limited ingrediant/high quality/good for skin?

I use California Natural LIDs (lamb or chicken).  Only down-side so far is they sometimes get smelly gas.  Otherwise they love the food, coats look amazing, dogs are healthy, poops are normal.

For a bland or elimination diet, I use cooked white rice and boiled ground beef.  I boil it to get all the grease/fat at the top, then put it in a strainer running hot water over it, then boil a little longer and strain it again.  I use a 50/50 mix of rice to meat, but my vet recommends 1 part meat to 3 parts rice.

She did the chicken and rice, with a touch of cottage cheese. Origionally, the vet said they'd re-introduce the origional food (BB) after a few days, then changed his mind and wanted to put her in SD-ID for 2 weeks...guess he makes more money that way.

Either way - the dog wont eat ID, canned or dry, so that wasn't an option. All her blood work (including the snap test for pancreatitus), fecal and urine came back normal. Which is why we're thinking food allergy/intolerance.

I'll mention the Cali Naturals. I read about Natural Balance Allergy foods somewhere too. Thoughts on that, anyone?

Some of the Natural Balance formulas have changed recently.  I know of a couple of dogs here who are having problems with it now.

I would try Cal Natural if it were one of my dogs.

erica1989

I read about Natural Balance Allergy foods somewhere too. Thoughts on that, anyone?

I've used NB for the last few years with Sassy and she's an allergy nightmare. We'd been using the duck & potato all this time but the changed it (improved it?) and she had a bad flare-up of itching. We've got her on the NB Venison and Potato now and she's doing much better. I use both the kibble and canned.

 BF's parents' boxer does spectacularly on Natural Balance. We still have no idea what he's allergic to (chicken and rice are strong candidates, but he did poorly on fish-based kibbles as well, so..?), but on the NB he doesn't have the explosive diarrhea that he had on the 4 other specialty kibbles we had him on.

Plus, his coat looks amazing - very soft and shiny. And he gets zero supplements, other than what he scrounges from the compost pile. 

Not sure about any recent changes, it'd be worth looking into for sure, but NB has worked very well for BF's family. Particularly since it's so easily available (they get it at Petco).

Another one that she could try is Wellness Simple Solutions. They have duck, lamb and salmon formulas. Here's a link:

http://www.wellnesspetfood.com/dog_wellness_simple_food_solutions_index.html

Thanks guys- I will file these away! The dog is back on her Blue - and doing great. Not sure what caused the issue - but all is well at the moment!!!

yea - we have no clue what it was. she eats a lot of things in her yard (bark, bugs, etc) xray showed no obstruction, and blood work came back great. So - must have just been an upset tummy issue. Vet did say she has an enlarged organ (can't remember which one.. liver? pancreas? I don't remember) but he wasn't concerned.

 Ari is queen of vomiting.  It could have been a fluke thing that your friends dog had.  It could be a problem with an organ - not necessarily something serious however.

As for a simple diet, we've fed Ari California Natural after a couple of months of bringing her home.  She does well on the lamb and chicken variety.  She can't have the fish though, oooooh booooy did that cause some interesting bowel movements and gas.

Ari's coat is fantastic. It's got a nice texture and is very shiny.  In fact, it's usually the thing people first compliment her on (that or how unbelievably crazy she is lol).  We *do* on occasion throw some raw chicken giblets and necks, berries, egg, cottage cheese in her diet, but it's sporadic.