Kosmo's allergic reaction update

[arasara]

For all of you who were following my story of Kosmo's allergic reaction the other night, I finally found the cause of it.

He turned bright red again last night and the only thing that changed in his diet was : Royal Canin. I was surprised to see RC rated as a 2 star dog food on a dog food analysis chart as well.

Karlin posted it, it's here:

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

It's kinda scary to look at the ingredient list. . I'm not sure I feel comfortable feeding Kosmo a food with a bunch of ingredients which I can't even pronounce, lol.

Today has been red-belly free so far and I've packed up the RC to take it back to the store. Thank Goodness the only side effect that I know of was a red belly and scarlet lips.

I am thinking since that one obviously doesn't work for us that we're going to switch over to Wellness or Innova. I am really impressed with the ingredient list of Innova.

Keep your fingers crossed for better luck next time!!

[RockNRollCav]

My fingers are crossed for you! Good luck finding a good food!

[Nicki]

Sara, I'm glad you've sorted out what the problem is...Cosmo may be allergic to the ingredients, but it also may be a problem with the food, so perhaps 'phone the company with the batch number, to tell them.

[Karlin]

I've seen that review -- many good breeders and nutritionists would disagree. As the editors of the site note, the reviews are merely their own opinions. There was a different site that I really liked, which rated foods on the basis of quality of ingredients (eg human grade protein sources) and RC came out at the top in their reviews, with a small minus for the corn content. The grain is an issue for some dogs, but many foods have grains, from rice to corn to wheat, and lots of us feed dog biscuits with wheat content or rice to settle stomachs so I wonder why this fuss over it in kibble? So, it is a matter of finding what suits you and your dog best. Also an allergic reaction could be any one of many things added, from vitamins to 'natural' ingredients -- dogs like people react to as many 'good' foods as they do chemicals for example. It sounds like you have narrowed the reaction to a food, which is good that you know not to feed that one, but keep an eye on him anyway as it could be environmental as well.

Reagrding RC: I fed RC with excellent results for the dogs and it is the only thing I feed my cats -- on recommendation of many cat rescue people who know nutrition. I've rotated the dogs to James Wellbeloved for the time being as a change. I like Burns as well.

I take all review sites with a major grain of salt. It's good to get opinions from many places and not rely on one place especially as there's often no way of knowing how reliable any given site is or how authoritative. And to remember your mileage will vary with different products -- some dogs have terrible digestive problems with excellent foods that very much suit other dogs. Mine can eat about anything. I've never had them refuse a food.

I like to feed wholesome foods but I do think the whole diet thing is very overblown with people obsessing on ingredients (meanwhile I bet you will find the same folks eating foods covered in various additives themselves . Obsessing about the dog dish seems to be a way of shifting guilt ). Interestingly dogs now seem to have far more allergy and digestive problems than say two decades ago, even one decade ago -- the canine nutritionist Monica Segal was saying this elsehwere in relation to cavaliers -- yet a decade ago or more, most people fed the foods we now look down our noses at -- including supermarket foods.

Our pyrenees ate nothing but supermarket canned and dry food and table scraps through the 60s and 70s as that was ALL that was available to most people -- and never went to the vet once with a single problem. And she lived to a very old age for a pyr, and looked fabulous -- show quality dog with a beautiful coat, though she was not eating great food and was spayed! That is one reason why I mistrust a lot of the 'givens' of diet today, and claims of spays/neuters causing coat problems.

[Maxxs_Mummy]

Oh poor Kosmo glad you found out what was causing it Sara and hope you can find another food that suits him. It's a shame you don't have James Wellbeloved or Burns over there as both are hypoallergenic.