Experience With Dr. Harvey’s Anyone?

A little backstory - Toby always had a sensitive stomach ever since he was a puppy. He would usually vomit bile in the morning since he was a wee lad.

We had tried a couple different kibbles but nothing stopped it until we began to feed him a freeze dried raw food. No vomiting, great potties, great energy, very soft coat.

Fast forward, we moved and found a new vet. It was just a bit after the DCM shenanigans study came out. And our vet was adamant about not feeding him a grain free, raw food. And advised us to switch to a commercial kibble right away. After the third admonishing about it, we relented and switched him to kibble.

Not surprisingly, his bile vomiting began again. Except more regularly. In the morning. In the late afternoon before dinner. Basically any time at random. So we brought him to the vet who diagnosed him with “Billious vomiting syndrome” and suggested we give him snacks throughout the day.

This wasn’t very convenient - since we both work full time. But we tried our best. Coming home from work on our lunch breaks to give the little guy a snack. But it didn’t really help. They advised a kind of doggy antacid. Which we also tried but had little success. We also switched kibble several times thinking there was some kind of allergy or intolerance.

Finally we just went back to the freeze dried raw. The next day, he was right as rain. But the pandemic really made the prices astronomical and we do want to give him grains because he doesn’t have any kind of grain sensitivity and I’m not convinced that they’re unhealthy.

At the store the other day, we came across Dr. Harvey’s Miracle Dog food. A kind of dried base of grains like oatmeal, dried fruits and veg, and vitamins. You add protein of choice along with a healthy oil. This would cut our cost down significantly and seems really like a nice healthy choice.

We got a trial sized bag and he loves the heck out of it. Anyone have any experience making their own food or using this brand as a base mix? I wanted to talk to our vet about it during my last visit but they didn’t really answer me about it. But they also stopped suggesting we use traditional kibble after I told them he had stopped vomiting.

 

Thanks everyone. I know it’s true but they grill me about it every vet visit when I speak to them, they made me so nervous about it!

We’ll be moving soon (again ugh) and will have to change vets anyway in just a few months - so I’m going to stick with them for one more visit anyway since he’ll need his Lymes vaccine update.

Yesterday was the first time he had Dr. Harvey’s (we made it with pork for him this week) for full meals for a whole day. No tummy upset, no vomiting bile. I think we’re going to stick with it unless he begins to have a problem. It seems to be really high quality and I get to pick out the meat so I know what’s going in it.

Thanks everyone as always!