Can you recommend a grain-free legume-free dog food please?

[stampsurprise]

I am currently feeding my terrier on Arden Grange as he reacts badly to wheat. I think he could be doing better though and Arden Grange has a lot of maize in it.

The vet told us he is a few pounds overweight. He will be 6 this year and gets walked about 2 to 2.5 miles a day and we play games too. We wfh and are always together.

I have been reading how a lot of grain-free foods are full of legumes - peas,lentils, chickpeas... apparently they can cause cardiac issues

I read on another forum that someone’s vet recommended sticking to the big manufacturers as the small boutique companies don’t use nutritional bets or feeding trials.

I would be okay with only rice and some potato though. I am struggling to find this however.

On a tight budget but would cut back on something else to buy DDog whatever he needs.

Tbh I am overwhelmed with it all and didn’t realise how many brands were on the market!

[quote LimitIsUp]I've just received this email from my dogfood suppliers in response to a query I raised with them:

Thank you for getting in touch and I hope you are having a lovely week. It's Leah here, one of the in- house Vet Nurses at Butternut 👋

Since the FDA report investigating the links between grain-free food and DCM was released in 2018, we've been paying a huge amount of attention to the topic.

"We completely appreciate your concern as a pet parent. As a company (and as pet parents ourselves) we pride ourselves on, first and foremost, cooking healthy, safe food for the dogs we feed.

Our co-founder, Dave, has taken the time to write a blog post about the FDA report outlining our formal response to its claims. You can find this here. The important part of this post is from an update in June 2020, where research made up of 150 studies concluded that there is no link between grain free diets and DCM.

The lentils and peas on average make up between 7-10% of our meals, depending on the recipe. We also soak our lentils before cooking them to make sure they are as digestible as possible.

I hope this helps to put you at ease and if you have any other questions, please feel free to get in touch. Enjoy your weekend!"

And this was the blog post referred to: butternutbox.com/blog/butternut-news/dcm-and-grain-free-diets[/quote]
@LimitIsUp thanks for this, I’ve been watching this thread all day, our dog is also a Butternut dog and so I know they have peas, carrots, lentils etc and so I was concerned!

Interestingly, she was always on Hills Z/D for Sensitive, but her stools were never 100% perfect, always a bit sloppy (sorry tmi). She’s been on Butternut for about 6 months now and all is excellent poo wise.

I’m still a bit confused though so going to keep watching this thread in case any more info is added!

I meant to say that it’s great that Butternut use experts with PhDs in pet nutrition. That’s very reassuring.

Now I’m researching sodium nitrite in dog food as that’s in Cesar apparently!

Just been playing on the Butternut site. Very useful, tells me my dog's calorific needs, but £3.20 a day ouch.

Oh dear Stamp, I fear sodium nitrite may be another can of worms.

I think the best supermarket cheap and cheerful wet food is Butchers. Had to dash off and check the ingredients, no sodium nitrite.

Oh no, this is awful to read . Originally had my dog on Lily's kitchen wet food; changed about 6 months ago to Sainsbury's hypo allergenic as dog has problems with itchy skin and I thought this may help. He has half and half dry and wet food . Occasionally also has Naturo or Harrington's as they have similar sounding ingredients. All
grain free with fairly high percentage of meat, but they all have potato and peas which I thought were ok for them .

We've recently had a blood test for dog come back with possible concerns for his liver having been monitored as he is on regular apoquel. He has to have another test in 3 months .

@MrsPernicious

Oh dear Stamp, I fear sodium nitrite may be another can of worms.

I think the best supermarket cheap and cheerful wet food is Butchers. Had to dash off and check the ingredients, no sodium nitrite.

Ooh that’s interesting! I will check that out for sure. My boy loves Cesar but I am sure I can Transition him onto something else.

I love my dog, he’s turned my life around but my goodness the extra worry and responsibility!

I can’t seem to work out what MY diet Should consist of haha 🤪

I'm a humanities / social science bod Stamp, so the science confuses challenges me too

Snooks71 - my dogs do very well on Butternut so I am happily reassured by their response. It is admittedly as MrsPernicious points out a bit pricey. Mine have been on it for a few months like yours, and we too now get good (firm, small) poos (previously huge and sometimes sloppy with the kibble we used)

What an interesting thread this is becoming

Thank you Stampsurprise - that is a surprise - I thought I was safe with Orijin. Hmm.

Well, hopefully getting the best of both worlds - mainly raw with 20-40% daily food Orijin and JR Pate used for training treats... Nope not prepared to train with raw!!!

But going to be more cautious around Orijin until Ive learnt more - I thought I could just happily use it whenever we went away... which hopefully might be soon again!!

@LimitIsUp

Snooks71 - my dogs do very well on Butternut so I am happily reassured by their response. It is admittedly as MrsPernicious points out a bit pricey. Mine have been on it for a few months like yours, and we too now get good (firm, small) poos (previously huge and sometimes sloppy with the kibble we used)

Agree @LimitIsUp it ain’t cheap, and we only have one dog, but she is 34kg and that pushes the pouch price per day up. One thing we’ve noticed massively is that her poos don’t stink - when on Hills they bloody reeked as soon as we went into the garden. I am in no way knocking Hills or similar because I don’t know the science behind these foods, I’m being anecdotal only. She’s a rescue who came to us with these issues and so that’s why I’m so interested.

Not another thing dogs shouldn’t have! It’s worse than human diets. I let mine eat raw sweet potato when I’m putting it in a recipe because the bloody internet says it’s good for him, and then you read something like this and think you had it all wrong! I’m very wary of raw food as I know someone whose dog got very ill from it.

I think maybe one thing you could possibly focus on is extending your terrier’s walks, though, if it’s overweight. 2 miles is half an hour brisk walking - I know from my own dog that you can cover less than a mile yourself while the dog gets miles of running around you, but could you look at walking further or using a dog walker?

Balance this up with over half the dogs in the UK being over weight.

Does a dog develop heart problems because it is over weight or because it has a less than optimal diet?

An increased proportion of French Bulldogs have heart problems. Is this because they have bad/over fashionable diets or because there are now 5X the number of the breed and breeding may be less than optimal?

DON'T PANIC and feed your dog the best diet you can manage.

Compared to obesity, legumes/potatoes are small fry.

I feed my spaniel this. I don't think it contains the things you mentioned. They do lots of different varieties so have a look. They do small packs too for £2 so you can try different ones and see what your dog likes www.millieswolfheart.co.uk/countryside-mix

@MaryLennoxsScowl

Not another thing dogs shouldn’t have! It’s worse than human diets. I let mine eat raw sweet potato when I’m putting it in a recipe because the bloody internet says it’s good for him, and then you read something like this and think you had it all wrong! I’m very wary of raw food as I know someone whose dog got very ill from it.

I think maybe one thing you could possibly focus on is extending your terrier’s walks, though, if it’s overweight. 2 miles is half an hour brisk walking - I know from my own dog that you can cover less than a mile yourself while the dog gets miles of running around you, but could you look at walking further or using a dog walker?

I know it’s so frustrating isn’t it? I hadn’t eaten eggs for years then recently started having the odd omelette only to wake up to another report about them being bad for the heart - I could scream!

Re the walking - yes great idea and certainly harmless. We have dog on long extendable lead and as you say he runs around a lot as we walk. We let him stop and sniff loads and I think because our walks can last up to an hour an a half that we are going for miles when in actual fact we’re not going so far.

Thanks for the tip - I shall now go on distance rather than time. I suppose it’s oksy to do this while he’s a little overweight? I’m thinking of his joints? The vet said it was only a couple of pounds. He doesn’t “look” overweight to my eyes.

@MrsPernicious

Balance this up with over half the dogs in the UK being over weight.

Does a dog develop heart problems because it is over weight or because it has a less than optimal diet?

An increased proportion of French Bulldogs have heart problems. Is this because they have bad/over fashionable diets or because there are now 5X the number of the breed and breeding may be less than optimal?

DON'T PANIC and feed your dog the best diet you can manage.

Compared to obesity, legumes/potatoes are small fry.

Yes, important points. Too much of any food leads to obesity and ill-health.

I used to have a BMI of 34 and now it’s 21. I used diet ready-meals from the supermarket. Yes, of course I could have done this in a healthier way but in my defence I had a chronic lung condition, always exhausted with depression and had bad portion control. Anyway the weight’s off and I’m sure it’s done wonders for my health despite all. As has getting my darling dog a few months into my diet.

I think it’s the treats that are the worst problem with us. I was saying to my DH the other day that I don’t remember giving our pets treats in the 70s and 80s. Now there are so many treats in the shops it makes your head spin.

Yesterday my dog was getting restless and interrupting my work mid- morning. I was right in the middle of a job so not ready to take him for his big walk. Usually I would let him out for a pee in the garden and give him a treat but instead we played fetch with him for 10 minutes and he was puffed out I am sure he got more fun out of that than a treat that lasts two seconds.

Just back from a 2.8 mile hike with the dog. This is in addition to his 20 minute morning toilet walk. Lots of rough terrain and rocks and he was bouncing through the long grass like a bunny. Well I am tired anyway

"I used to have a BMI of 34 and now it’s 21. "

That's seriously impressive!

@LimitIsUp

"I used to have a BMI of 34 and now it’s 21. "

That's seriously impressive!

Thank you it’s really helped my lungs not to carry the extra weight and I am able to do so much more. My lung condition developing and the steroids I was on helped me put on weight. I will always be on steroids they reckon but it’s down to 5mg/day now.