# Digestive puzzle resolved



## Marymary (Jul 13, 2019)

Hi all, great to find a forum dedicated to our beautiful Golden Retrievers and their care. Mine is my second retriever, both of them beautiful loyal gentle and perceptive as I know all yours are. This one is now thirteen, and came to us at 10 months from a family who didn't want him any more.

Anyway here we are, still unravelling the story of his "baggage" and making up for his sad start.

One of his problems was digestive. We have a lovely wild garden which is full of birds along with the bees, butterflies and flowers. Our dog is partial to the odd garden snack in terms of bird poop in all varieties: I discourage him but to no avail. Last year he had constant diarrhoea through the Summer and lost a lot of weight. Because of his age I feared we were going to lose him, and so I was determined to fight his battle somehow and win.

I had become suspicious of many bought dog foods since he would have frequent digestive flare-ups whether or not he was allowed to stay out in the garden, such as winter time. I started narrowing the field and refining his diet, but in the end the shop-bought varieties were getting more and more expensive, and I was getting nowhere. I reasoned we must have two problems: food allergy/sensitivity and bird poop.

One day at the end of my tether I sought a "higher power", so to speak, my heart breaking for my beloved canine friend. Into my mind came a phrase "gluten free pasta". I thought about it and wondered if indeed he was gluten sensitive. Worth a try.

I began to cook all his food at home, and now he has minced turkey cooked until tender in plain water, on top of GF pasta, three meals of moderate size per day. 

Amazingly, since this time last year he has put all his weight back on and looks wonderful for his age once more. He still has the odd flare up with the bird poop if he gets it, but that could be related to the gluten thing too, since the birds eat wheat seed in the gardens, and also bread thrown out for them, so a residue must be in the poop.

I felt this story was worth telling, in case anyone here is battling with the same problem.

Regards, Marymary


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## CAROLINA MOM (May 12, 2009)

Welcome, great to hear you able to solve your boy's digestive problem. 
Hope you'll share pictures of him with us.


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## daisy1234 (Jun 17, 2018)

I am glad you figured it out. I have a Beagle who had very active allergy flare ups when she was younger. I was going crazy trying to figure it all out. One of the things that seemed to irritate her was eating rabbit poop. I mentioned it to my Vet and she thought it was very interesting. It could be she was allergic to the grasses the rabbits ate. Well we put up chicken wire all along our huge wood fence to keep the rabbits out. This helped a lot but not entirely. I found an allergy test that tested their fur and saliva and gave trigger items. Well wouldn't you know she was allergic to grasses and grains as well as fish oil that my Vet had me giving her to help with her allergies. Ugh! Who knew?! I finally researched many food brands and found one that didn't have any of her trigger items. She is 100% better. She is one of the dogs that needs to be on grain free foods due to her allergies.


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## JDandBigAm (Aug 25, 2008)

Welcome to the forum. I'm glad your dog has recovered. Jonah, my golden was having digestive problems too and he was a young adult at the time. After multiple vet visits, I took him to a specialist and he did a colonoscopy on Jonah. He was stage 2 irritable bowel disease. I switched to a grain free home cooked food and with the help of Jonah's holistic vet he is symptom free. We introduced oatmeal in to his diet several years ago and he easily digests it so I have kept this as his grain part of the home cooking. It is a lot of work to home cook and multiple week vacations are a pain with all the frozen food packets, ice cooler, and dry ice just for him but I know I won't have to be concerned about a food recall.


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