pumpkin for dogs

We often feed Penny cooked pumpkin, so I was interested to read this article today.

the value of keeping a doggy diary

Penny's been eating grass. She has always used grass to settle her stomach, or to settle her gut, and it usually comes out the other end, all neatly folded and looking like it has passed through her digestive system untouched.

I've posted about it previously.

But this time she's had us worried, so much so that we went to the vet. She's been rushing outside not long after her meals, tearing at the grass like a sheep, and it's been coming through inside her faeces, so that at first we didn't realise it was there. (Now you know that we truly love her - who else would be pulling poo to pieces to see what's in it?) And then she vomited up a heap of grass.

So, to the vet...

He checked her thoroughly, asked if she's been well otherwise. Yes, she has. He listened to her gut for long enough that I started to get worried, and said it was noisier than usual. And I learned a new word when I read his notes - ascultation.

I mentioned to the vet that the first time we saw her rush outside, she had just been out in the garden chewing a three-day-old lamb shank she'd previously buried, and he said some dogs react badly to lamb. He then made sure her worming is up to date and suggested we monitor her for another couple of weeks, at the same time increasing the amount of roughage she gets.

I didn't think much of it until I came home and looked at the diary we keep:
Tuesday 24th January: breakfast - lamb, dinner - lamb, snacked on dug-up lamb shank;
Wednesday 25th January: breakfast - lamb and tripe canned food, dinner - not recorded;
Thursday 26th January: breakfast - lamb,dinner - Royal Canin Hypoallergenic dry food (rarely fed but we had some left over);
Friday 27th January: breakfast - beef, dinner - lamb;
Saturday 28th January: breakfast - lamb, dinner - lamb;
Sunday 29th January: breakfast - lamb, dinner - lamb kidneys;
Monday 30th January: breakfast - lamb, dinner - canned lamb and tripe;
Tuesday 1st February: breakfast - lamb kidneys, dinner beef and canned lamb and tripe.

I said to a friend that we might not have twigged about how much lamb we were feeding if we didn't keep a diary, and she said, "What about plain old memory?"

Well, I must admit we feed such a variety usually that I wouldn't be able to recall exactly what Penny's had over the last week. By the way, there have been other ingredients to her meals, such as raw or cooked vegetables, Vets All Natural Complete Mix, Glyde, Melrose Omega-3 oil and healthy treats.

But lamb has accidentally dominated. And why?
Because it was on special in the supermarket and I love a bargain.
Because I happened to buy lamb as the canned food we sometimes feed (high quality ZiwiPeak, by the way).
Because I thought it would be good to mix in some organ meat and didn't stop to think that it was also lamb.

Once we became aware of this, we stopped the lamb, and she has only chewed on a little bit of grass once, that we know of. She's having more roughage than usual, as per the vet's suggestion (cold cooked potato and pumpkin, which she loves), and some rice and cooked chicken for the next couple of days.

Now the question is, should we let her have lamb in future?

My thought is that we overfed one food type, not that lamb per se is the problem. But we'll wait for a few weeks before reintroducing it.

However, I did come across this interesting snippet at K9Web in looking for information for this post:

Dogs are not allergic to a dog food per se, rather they react to one or more of the ingredients in the food. Some of the most common culprits are beef, pork, chicken, milk, whey, eggs, fish, corn, soy, wheat and preservatives. Many animals are now developing allergies to lamb as well. This was once thought to be very hypo-allergenic, but the more it is used, the more sensitivities are springing up.

It's been a lesson for us.

And I'm glad we keep a diary, even though our friends think we're weirdly obsessive.

dogs, constipation after surgery and weight-control

Today I came across a short article about dealing with constipation in dogs, following surgery. I would have liked this info last week, when we were stressing about her lack of defecation.

It suggests feeding canned pumpkin. I notice many sites in the US suggest this, and I wonder why plain cooked pumpkin is not recommended. I just bought pumpkin and boiled it up, because I wouldn't buy canned pumpkin in case it has sugar added. I also mixed cold cooked potato in with her food, as it is not digested and gives her a sense of fullness. I was told about this by a fellow club member of Cindy's Walk and Talk group, and it's mentioned at this site on weight loss in humans. I think we have to be careul about assuming what is right for humans will be okay for dogs, though. But it did mention that the hunger-satisfying effect was tested on animals, so that could be worth further internet research.

I notice the article also suggests

If it's been a few days and you're starting to worry, try adding some psyllium husk to some canned dog food. Follow the directions on the container to get the proper amount for your dog's weight. As a general rule, a child's dose is ½ to 1 teaspoon per day. Most veterinarians feel a teaspoon per day for a 60 pound dog is adequate. Make sure the dog drinks plenty of water after eating psyllium husk.
Salt-free beef or chicken broth may get your dog readily drinking fluids. Make the broth yourself by throwing in some meat bones with water and simmering the liquid for an hour or two. Offer this liquid by itself or add it to your dog's food.

That's exactly what we did, giving her chicken broth so she'd drink, and adding a teensy tiny bit of psyllium husk to her food. But because we didn't know how much to add, we only threw in a couple of grains, so I guess it didn't have any effect.

She's still only defecating about every second day, where she used to do so every day, but, as the article says,

a dog's urge to have a bowel movement is closely linked to exercise.

They suggest taking the dog for a short walk, but as we can't do that, I took her for a drive in the car today, and that worked its magic.

Yep, I'm driving my dog around the streets so she can poo on someone else's grass. But I do pick it up!