Making dog food for a dog with possible allergies or demodex?

[tolts4fun]

I have a 5 year old 65 lb border collie mix. He’s been losing hair and scabbing in the corner of one of his eyes for the past couple months. It is slowly getting worse. The vet took a culture to rule out an infection or mange. The vet convinced us that it was nothing contagious to other dogs or humans. He thought there was a small chance it was demodex or allergies. To get a scraping close to his eye to test for demodox, we would have to heavily sedate him. He’s not in the right age group for demodox, and the scraping sounded invasive, so we discussed changing his diet first to a non-dry food diet to see if that improves anything (to rule out allergy and improve his immune system).

He has been on a dry food diet since I got him 3 years ago. I usually buy Taste of the Wild and Orijen which he seemed to thrive on until recently. Switching to canned food would break the bank for a 65 lb dog! Now I’m looking into options to make food for him or supplement canned food with what I can cook. Does anybody make their dog meals? If so, do you have any resources, tips, or suggestions?

[Simkie]

Why would you not just try a limited ingredient kibble with a novel protein source? I’ve used the Acana singles when a food allergy has been suspected with good results, but there are a whole lot of them out there.

How is a non-dry diet supposed to improve his immune system?

[RaeHughes]

Go RAW - well, with “boil up”. I have two dogs on “NO gluten” to “Restricted Gluten”. We can not use any kibble with these two dogs or they are erupting into hot spots. We just cant take the risk.

Boil-up gets all the minerals and marrow out of the bones and into the rice. I have seen Labradors give up high-end treats for a hunk of this. Never had a dog that cant eat this - and a number of cats that love it.

For 4 dogs (1 small BC, 1 med BC, 2 large Labs) for a week’s worth of breakfasts.

1. 3kgs meaty bones - I used neck chops, pork bones, brisket bones, bacon hocks etc. Layer the bones in the pot and just cover with water.
2. 3 tablespoons of turmeric, 1/2 tablespoon allspice, 1 handful of grated ginger.
3. Bring to the boil and then cook on the lowest setting possible for about 4-5 hours until the bones are soft.
4. Take bones/meat out of the water (let it cool a bit first or you will burn your hands) and, while you are stripping the meat, marrow and fat from the bones, cook rice in the cooking water. (For that amount of bones, I usually add 3-4 cups of plain white rice.) This sucks up all of the marrow and minerals form the bones.
5. Mix well with the pulled meat and some finely chopped greens and put into a roasting dish to set.

Can be kept in the fridge for up to a week and it sets into a sort of spongy thing,.

[Anne]

The texture of the food (dry or canned) has nothing to do with allergenic potential. If you want to do a diet trial, a commercially prepared hydrolyzed or novel protein diet, recommended by your veterinarian, is required.

The problem with OTC limited ingredient diets is that they’re nearly always preserved with chicken fat.

[gloriginger]

I feed my dog country pet https://www.countrypet.com/ its flash frozen raw food. They ship for free from New Zealand. I also just started adding fish oil.

If you do end up discovering it is demodex, just keep in mind the MDR1 mutation in collie breeds. Usually the treatment is high doses of ivermectin, which can kill a dog with even one positive. You can buy a test kit for about $70 if you don’t already know your dog’s results.

[Horsegal984]

Fats do not have protein allergy markers on them, so not the allergy risk that other parts of the body will be.

But I agree, there’s no reason to go with canned, just a novel protein dry food (and no treats).

[tolts4fun]

Thank you for all the great diet suggestions! I tried the Natural Balance novel protein dry food about a month ago, and he wouldn’t eat it. We ended up giving it to a friendHe can be a picky eater even though he is on the lean side. I could try another one of the novel protein dry foods - it looks like Acana is an interesting choice. Country pet seems like a great option, too, if he won’t take to the dry food. I will definitely do boil up if he doesn’t improve with commercial foods after a few weeks! I hardly cook for myself, but I hate to see the poor guy with his bald eye even though it doesn’t seem to bother him.

I did not know about the MDR1 mutation. It sounds like the test kit is a good investment to at least be on the safe side, so I’ll be doing that ASAP in case we do have to treat him.

[foggybok]

[QUOTE=Anne;8559317]
The texture of the food (dry or canned) has nothing to do with allergenic potential. If you want to do a diet trial, a commercially prepared hydrolyzed or novel protein diet, recommended by your veterinarian, is required.

The problem with OTC limited ingredient diets is that they’re nearly always preserved with chicken fat.[/QUOTE]

This! And though theoretically chicken fat does not contain the allergens, it wasn’t until we finally found a brand with no chicken fat that we saw any difference in my dog.

I also have a 5 year old border collie. After years of experimenting with different foods and home made diets, the best results we had were from two commercial foods or our own. The commercial foods were California Naturals limited ingredient (lamb version) and Acana (pork version). I also make my own using 1/3 meat, 1/3 rice and 1/3 veggie. I add vitamins and minerals only if this is all he is getting. I usually just use it as is to stretch the expensive chow…

[Mosey_2003]

My dog wouldn’t eat the Natural Balance either. No way, no how, no matter what. Soaked it in boiling water, nope. Added gravy, nope. Let him go two days, just was NOT eating it. He’s not even that picky of a dog, either.

I’d like to be able to cook for mine, but I cannot get my parents to stop feeding him bits of every dang thing they eat, so what good would it do when he’s getting cereal milk and bread crust and popcorn and chips? :sigh: