowshit...
If it works for you, good.
If I fed my 3 Lab mixes Old Roy, picking up the huge piles in the yard would be a full time job.

 

[biomedtechguy]

I was certified as a "Pet Nutrition Specialist" after I completed a 6 week long program when I was a dog trainer at Petco.
I spent the next 6 months intensely researching dog nutrition. I still dabble in updating my knowledge.
Thanks to the OP for the links and info.
My 3 Lab mixes eat Members Mark dog food from Sam's. It's their top shelf food.
I mix 35 pounds of Lamb and Rice with 30 pounds of grain free Salmon. They also get a tablespoon of pork fat liquid that I render at home from trimmings I buy from a local butcher. They get Milk Bones and some other treats too.
I have personally experienced dogs with raging skin problems and other severe food related problems become new, beautiful, healthy dogs by switching them from whatever crap they were eating to Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Fish LID (Limited Ingredient Diet) food. That was my "go to" food for the worst cases because of its limited ingredients (reducing variables) and because it doesn't have common dog food ingredients like chicken and beef, corn, rice, etc. Many times just switching to a better food worked well, but in the worst cases, that LID food if it was effective, provided a baseline and then we could work in new and additional ingredients from there. In other words if the Sweet Potato and Fish food fixed the problem, then we could try adding a little Lamb and Rice or some other less expensive blend, and if that was ok, then variations of that could be used.

 

[mopar 3 B]

I found one he likes and will stick with it. Anything he didn't like got buried some where in the yard around his dog house. Some of it wasn't cheap either. He gets table scraps every time the refrigerator gets cleaned out. Yep and if there is some thing he doesn't like it get buried also.

 

[Slap Stick]

Ol Roy....notice how much of it dogs eat? Its because the dogs don't get enough nutrition from It. And the more they eat the more you pick up.
They will eat less and be healthier for it. Seen it too many times.

 

[FrnkNsteen]

We have a 200lb Mastiff that had serious skin issues and ear infections. His skin was nasty and flaky and he had sores everywhere. Obvious allergy issues. Someone suggested getting him off food with grains in it. Switched him to Tractor Supply brand "4 Health" Lamb and Rice blend. The issues completely went away and he doesn't get the ear infections anymore either.

Bottom line, in my opinion, is not all dogs can eat the same things, just like people having issues with certain things. Try different things and see what works for your particular dog. Our Bull Terrier (Think Spuds McKenzie) can't eat the same food as our Mastiff because she gets itchy and starts scratching, but she does well on a different one.

 

[FrnkNsteen]

Ol Roy....notice how much of it dogs eat? Its because the dogs don't get enough nutrition from It. And the more they eat the more you pick up.
They will eat less and be healthier for it. Seen it too many times.

And I agree with this. Our Mastiff doesn't eat much more than our terrier.

 

[1967coronet440]

We feed our dog blue buffalo with grains, per vet recommendations and she loves it. She’s still a growing pup and they said they want her off the grains eventually but she said something about it being good for periods of time for growing pups.

 

[Bad Sport]

Iams Lamb & Rice here.

Our two knuckleheads seem to like it and are healthy according to the vet.

 

[71charger_fan]

We spent two years chasing allergy flare ups and skin infections in our Great Pyrenees. We switched foods multiple times. Eventually, we finally got a referral to an animal dermatologist. After a battery of tests, they found he had environmental allergies. He could eat virtually anything. The vet had wanted to have us put him on a prescription diet that would have been hugely expensive. $650 at the allergist was money I wish I'd spent a year and a half ago. Would have saved a fortune in vet bills. Now, we're working him into a program of every-two-week allergy shots and buying inexpensive Milk Bones instead of the more expensive grain-free treats.

 

[biomedtechguy]

Great Pyrenees

Good news...
GIANT DOG!!!!

 

[PRND21]

About all I can add to this is that during fall harvest, all of our dogs love to gobble corn and soybeans as you’re emptying trucks. Especially soybeans. Plus anything you grow in the garden, they love. Green beans, sweet peppers, turnips, they don’t seem to care for tomatoes.

 

[jwtdvm]

I was certified as a "Pet Nutrition Specialist" after I completed a 6 week long program when I was a dog trainer at Petco.
I spent the next 6 months intensely researching dog nutrition. I still dabble in updating my knowledge.
Thanks to the OP for the links and info.
My 3 Lab mixes eat Members Mark dog food from Sam's. It's their top shelf food.
I mix 35 pounds of Lamb and Rice with 30 pounds of grain free Salmon. They also get a tablespoon of pork fat liquid that I render at home from trimmings I buy from a local butcher. They get Milk Bones and some other treats too.
I have personally experienced dogs with raging skin problems and other severe food related problems become new, beautiful, healthy dogs by switching them from whatever crap they were eating to Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Fish LID (Limited Ingredient Diet) food. That was my "go to" food for the worst cases because of its limited ingredients (reducing variables) and because it doesn't have common dog food ingredients like chicken and beef, corn, rice, etc. Many times just switching to a better food worked well, but in the worst cases, that LID food if it was effective, provided a baseline and then we could work in new and additional ingredients from there. In other words if the Sweet Potato and Fish food fixed the problem, then we could try adding a little Lamb and Rice or some other less expensive blend, and if that was ok, then variations of that could be used.

 

[jwtdvm]

I am a Veterinarian in Georgia---the southeast United States is allergy central for people and dogs. I dont want to get into a long drawn out discussion but a brief summary might be helpful. There is nothing "special" about Grain free----not saying it is bad just not better. And sure enough there have been some heart issues--at this time it seems that the dogs affected were predisposed and were going to have those problems anyway but diet may have hastened it along.--Typically a food allergy occurs when the dog develops allergies to the protein source---i.e. chicken beef etc----now if your dog had a tendency to develop food allergies and you started him off on fish for example--he would develop allergies to fish--dogs and people develop allergies to proteins that they are chronically exposed to (pollen for example is a protein as in hayfever in humans) The above members dog probably responded to changing the protein to the whitefish instead of the chicken/beef that the dog had been chronically exposed to. These allergies dont happen overnite it takes time--now food allergies can develop at earlier ages as opposed to seasonal allergies. There is some evidence that in unusual cases the carb source can be the allergen--few documented cases of rice allergy---but 99% of the time it is the protein source.