Edan not eating... sort of

Unfortunately, if I have to take him to the vet again, that sort of diet and life-long medication is the next step. It's something I'm really trying to avoid because I'd prefer not to feed my dog junk. I'll feed RAW first. (And the reason I don't consider RAW at this point is I have no way to store it; no where to a freezer.)

 

Something to keep in mind if I run out of options. I'd need to do more research to make sure I'm feeding a healthy, balanced diet. Thanks for the information.

Well, he stopped throwing up but he's eating on his own schedule. Right now I'm not too concerned about that because at least he's eating.

It's not so much that he hasn't gotten any better, is that he's better for only about 3 weeks then it seems to go south again. The BB food we are giving him now, Chicken and Brown Rice formula, is not to far off from the original Eagle Pack Holistic I was feeding him in January before all this started. The ingredients in the BB seem to be a bit better.

I'll keep the California Natural in mind, though. The places local to me that carry it aren't very convenient to get to but I'd go out of my way if it means Edan's health.

 

OK. I'm going to take these one at a time and hopefully it will make it a bit clearer.

Edan is 3.5.

I wanted to try him on a high protein food because of the agility.

The original formula was Chicken and Rice

Both.
Sometimes it starts out as solid and ends up as bile once his stomach is empty.
Sometimes its sort of white and foamy.
Sometimes its bile with a little bit of food.

This varies. Usually a few hours. At the height of the problem, back in February, it was happening within an hour or less of eating.

Sometimes we will go for a few weeks with no vomiting then he'll throw up once and be fine for another week or so.

Has the vet checked his mouth, teeth, jaw for any swelling? Does he eat treats readily or does he avoid those too - and what kind of treats (soft or hard)

When we make a hard transition on the food, we expect the diarrhea. It usually only lasts one day and we have solid stools again. All the foods we've moved him to have similar proteins, poultry/fowl, so that clears up quickly.

On the higher protein foods, he'd have loose stool, not quite diarrhea, once every 5-7 days or so. (Another reason I wanted him off of it.)

He's definitely not a teen but I wouldn't be surprised if he's going through another phase of making life difficult since he doesn't want to listen to even some basic commands, like come.

The rejection of the Eagle Pack Holistic I have to think is somewhat psychological since when this this mess was at its worse we were mixing TOTW with Eagle Pack Holistic's Chicken and Rice. After the constant, gassy, throwing up and loose stools, he flat out refused to eat the Holistic Chicken and Rice formula even with the TOTW removed. He actually went about 4 days without eating because he would NOT touch the food. You could hear that he was hungry because his stomach was rumbling loudly.

Even though our vet advised against changing foods, out of desperation we purchased the Duck formula of the Eagle Pack Holistic and he devoured that. We didn't over feed him, in fact we gave him only 1/4 scoop. After about 2 weeks he refused to eat that food also.

Then we switched to the BB "Blue Wilderness" (Chicken and Turkey) brand which he LOVED but I wasn't loving the gas it was giving him. I was getting very concerned about him developing a case of Bloat from all the gas. My Malamute had a case of Bloat and we were VERY lucky her stomach and intestines didn't knot of from it. It was the WORST thing I ever experienced to come home from shopping (I was gone about 2 hours after dinner) to her loud cries of pain and not knowing what was wrong. I was NOT going to risk that with Edan.

It was that fear that caused me to move to BB Chicken and Brown Rice formula. I was going to slowly cut it over by mixing it with the Wilderness but a night of him doing nothing but throwing up - first some (NEVER all) undigested food then bile - on Thursday made me opt to just cut out the Wilderness entirely.

We had a minor issue of him vomiting on Saturday morning, bile with just a little undigested food, but no vomiting since then.

From the quick removal of the Blue Wilderness, we had 1 day of loose stool from him and that was yesterday morning and during the afternoon while we were at work. By Monday night things were firming up again.

I want to see if things start to settle down now before doing anything else. We are pretty much back were we started, a Chicken and Rice formula - though with a different brand.

He's eating fairly regularly and not scarfing his food anywhere near as fast as he was prior to getting sick. He wants to eat at roughly 6:30 AM and PM; about 12 hours apart. I'm OK with that as long as he's eating.

If this continues, it will be back to the vet and we go from there.