hill's prescription diet food?

[Gome]

I brought my dog to the vet because he has had frequent poos (like 5 times a day) and a large quanity. His stools have mucous and he sometimes does little burp vomits where he brings up water and some kibble.
They are going to do a stool test for any parasites. But I also came home with a $75 canadian dollars bag of new food. I feed both my dogs Caniade and they have both had these symptoms and the vet said to change foods.
Can anyone tell me their opinion about Hill's Prescription Diet food? It certainly doesn't look very good and you have to feed more of it.

[lblax]

hills prescription diets are differant than science diet regular food . if your pet has a certain illness the prescrition diets certanly can help but it sounds to me that your vet doesnt know what is wrong with your dogs yet so personly i dont see why he prescribed these diets. i would keep feeding like you have until the vet determines that there actually is a problem. and if it is just sensitive stomachs and not a specific illness then there are plenty of better foods out there for food sensitive dogs

[Gome]

"there are plenty of better foods out there for food sensitive dogs.."

Can you recommend some? what are some of the brand names? I would like to try something of good quality.

[lblax]

california natural lamb and rice for one, but i would wait on the parasite test before any tthing

[CarolineS]

A lot of Rottweilers are notorious for having "sensitive stomachs". The mucous in the stool and the occasional vomiting are definitely signs that something in Canidae is not agreeing with your dogs. I'm sure the food your vet sold you is a prescription intestinal diet. Hill's prescription diets are usually crap, if I remember correctly. I have a dog with food allergies and inflammatory bowel disease and we tried every prescription food going. Since you've got it, you may as well try it and see if it settles things down. If it does, then you can try a better quality food, slowly mixing it in with the Hill's to switch.

The suggestion to try California Natural is a good one. They make a couple of different formulas. Wellness also makes quite a few different varieties of good quality foods. All have only a few ingredients so at least if one kind doesn't agree with your dog it is easy to figure out what ingredient to stay away from in the future. A lot of the pet stores that carry the better foods will give you sample size bags of the foods so you don't have to buy a large bag to try it out.

[spidey]

I assume the diet in question is i/d? This is a really digestible diet which works well in GI issues. I don't agree that you should keep feeding your old diet. It's often the case that the GI tract needs a temporary rest to recover from whatever's bothering it, which may or may not be parasitical in nature, and i/d is the ideal diet for that, it's often used for a short term, this doesn't mean your dog will be on it permanently (although I agree that it sounds as if Canidae isn't agreeing with him), odds are you'll wean him from that onto another diet once his tummy has settled down. Prescription Diets are good and effective diets (I don't agree that they're 'crap', Science Diet is crap, but not the Prescription Diets), I would follow your vet's advice here (not least because if the vet is working on trying to sort out what's wrong here, you need to work with him, not against him). Good luck, I hope it's sorted out soon.

[CarolineS]

Crap may not have been the most politically correct word to use but I really don't know what else to call a food whose top five ingredients are:

"Corn meal, brewers rice, dried egg product, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal"

Dried Egg Product: This could be any part of an egg, dried: shells, whites, or yolks.

Chicken By-Product Meal: Consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidable in good processing practice.

Corn Gluten Meal: is the dried residue from corn after the removal of the larger part of the starch and germ, and the separation of the bran by the process employed in the wet milling manufacture of corn starch or syrup, or by enzymatic treatment of the endosperm. Corn gluten is an inexpensive by-product of human food processing. It offers very little nutritional value and serves mainly to bind food together. Corn or corn by-products can cause allergic reactions in some animals.

Brewer's rice: is long grain rice that is broken into fragments to fit through sieves used in the brewing industry, hence the name. Whenever an ingredient is fragmented, there is an increased chance that foreign matter could be present.

Corn meal, I guess, is the best of the bunch...it is the entire corn kernel ground or chopped. It must contain no more than 4% foreign material. Comforting to know it can only contain under 4% of foreign material.

Wait, I take that back about it not being politically correct to call it crap...I stand by my original statement.

Why on earth this "prescription" diet contains so much corn is beyond me when rice is the most easily digestible carb around. I can only assume that corn and its byproducts are cheaper than rice. There are few companies that make prescription diets so you're at their mercy if your dog needs one. I have heard that IVD makes prescription diets that are superior to Hill's, but I haven't seen an ingredient list.

[lblax]

Originally posted by CarolineS
Crap may not have been the most politically correct word to use but I really don't know what else to call a food whose top five ingredients are:

Wait, I take that back about it not being politically correct to call it crap...I stand by my original statement.

.

crap if you would chose to feed your dog a food like this (,if he wasnt sick). but to tell you the truth hills prescription diets perform there intended tasks very well indeed and the other prescription diets the vets have available are almost exactly ingrediant wise. so caroline what do you eat when your sick 4 differant kinds of meat and every vegatible imanagble or maybye soda crackers chicken soup and liquids?????? oh and spidey when i suggested feeding his normal food i was understanding that the vet was going to do a parasite test.. and if it came back full of worms then maybe he wouldnt have to open the expensive bag of food

[K9-man]

Originally posted by CarolineS
Crap may not have been the most politically correct word to use but I really don't know what else to call a food whose top five ingredients are:

"Corn meal, brewers rice, dried egg product, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal"

That's my definition of 'crap'! ;)

[Birdie'sMom]

Birdie had diarrhea for about 2 weeks straight and we tried the canned pumpkin and the chicken and rice and had a bunch of different tests run to see what was wrong. We had been feeding her Canidae all along. My vet suggested that we try Eukanuba WD or Hills i/d for 2 weeks and see if it helped. We fed her the Eukanuba WD for 2 weeks, the diarrhea stopped and then we gradually mixed the Canidae back in, until we were totally feeding Canidae again. The vet thought it was just some kind of bacteria in her intestine and wanted her to be on the W/D food to give her stomach a break until she got over it. Now it's gone and she has been doing great on Canidae again.

[brunie's mom]

Gome;

I'm just wondering how much Canidae are you feeding your dogs?? It seems funny to me that both of your dogs would be sensitive to the food. Canidae is very nutrition packed food, and you must feed very little....most average size Rotties would not need more then 3 cups per day!!! When I get very skinny foster dogs...I always want to fatten them up :D and tend to feed them too much and they get loose stools and frequent BM's.

Try feeding them less Canidae, if that does not work I would try them on California Natural, if that did not work, just boil up some chicken and make some rice. This would be far better to feed them for the short term them then any of the crap prescription diets.

Gina

[Birdie'sMom]

I tried California Natural before I tried the prescription diet and it didn't work. I highly doubt that feeding the prescription diet for a few weeks is going to do any long term damage. And it worked, so it's better than having diarrhea!

[Aegis]

I'm kinda thinking you're feeding too much, also.

You might try adding a couple of spoonfuls of 100% pure canned pumpkin (not the pie mix) and a good size spoonful of Plain (live culture) yogurt to the food.

Works great for minor intestinal upsets. :D

[Judy Chrusch]

Hi Gome, people can give their oppinions but the prescription diets specially formulated for vet use are good for the reason they're put on them. Czar was on a special diet, z/d and it has worked beautifully. No one hates it more them me, trust me. I'd sooner have him on a raw diet or homecooked, but it isn't in the cards right now. Now he was switched to another prescription diet, against my better judgement, bc his stools just aren't right, ever since he was sick and my vet thinking he has/had ulcers. He's on a low residue diet which for the first time in months and months he has a normal BM and puts out less so for me I'm grateful. Even though their may some vets out their who are trying to make an extra buck by selling this type of food, I trust my vet, plus she also practices the holistic way and if she prescribes a special diet you darn well can believe it must work and must be for a very good reason. Some of the other foods have TOO many ingredients and you have to realize that these special diets are to help a dog not hurt them and they are very carefully put together. So please go with the advice of your vet, you can even get the oppinion of other vets but in the end, they do know what's best and it isn't up to any of us to tell you what kind of food to feed when your dog may have a specific problem which requires a special diet.

spidey, you're right on about the food and the reasons for it:)

I hope you get to the bottom of your dogs problems, listen to your vet and perhaps get another oppinion to put your mind to ease but I have spoken from experience and from someone who fed barf a year ago. Without those special diets Czar wouldn't be alive today , with that said, best of luck to you.

Judy

[Gome]

"I assume the diet in question is i/d?"

Yes it is i/d.

I am pretty certain that I wasn't over-feeding them Canidae. I was feeding them the amount based on the recommended portions per weight as stated on the back of the Canidae bag.

Thank you for eveyone's suggestions on different brands to try.

Since I have the bag of food I will try using it to see if it eases up on their problem. It seems that many of your replies agree that it can be an okay change from their regular diet to give their stomachs a rest...but not necessarily as a long-term permanent food.