Malnourished Boxer running out of ideas

[fortifiedwithtea]

Boxer bitch will be 4 in October. We are first time dog owners. We thought getting KC registered dog would ensure a healthy dog, how wrong could we be!

she is allergic to everything environmentally and food. We have had her allergy tested and tried allergy therapy, cost hundreds and didn’t work.

She also has chronic pancreatitis. One major flair up.

we are feeding her the game variety of Butternut box. She is having 3 pouches a day. Been on it a decent length of time but now she has started to drop weight again. Poo is black. Blood tests reveal its not pancreatitis those levels are high end of normal. Weighs 23kg, looks very skinny.

Daughter (24) considers her , her dog but my DH pays for all food and vet care.

Daughter asked vet for a print out of most recent blood test. Basically results show dog is malnourished. Vet says because she is allergic to the meat her body is not absorbing the nutrients.

what do we do now? The dog’s health is affecting our daughter’s mental health. She is obsessed and worries about the dog all the time to an extreme degree. Daughter wants to refer dog to a specialist. I put my foot down. We can’t afford a Noel Fitzpatrick type vet. When I say we have paid out £1000’s I am not exaggerating. Daughter thinks the dog will waste away in front of our eyes to the point she will have to be pts. I think we just need to find a way to get a few more calories into her.

anyone got any suggestions?

What medication is she on?

UPDATE:

Hello all, 👋 its been awhile since I lasted posted and this is an update

Well things got worse before they got better. Skinny dog did not cope well in the last heat wave. Daughter went to pieces even phoned the KC vet line. Readers this is the doggie equivalent of 111 they read a script and tell you to phone your vet. Which she did whilst we were out. Poor bugger got a phone call at 11.00pm on a Saturday night. Not surprisingly he said wait until morning but thought she just sounded hot. Dog got seen by vet Monday morning and yep just hot and skinny.

I did a google search home cooked recipes and there was actually a useful site that had about 12 recipes that were easy to adapt.

By selecting all the foods that she can eat we have been cooking fresh for her every day. My word the difference! She’s lively, playful as she should be for a young dog. Bright eyes and glossy coat. And she has put on weight. Now I would describe her as slim , would benefit from another kilo but definitely not skinny anymore.

She’s still itchy but not like she was.

In short Butternut Box is expensive crap.

Absolutely not, if the dog has pancreatitis, eggs would be the worst option. Low fat foods are a must, lean meats like chicken are best but chicken is a pretty common protein allergen for dogs. Hydrolysed foods are also a bit wank, 40% of dogs still react to the hydrolysed chicken liver proteins and that’s what they put in them (pretty sure they just want to feed chicken to every dog no matter what, keeps their bottom line). There are foods with novel proteins, such as carnilove’s reindeer dog food, which has shown to have marked success with most dogs with protein allergies. Carnilove is expensive, but if you’re shelling out that much for vet bills, it might be worth a shot, and they don’t source protein from multiple animals, where, other brands, even if the bag might say “lamb and rice” for instance, they may source some things from other animals cheaper and don’t have to declare below a certain percent, even though that percent is well above threshold for allergies in most cases.
Otherwise, ocean white fish might work, they tend not to use mammal proteins in fish based foods, but you should check out any manufacturers thoroughly before buying the food, just in case.

Well done on looking after him so well. Great to hear he's feeling better

My dog is allergic to chicken and used to have severe colitis. He's been fine for two yrs now. He gets 5% fat boiled minced pork lamb or beef with boiled mixed veg and potato mixed with oat bran and Lily's Kitchen kibble (varietie which contain no chicken or grain). He can also eat fish and gets tinned mackerel and sardines instead of meat sometimes.