Bland diet questions

 Lies I have only used a 'bland' diet with Bugs a few times once for a few days and in your other post I told you he had some on/off problems for a few months and did it for a week.  I wasn't as careful or scientific as you are being (just my nature) about the prep so what I say may not be "correct" but it worked.

I think boiling and then straining the meat is just fine I don't think they need it boiled a second time really.  A tiny bit of grease (this will be miniscule) won't be a problem.  You may also boil chicken for a switch.  (unless they have a problem with chicken)

I made a pot of rice with extra water and just cooked it until all the water was gone.  I did 1 cup of dry rice with probably about 2.5-3 cups of water instead of the 2 cups that is says to do.  That lasted about 3 meals.  He got at least 1/2 lb of beef with each meal.  His normal meals are 1000 kcals each so less than that would not nearly be enough.  If I were you I would figure out what their normal kcals/meal and feed something at least in that range.

I think I read somewhere that if you have 36-48 hrs of normal poops with no meds you can go back to normal diet. When I did it for a week he had normal poops from the first day of this diet but I hung on and did it for a week because I was hoping that whatever was going on would be over for good.  He was having cow pie poop for 24 hrs once every few weeks or so.  He never has any poop issues so I thought he might have a bug or something.  He has been fine since

I hope that Kenya and Coke are enjoying their diet as much as Bugs - now everytime you brown ground beef or cook rice he paces around by his bowl waiting

I hope that is of some use!  Good luck

 I typically do a 50/50 mix and about the same number of cups of the mixture as they usually get of kibble (well, back when they ate that crap. LOL!).  No BMs for a while is pretty normal, I think the body does use every bit of it when they've had diarrhea, that happens with my guys and my old airedale Rush too.  When switching, I'd add 1/4 cup kibble to the bland food and watch the poops, then gradually increase the kibble and reduce the bland stuff.  HTH!

Liesje

I hate feeding them this, it doesn't seem like enough nutrients, but I guess if I add things that defeats the purpose of the "bland diet".

When I did the elimination diet for Sassy, I used only pork and buckwheat and did it for several weeks straight. I worried about the nutrition side of it too, but my vet and everyone else assured me that they can really do quite fine for awhile on a diet like this, so don't sweat it. I also used a 25% pork to 75% buckwheat ratio and felt it was out of balance, but she did fine on it (and loved it!!). I hope Coke and Kenya feel better soon, but don't stress over the bland diet. If you need to stick with it a little longer, then don't be afraid to do that too. It really is just giving their gut a chance to rest and a week or so of that isn't going to hurt them.

Good to know, Cathy.  On the GSD board they were suggesting two weeks!  I'll do it at least a week...

I use beef because neither of them have any issues with beef or rice (they eat Lamb and Rice kibbles and beef food roll).  Coke has issues with turkey, so I don't use chicken.  Plus it's easier for me to cook ground beef, and cheaper too I think.  DH and I eat chicken a lot but I hate ground beef so we save the chicken for ourselves.  They really love this "food", or they are starving!  I fasted them for a day before I started (when they had really bad diarrhea) and Kenya was nearly doing flip and whining while the beef was cooking.

Dogs that have been on a healthy balanced diet can handle "time off" for quite a while. I had a dog that ate nothing but white bread for a couple of months. He was an old guy with a temporary liver problem and my old vet was a very practically oriented person (the problem turned out to be a lead bread tie he had eaten). Anyway, dogs have reserves that can stand them in good stead for a very long time. The exception to this is the B vitamins, which are water soluble and gone every day. However, rice and beef both have a good selection of most of the important Bs. I just ran Ben's new diet through the spreadsheet and his is similar to yours, except fish instead of beef and potato instead of rice. I fussed with it a bit more because his stomach isn't terribly off and I plan to use this, or something like it, for the next several months. Anyway, the point I meant to make was that I've always just trusted the vet when they say, "do rice in this proportion and beef or chicken in this proportion" and figured the dog could handle it - it's more important to get the gi in gear. A fouled up system does not absorb nutrients well anyway. Today I sort of expected that I'd have to fool with Ben's diet for a while to get a long-term plan that worked. Instead, I was surprised that he needed only a couple of adjustments from his previous all-meat diet. He doesn't even have organ meat in this diet at the moment.

Thanks, I feel better knowing others have done the same thing.  I have been trying to put a few pounds ON both dogs, but I agree, I want their digestive systems back in order and want the food switched.  When I told the vets what food they were on and what I want to try, they said the new food has different "oils" so it would have been a harder switch (normally I just mix foods for a day or two and that's that) so they recommended the bland diet for that, even without the diarrhea problems.

I guess the nice thing about this diet is the lack of poop, and I've noticed that when they do poop and I miss it, the beetles break it down within a day or so.  I've heard from others with dogs on raw or homecooked that their poops also break down really fast.

 What are you switching too? Just curious, you don't have to say.

Oh I don't care, I'm not a food snob, lol.  I use whatever keeps them at a good weight with shiny coats, clear eyes/nose, and good poops.  They were on Canidae but the new formula was not agreeing with them.  Coke is sort of sensitive (no diagnosed allergies, just general sensitivity) so I'm going to try California Natural Lamb and Rice because it's a "limited ingredient".  The vet told me Canidae and Cal. Nat. uses different oils so they recommended also doing a bland diet to switch over.

 I use Cal. Nat Herring and Sweet potato for Maze because she has a nice sized list of allergies and she's devloped a sensitive stomach. When I switched her from Healthwise to Cal. Nat, she had a slight runny poop for a couple days but once her system adjusted to it, she's had no problems since. Unless DH feeds her to much peanut butter. Lol.

The food has kept her coat nice and shiny, and she's at a decent weight for her size. Overall I think it's a good food for a decent price

Liesje

Oh I don't care, I'm not a food snob, lol.  I use whatever keeps them at a good weight with shiny coats, clear eyes/nose, and good poops. 

 

  Because of Jessie's food allergies, she can't any of the super premium foods like Origen, Core, EVO, Instinct, etc. She was on some of the Eagle Pack Holistic foods and Nature's Variety Prairie but I've found that she does better on Nutro Lamb and Rice, Sensible Choice Lamb and Rice, and a prescription food by Royal Canin that is menhaden fish and rice. Her dandruff disappeared and her coat is thicker and shinier; the key for her is food high in linoleic acid, b vitamins, and zinc. It's very important to listen to your dog and feed what works.

  About the amount of meat to add to the rice; Monical Segal's home cooked recipes are about half meat and half other ingredients, so I think a 50-50 mix would be fine. Red meat is more nutritious than chicken (has more minerals) so it's probably better to stay with it as a protein source. For cooking the rice, use 3 cups of water for every cup of rice and cook it until it's very mushy.
 

Canidae's new formula has both canola and sunflower oil in it. If I'm not mistaken, Cal Nat uses sunflower oil as a fat source. Ben doesn't do well on any canola oil. It's hard for him to break ALA down into EFA and DHA.