# Anyone Feeding Canidae?



## bethany.cole2013 (Sep 28, 2012)

So, Sheba has been really itchy here lately since I switched her over to Purina's ProPlan. I've made sure to rule out fleas, and she doesn't have any dandruff. So, I'm fairly certain it's the poorer quality food that she had been eating. So after hearing some opinions on what I should feed, I'm wondering how many people actually feed their dogs Canidae here? I'm feeding her the lamb formula since that's the flavor of food that she seems to like the most. How well have your dogs done on Canidae and do you still currently feed it? Any pictures of your dogs before and after Canidae?


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Yes, ALS, with good results. No pictures. Her coat and skin are better.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Not any more. I had trouble with it. But I am feeding other stuff manufactured at diamond now, and they are doing good.


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## GSDBESTK9 (Mar 26, 2002)

We feed Canidae grain free, all our dogs do great on it.


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## bethany.cole2013 (Sep 28, 2012)

selzer said:


> Not any more. I had trouble with it. But I am feeding other stuff manufactured at diamond now, and they are doing good.


What problems did you have with it?


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## Pattycakes (Sep 8, 2010)

I feed the Canidae Salmon/potato, grain free and my dog does fine with it. I also mix it with BB Basics Salmon/potato.


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## Glamisfoxgurl182 (Jun 14, 2012)

I've got Gunnar on purina proplan right now. he doesnt seem to like those wierd shaped pieces of food in there. I tend to find those laying around his bowl. lol I want to switch him over to canidae. everytime we are at a race we get free samples from them and he gobbles it right up. I'm just curious whats the average cost of a bag of canidae?
Plus the BF races and if he finishes in the top 3 we get free food from them! so itsa win win


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## Packen (Sep 14, 2008)

I feed Canidae ALS, zero issues.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

bethany.cole2013 said:


> What problems did you have with it?


After the major menu-foods recall came out, I was on Nutro, and I had cans both of Nutro Ultra and Nutro Max that had the bad date codes. I only used them for Arwen when she was pregnant and while she was lactating. It was a litter of 14, but 6 fully grown pups came out dead, and I wasn't able to revive them. Arwen had gone on a hunger strike before whelping, and to get her to eat, I put the canned food with their dry Nutro. 

I weaned them on the dry nutro natural choice, and I had instances of the yellow bile barf, but I never considered the dog food. When all that came out in February/March 2007 I think, I switched to Canidae. I had my eye on Canidae, as it had good ingredients and was given 5 stars. 

After switching them over, which went pretty much ok, about 1 month later, I came home to a huge pool of blood in one of the kennels. I freaked out and rushed the otherwise animated and healthy dog to the ER. They sent me home with metranidozole and something else, and told me it was colitis. 

In the next couple of weeks, probably six of my eight dogs had attacks of colitis. I did a few things wrong. I put them on boiled chicken and rice. I used white rice, but then went and got brown rice for them. Trust me, when you have a dog spewing blood, it is NOT fun. When you have six dogs spewing pools of blood it is awful. 

But it got solid and I slowly transitioned back to the food, because it was a five star food, and it costed what I considered to be a fortune, and I thought it was probably ok. They were a bit thin at the end of the transition, so I started topping their food with some Raw Instict, Wellness Core, or Solid Gold barking at the moon. 

Pretty soon everyone seemed to be doing ok, except Whitney. Tori was thinnish, but she was a young shepherd. I weaned Babs' litter onto Canidae. But Whitney just did not seem to do well on it at all. Once a week or every other week she was having a colitis attack. She was starving. If I fed her more, she would have massive diarrhea and get skinnier. If I fed her less, she would get skinnier. I couldn't believe it was the food. I started testing her for things like EPI, and checking her for a host of other issues. 

Then they changed the recipe, and switches some of their operations over to Diamond, from Pied Piper. I had no idea they changed the recipe until I opened a bag and the kibble looked different. I didn't know about them switching manufacturers either. Uhg, but how much different would it be, ALS to ALS? The answer, A LOT! Massive colitis all around again. Uhg. Then Whitney and sometimes Tori, and sometimes Milla would have Colitis attacks every other bag I opened. I called the company, and they did not have any good answers and tried to blame everything else. Then they told me I should have switched them over slower. I was ticked. I switched them from ALS to ALS, and never knew there was a change. 

Every other bag I was having issues with, and I was going through two bags a week. My dogs had been at their ideal weight or slightly under, and they started losing weight, several pounds over seven months. 

Then it seemed like a got a run of bags -- I bought 10 40 pound bags at a time -- where the chicken meal was replaced with saw dust. Every one of my dogs lost 5-7 pounds and were looking downright bony. My vet threw up his hands and said we have tried everything, it has to be the food. Milla was 48 pounds at 16 months, and Ninja about 50. Whitney was over three and about 54 pounds, only she was as tall, though a little lighter boned then Jenna whose Ideal weight is 68-70 pounds. Someone here suggested Kumpi. 

Kumpi you send off for and is $50 for a 35 pound bag, and the first ingredient is cornmeal. They say nothing from China, and the corn is not GMO, but it isn't exactly a cheap alternative. At that point, I was past caring about ingredients though. I wanted something that would clean up the problems and give me solid poo and stop the bleeding and put weight on my girls. I heard corn would put weight on them, and I went ahead. 

The colitis attacks stopped overnight. After stopping Canidae, I had no more colitis. The people at Kumpi were helpful. They sent me some powder to put on the kibble and very slowly, my girls started to gain the wait. After running out of the powder, they continued to slowly gain weight. Poop was yellowish greenish mushyish, but formed. A little more than a year later when I took Whitney for her 4 year old rabies/distemper shots, she was 64 pounds, and the vet said she could gain maybe 1-2 more. 2 weeks later she dropped dead, she hemmorhaged somewhere in her digestive tract and she died. I failed her by allowing her to struggle for too long on food that wasn't working for her. 

Everyone seemed to be doing ok on the Kumpi, but they were not doing great on it. I decided that the ingredient list did not justify $50/bag delivered. They were a little thin, and their poop was not solid, more of a formed moosh. And no one was getting pregnant, for like two years. I switched them to 4Health which they did good on, and Babs had a litter of three puppies. And then I switched to Diamond Naturals which is where we are now. After switching I still wasn't sure that was the issue with conception, this spring, I bred three and got three litters. I don't know why, but I think that some lack of nutrition may have caused some infertility. I have good solid poop now. Poop is a big deal. If I over-feed they might get a little loose, but cutting down a little straightens that out. 

I will never feed Canidae again. I do not think that cause the infertility. But since switching I haven't had any problem with colitis. I did lose Whitney, but Whitney was always the most affected by the Canidae. Maybe Canidae has straightened out their problems. One of the ladies there told me that GSs and Great Danes seem to have the most trouble with the new formula. One of the sites that rates dog foods, said they keep their 5-star rating even though there have been number of complaints about the new formula.


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## bethany.cole2013 (Sep 28, 2012)

selzer said:


> After the major menu-foods recall came out, I was on Nutro, and I had cans both of Nutro Ultra and Nutro Max that had the bad date codes. I only used them for Arwen when she was pregnant and while she was lactating. It was a litter of 14, but 6 fully grown pups came out dead, and I wasn't able to revive them. Arwen had gone on a hunger strike before whelping, and to get her to eat, I put the canned food with their dry Nutro.
> 
> I weaned them on the dry nutro natural choice, and I had instances of the yellow bile barf, but I never considered the dog food. When all that came out in February/March 2007 I think, I switched to Canidae. I had my eye on Canidae, as it had good ingredients and was given 5 stars.
> 
> ...


Wow. That sounds like a horrible ordeal to go through. I know that some dogs do better on some foods and some do better on others. I've started Sheba out slowly on the Canidae ALS and so far so good. She eats it, but she doesn't scarf it down. Which is fine with me, because then she won't have problems from eating too fast. It's only been a full day that she's been on it and she hasn't stopped the itching yet. I'm actually giving her a warm oatmeal bath today and then also going to try giving her a bit of Benadryl and see if that helps any at all. Also, yesterday when I came home from getting the Canidae, she had been nawing profusely at herself; I could tell she had, because her fur was so ruffled. She's always gotten a little upset when I leave to go somewhere, so is it possible that her itching gets worse when she's nervous? Kind of like people having ticks and twitches when they get nervous?


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## doggiedad (Dec 2, 2007)

i switch my dogs kibble often. one month it's this brand
next month it's another brand. i do the samething with his
canned fod.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

What did your vet say about the itching and chewing on herself? If it is a food allergy, and that is why you switched, then you needed to go with an LID food. Canidae ALS has 4 different proteins and several other ingredients. It will take at least 2 weeks before you see a major difference in her skin and itching. Are you giving any fish oil? Are you humidifying the air?


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## bethany.cole2013 (Sep 28, 2012)

Jax08 said:


> What did your vet say about the itching and chewing on herself? If it is a food allergy, and that is why you switched, then you needed to go with an LID food. Canidae ALS has 4 different proteins and several other ingredients. It will take at least 2 weeks before you see a major difference in her skin and itching. Are you giving any fish oil? Are you humidifying the air?



I haven't had a chance to take her to the vet, yet. It will have to be Saturday before I can, as I work during the day through the week. Luckily our vet is open on Saturday mornings. I'm fairly certain that it's a food allergy, because she doesn't have fleas and I am humidifying the air. I'm not currently giving any fish oil, but I have contemplated getting some coconut oil as I've hear that is very good for their skin and coat. Also, what is an LID food?


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## breyer08 (Jul 4, 2012)

bethany.cole2013 said:


> I haven't had a chance to take her to the vet, yet. It will have to be Saturday before I can, as I work during the day through the week. Luckily our vet is open on Saturday mornings. I'm fairly certain that it's a food allergy, because she doesn't have fleas and I am humidifying the air. I'm not currently giving any fish oil, but I have contemplated getting some coconut oil as I've hear that is very good for their skin and coat. Also, what is an LID food?


LID = Limited Ingredient Diet. Usually it's a food that doesn't have grains in it, since grains (especially corn) are generally the main culprit behind dog food allergies. I switched Ava off of Science Diet (which she was on when she came to us as a baby) because of her constant itching and licking, and the grain-free food worked wonders.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

LID has only one protein and one carb source, such as fish and sweet potato. food allergies are actually not all that common. It's more likely to be environmental, especially with one of the worst pollen season on record that we're having.

Look for some local RAW honey and start giving her 1 teaspoon per day


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## EchoGSD (Mar 12, 2010)

I fed Canidae ALS for years, 2 GSDs, sheltie, and rottie mix. The rottie mix started having some issues (itchy, runny eyes, etc) so I switched her to Taste of the Wild grain free. She did MUCH better, but all the other dogs were fine on the Canidae.


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## pets4life (Feb 22, 2011)

doggiedad why do you switch every month


isnt that dangerous?


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## bethany.cole2013 (Sep 28, 2012)

So an update on how Sheba and Grace are doing on the Canidae. Sheba is still pretty itchy....not as bad as what she had been, but still itching none the less. Grace is doing great on the Canidae ALS. She's gaining weight like she should be, her coat is looking ten times better than what it was. I'm considering switching them both over to Blue Buffalo's LID food and I will be adding a humidifier to the house as my sinuses are also going crazy right now. I'm also considering adding some coconut oil to their diet and seeing if that helps with Sheba's itching. The vet said that he didn't think it was necessarily food allergies she's having problems with but may just be sensitive skin problems. So, I'm fairly certain that switching her to a high quality LID food will do the trick for her.


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## K9Drover (Oct 2, 2008)

That was very painful to read, I cant imagine what that must have been like to live through that. I hope I never have to.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Interesting article on the itchies

Canine Allergies and Your Dog's Health - Whole Dog Journal Article


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## bethany.cole2013 (Sep 28, 2012)

So since I last updated you guys, I've switched the girls over to Natural Balance Fish & Sweet Potato L.I.D. food. Sheba is doing MUCH MUCH better now. She itches way less and her coat is much shinier and silky and her skin is also much better. I haven't added any coconut oil or anything. Just been feeding the Natural Balance and she's doing MUCH better on the LID food. Her tan coloring on her legs is also much brighter. Think I've found the magic potion lol.


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## WGSD Mom (Nov 11, 2012)

I fed Canidae, and my puppy had major problems with this food. After trying almost every grain, soy, and alfalfa free food on the market, I started her on raw. She is eating me out of house and home, but the itching, chewing and scratching herself bald has stopped. She gets 2 lbs of chicken a day along with sweet potatoes and some added vitamins and minerals.


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