Anyone have any issues with Natural Balance dog food?? - Page 6

Ok, it's your dog.

Of COURSE it's my dog!  What else woudl it be? 

The itch I have as a single lady needs a different type of scratchin'! 

Ok and I'm sure you also know that about 75% of dogs with food intolerances also have inhaltion allergies or will go to develop them in the near future. Good luck.....

There are a lot of things blooming her at the moment, and Star is showing (almost no) allergy symptoms...    Her previous bad bout of scratching and licking was during the middle of the winter. She licked her belly until it was oozing and crusty in places, and had turned purple! 

Jyl, I checked the bag, and it's an old one: 28 lbs., and an expiry date of July 2014. I suspect I got it for a cheaper price, as it was so close to expiry.  I'm going to talk to the people at Global about it, and see what else they can find me with a limited ingredient diet (no chicken), and hope it doens't cost an arm and a leg.

I'll also be watching carefully to see if the new bags (if they choose to order any in) are only 26 lbs. This one was made in California, so no hope of the Canadian bags being different.

Molds are around all the time. If  you have any houseplants, you might want to think about covering the soil with a layer of charcoal pellets, the type that is used in aquarium fiters. Dust mites never go away either.

I woudn't wish an atopic dog on my worst enemy. It never ends.  About the time you get one thing identified and under control, another allergen surfaces and you're back to square one. When I had my GS skin tested, he reacted to every pollen and mold common to the area plus dust mites.  

"House" plants (the geraniums I overwinter) went outside 2 days ago! Spring is FINALLY here! 

Her breeder tells me her dad had 'yucky ears' his whole life...  The inbreeding in his ped. might provide a clue as to why. I'm finding out the immune system is one of the first things to be screwed by too much inbreeding (linebreeding)!

You darned GSD people and your blaming everything on inbreeding and linebreeding LOL. What about the many mutts with allergies and my 2 atopic GSD's with no common ancestors in 10 generations? I agree that it is genetic, but no dog needs to be closely bred to have allergies. Inbreeding and linebreeding on allergy free dogs will up the odds of breeding more allergy free dogs. Of course you might get some three legged dogs with one blind eye in the process

I'm not sure what "yucky" ears are, may or may not be a signalment that you dog inherited a messed up immune system from her sire. Maybe yeast infection or chronic bacterial infection which do seem to go hand-in-hand with atopy.

No matter what the cause or how a dog inherits a compromised immune system, two thing are always a fact - do use the dog for breeding and it will never end unless you get very, very lucky..

Yup, genetics DO play a big role! I have an e-friend with an beagle that is so severely allergic that it's nearly died more than once. It has cost her thousands and thousands of dollars in vet bills.

Turns out the sire has produced more than one pup with the same sort of problems. One even had to be euthanized due to the severity of the allergies.

Yet the breeder keeps on studding him out!   

I have to agree with Blitzen. The test that Jean Dodd offers has helped me figure out what my dog can and not eat. So far I have seen a great improvement.... he no longer has yeasty ears and feet and his anus is no longer red and irritated.... and the best part is he has normal poops.. The $280 I spent on the test, I feel, was WELL WORTH IT... The best food and the most expensive food isnt going to help if there is something in it that the dog is allergic too.

As for Natural Balance... I will never feed that food to my dogs or cats again! I just will not take the chance of it making my dogs sick again. I also did a search online and there are alot of people commenting about how there dogs have gotten sick on Natural Balance within the last years.... since Del Monte took over. I think the quality control of the food has gone WAY down. When I did the search online there were a few people that mentioned about the same issues that Sunsilver mentioned...hmmmmm.... so your case of the dark colored poops isnt "issolated" .

Hi Sunsilver, Sorry to hear your girl is struggling with skin issues. It's so hard because is can come from a number of sources. As you know Nemo HAD a number of skin issues in part because the swarfs simly don't make enough of some crucial hormones. However, I also figured out he is allergic to flax as are many dogs. Check your food labels. Almost all dog foods have swithced from putting fish oil in the food to flaxseed or flaxseed oil - for onre reason and one reason only it's significantly cheaper. It allows them to claim there are Omega Fats in the food which are so essential to life BUT the reality is dog do not process flax  so even if they are not allergic to it they are simpley not getting the Omega fats which they need for skin and brain and health.

There are a few formulas that you can still find with fish oil (Canidae, NutriSource , One of the Evo's) . You might want to try that - it's one of those won't hurt might help things. Also as a mentioned in another post not long ago I found that for Nemo COq10 has  been absolutely essential for his skin and hair. After a very bad patch where I had run out of the COq10 and forgot to refill it ( off getting new knees for me) I got him back on it but with a slightly different routine from before. He gets 100 mg of Ubiquinol (water soluable COq10 more bioavail and therefore more expensive) in the am and 100 mg of Tru nature Coq 10 in the evening. ( as well as his regular supps including fish oil and occasional zinc, selenium, dhea, vit d, natural e etc). We cleared the skin yuckies and for the first time in his life he actually has a normal coat.

Finally have you tried giving your girl Quercetin, Its a bioflavanoid that had produced excellent results in humans when used for allergies. It reduces the inflamation in the mast cells which are the ones that get inflamed with histamine. It also turns out to be mutagenic and is being used in a number of cancer protocols and in formulations that hope to prevent cancer from developing. The nice part if it works for her is that it gets you off the hamster wheel of steroids, bacterial overgrowth, antibiotics, fungal and yeast overgrowth which ends up being as or more destructive than the original allergy.

Jus curious have you tried either an elimation diet or a raw diet with her? ( raw helped Nemo thru the worst patch, now he is primarily on dry & canned with ocassional raw. The advantage for me is his small size. Don't think I could have afforded it for a bigger dog but on the other hand it's cheaper than meds, shampoos etc) BTW for those of you with itchy red dogs in that other thread we also talked about how to ease that. Two of my favorites wwere tea (RedRose) baths or TGEL shampoo baths.