Is this normal for most (medium sized) dogs? My dog was given “Gravy Train” dog food for about a week and…?
My dog is a blue healer/golden retriever mix so she’s a medium sized dog and we got her the gravy train dog food for about a week or two and it made her really gassy and gave her horrible diarrhea. When we stopped giving this food to her she got better. Has this happened to anyone else???
Please, no rude comments.
Thanks for your answers in advance!
September 29th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
I don’t think this would apply to just medium dogs. Actually, I guess you would say she’s lucky to be medium size because a smaller dog like a Chihuahua could have even more serious problems. The food itself could have had an ingredient that made your dog sick or was allergic to it. I’m glad you switched!
September 29th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
OMG I didn’t know they stilll made that crap. That stuff is terrible.
September 29th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
yes gravy train dog food is bad for my dogs as well
September 30th, 2010 at 12:19 am
change her food, would you eat something that made you gassy nad horrible diarrhea?
September 30th, 2010 at 12:41 am
Switch foods. There are so many on the market. Plus U can cook for the dog yourself. I cook for 5 dogs everyday. I use rolled oats as the base and add lots of veggies and fish broth. Rice and all kinds of cereals can be mixed with mackerel. U can get recipes off the Internet.
September 30th, 2010 at 1:36 am
That generally means that your dog is either allergic or very sensitive to something in that food. Try a different brand and if that keeps happening you should look at the ingredients in each of those foods to try to determine what they have in common. Then you find a food that doesn’t have that ingredient. I have a golden retriever and he was allergic to his food, so we switched him to Solid Gold (which is a pretty good, more holistic, less grain, food) and gave him capsules of salmon oil and within 2 weeks his skin and hair were wonderful and he wasn’t gassy or itchy. Goldens tend to be prone to allergies. Gravy Train is not known for it’s fabulous ingredients and has had food recalls, so do some research on whatever food you plan on feeding her.
September 30th, 2010 at 2:34 am
Its normal for any dog when fed a crappy food such as gravy train.
1st. Ingredient Corn
2nd. Soybean meal
3rd. beef and bone meal
4th. Animal fat
5th Animal Digest
1st and 2nd are some of the most common fillers dogs have issues with
4th and 5th. Non specific animal source. Guess what that means? Animals from the slaughterhouse unfit for HUMAN consumption, roadkill, euthanized pets and animals from other less than savory sources that have been rendered and processed into use for animal feed and pet food.
There are MUCH better foods on the market for your dog. ALWAYS read the labels.
Specified meat should always be the first on the list as ingredients are listed by how much of it is in the food from highest to lowest. No unspecified meat sources, avoid fillers like corn, soybean meal and other fillers.
September 30th, 2010 at 3:21 am
First any time you change a dogs diet expect some gas and runny stool for a bit, it take the digestive system awhile to adapt to a new diet. So a slight change with a new food would be normal. Here is some info: see #8
http://www.veterinarypetcare.com/dogfood.html
Now having dealt with the change of diet issue, lets talk about ‘gravy train’
Please look into finding a better dog food for your dog. Most commercial ‘grocery store’ feed are horrible.
Please read this to learn more about choosing the right dog kibble:
http://happydoggyblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/what-is-a-quality-dog-kibble/
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Ask-Veterinarian-700/Changing-dog-food.htm
When you feed a good quality kibble and have given your dog time to adjust to it you will actually find you dog makes less poop. This is because they can digest and utilize more of the kibble and less comes out the other end as waste.
September 30th, 2010 at 3:53 am
Gravy Train contains corn and soy as the first two ingredients,both of which can cause excessive gas and diarrhea in some dogs. the artificial coloring can also cause intestinal upset in some animals. I bought it for my dogs years ago and it gave them mushy,red poop.I never fed it to them again. That being said,a lot of dogs eat it and do fine on it or it wouldn’t still be on the market.
Ingredients:
Corn, soybean meal, beef and bone meal, animal fat, animal digest, salt, cellulose gum, caramel color, potassium chloride, bone phosphate, choline chloride, minerals (ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, manganous oxide, copper sulfate, calcium iodate, sodium selenite), pantothenate, riboflavin supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, thiamin mononitrate, vitamin A supplement, folic acid, biotin, vitamin B12 supplement, vitamin D3 supplement), dried beef stock, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 2, BHA (preservative), tocopherols (preservative), citric acid (preservative).
September 30th, 2010 at 4:49 am
I bet it’s happened to plenty of people. No surprise considering Gravy Train is an absolutely terrible quality dog food.
Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to the dump cheap leftovers and things that aren’t safe for human consumption (from human food processing plants) into their foods. Will it kill your dog? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot.
Corn is a low quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets.
Thankfully, there are some excellent dog foods being made these days that include organic, human grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption.
Examples of low quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Pedigree, Kibbles n’ Bits, Beneful, Ol’Roy.
Examples of high quality foods to look for: Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Canidae All Life Stages, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature’s Variety Prairie, Nature’s Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix, Timberwolf Organics.
Although the high quality foods are more expensive, you’re getting what you’re paying for. Less filler material and higher quality ingredients means more concentrated nutrients… this means you typically need to feed far less of the high quality food than you would of the low quality one. Which also means less poop!
Seriously on a budget? Two of the most affordable of the higher quality foods would be Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul and Canidae All Life Stages.
Before following your vet’s food recommendation, keep in mind that vets get /very/ little nutritional training during their schooling. Besides that, what training they /do/ get is usually sponsored or taught by… you guessed it, the crappy pet food companies! They also often get kickbacks from the companies for pushing these products at their clinics (Science Diet, Royal Canin etc.)
A great option is to go with an entirely grain-free diet. Many of the high quality foods now put out grain-free formulas. Some good grain-free diets include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature’s Variety Instinct, Orijen, Horizon Legacy, Canidae Grain Free All Life Stages, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now!, GO Natural Grain Free, Sold Gold Barking At The Moon, Ziwipeak, and Taste of the Wild.
Some pretty decent foods can even be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness, Solid Gold, Natural Balance, Eagle Pack Holistic Select, Blue Buffalo, Castor & Pollux Organix, Pinnacle, and Halo.
If you can’t find a food, most of the high quality dog food brands have websites with store locators on them that will help you find the store closest to you which supplies their products. Simply type the dog food brand’s name into Google, go to their website, and type your zip code into their store locator.
Another option, if you can’t find anywhere around you that sells good foods, is to order your pet food online. Here’s an excellent place to do so: http://www.petfooddirect.com/store/
Remember that foods should be switched gradually (mixing the new slowly in with the old over the period of about week or so), especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies. For example:
Days 1 & 2: 75% old food, 25% new food
Days 3 & 4: 50% old food, 50% new food
Days 5 & 6: 25% old food, 75% new food
Day 7: 0% old food, 100% new food
Another option for feeding dogs is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted:
http://www.rawfed.com/ (RawFed)
http://www.rawlearning.com/ (Jane Anderson’s Raw Learning Site)
http://rawfeddogs.net/ (Raw Fed Dogs)
http://www.rawmeatybones.com/ (Raw Meaty Bones)
http://rawfed.com/myths/preymodel.html (Raw Prey Model Diet Vs. BARF Diet)
http://community.livejournal.com/rawdogs/profile/ (Raw Dogs Livejournal Community, excellent raw feeding information on the profile page and overall helpful community for raw feeding questions)
http://www.rawfed.com/myths/index.html (Myths About Raw Feeding)
Also remember that freefeeding (leaving food down) is the fast lane to canine obesity. Make sure to have scheduled feeding times loosely based on the feeding guidelines on your dog’s food. Adult dogs are typically fed two meals a day.
More on dog food:
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=main (Learn how to determine the quality of your dog’s food.)
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/ (Dog food reviews. Four stars is a decent food, five stars is a great food, and six stars is an excellent food.)
Darksong~