Looking for a low fat quality dog food for my dog with special needs.

by Karen Gordon
(Whitman, MA)

I have a 6 yr. old min pin who had one horrific episode of pancreatitis and bleeding in the belly a few years ago (they claim from a poisoning..cause not found) and almost died. We were feeding him Artemis small breed adult from birth. He was a few pounds overweight at that time, but he lost the weight once he was put on the low fat diet. We were told to feed him Royal Canin Digestive Low Fat lf canned and have with no problems since. However, they just recently changed their formula and name to "gastrointestinal low fat low fiber" and his stools are small and the food is yellow and largely consists of substandard ingredients:

ROYAL CANIN Veterinary Diet® canine GASTROINTESTINAL? LOW FAT LF? can
Water sufficient for processing, pork by-products, corn grits, rice flour, powdered cellulose, dried beet pulp, guar gum, natural flavors, potassium phosphate, calcium carbonate, carrageenan, calcium sulfate, sodium silico aluminate, hydrolyzed yeast,
taurine, fish oil, vitamins DL-alpha-tocopherol acetate (source of vitamin E), L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), biotin, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), niacin supplement, d-calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement (vitamin B2),pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, folic acid, vitamin D3supplement, trace minerals zinc oxide, ferrous sulfate, zinc proteinate, copper sulfate,manganous oxide, sodium selenite, calcium iodate, marigold extract (Tagetes erecta L.).

As you can see, the ingredients don't even contain any one meat source. I'm not surprised he is not doing well on it nor is he anxious to eat anymore. At least with the old formula, there were two additonal meat ingredients listed beside the first ingredient which also was pork by-products. (yuk!)

He also has other digestive problems and at times obsessive paw licking (alleriges?) He is not fed anything other than one can divided in portions 3x daily.

He has a congenital disc disease and a fused spine so advanced that at Angel in Boston they told us they couldn't operate on 6 discs because of the severe fusion. He will eventually be paralyzed and not be able to walk. He did stop walking 8 months ago, and he is now taking 1/4 tablet prednisolone daily just to be able to walk. His back legs are stiff and don't bend very easily and this tiny 9.5 active dog just resorts to walking around as much as I can take him outside very slowly around the yard. He used to LOVE to run and play. He is only 6.

It's important to me to feed him healthy food and the Hills I/D, W/D and R/D was even worse for him...full of grains and corn which he does terrible with. He ended up with rectal prolapse on that food and signs of bad stools and poor digestion. I tried Purina EN but the food in the cans were just as bad. The first three cans I opened were rancid, with the product not even filling the can. Needless to say, I was disgusted.

I have spent so much money recently trying to find him a decent low fat food. I think he would do better not having grains in his diet...they seem to irritate his digestive tract.

I don't want to give him too much fat for fear that it might cause another episode of pancreatitis and the fact that he can't afford to gain any weight at this point, and I have a very big problem trying to find a low fat, low fiber, easily digestible balanced canned food for him.

The Rx diets all contain mostly grains and hardly any meat sources at all which do a terrible job on his sensitive system. Can you recommend a top quality CANNED (easier to hide meds in) food for him that would meet his needs. I would really appreciate it.
Thanks for listening to my problem.

We love our little Louie who is a silent sufferer and never lets us know (except by this eyes) that he is in pain.

Sincerely,

Karen Gordon

My Comment:

Hi Karen

Thank you for the pictures! (- and your mail of cause)

This is difficult for me too!

I was thinking of ZiwiPeak food from New Zealand but it contain too much fat compared to the nutritional profile of RC Low Fat diet.

The only solution I can recommend you is to make the diet your self. Below I have two different diets used in Hyperlipedemia in dogs but the are suitable for low fat use in other diseases.

I have the recipes from a Royal Canine Encyclopedia of Clinical Nutrition.

The nutritional profiles is quite similar to the RC Low Fat food you have tried. I know there is fiber and grain in them but you can vary the amount of bran according to his "needs"

Here they are.

Halibut 460g, rice cooked 500g, wheat bran, 30g rapeseed oil 10g.

Contain pr g/100 kcal: protein 9,2, fat 1,7 and carbohydrates 12,7

Feed 4 kg dog 310g/day


Beef minced 5% fat 350g, cooked potatoes with skin 630g, wheat bran 15g rapeseed oil 5g

Contain pr g/100 kcal protein 10,3 fat 1,9 carbohydrates 11,2

Feed a 4 kg dog 410g/day

At least you can get good quality ingredients. It is difficult to find food contain less fat without grain.

The energy from the fat has to be substituted by either protein or carbohydrates. Because the protein amount can't be too high neither, you have to increase the amount of carbohydrates (grains) - but as I said, here you can control the quality of them.

It should be OK to use fish oil (good for his spine) instead of rapeseed oil and remember some vitamin supplement as well.

All the best

Per Schonbeck