Sensitive Dog Food: Having a pup with a sensitive stomach can be a nightmare. Best Dog Food for Sensitive Stomach 2024
Whilst vomiting and having diarrhoea are the most common symptoms, there are others such as excessive fatigue, loss of appetite, reduction in water intake, looking depressed/uncomfortable, or trying to combat reflux.
The problem with our furry friends is that they cannot tell us what’s wrong, and without the proper tests and diagnostics, we can only enumerate a few things that are key to digestion.
It goes without saying, if your pet is in severe distress, you should make an appointment with your vet.
But, what if we can have a look at what can be causing recurring stomach problems?
At its core, the sensitive stomach issue centres around the dog’s bowels or gastrointestinal tract being inflamed on a recurring basis.
So, the first question we need to address is, what causes inflammation in dog’s stomachs?
1. Grains & cereals: Rice, brown rice, wheat, corn, soya, white potato, yeast, sugar…
Contrary to some vet’s advice, we strongly advise against feeding your dog rice or any other high glycemic carbohydrate.
Your dog’s GI tract is short and tough. Anatomically, they are biologically designed to eat meat, offal and bone, not cereals as they cannot chew food.
Feeling your dog a food with rice or any of these ingredients will only make the problem worse.
2. Hard to digest meats: Lamb, beef, game…Are incredible meat sources, but take longer to digest than white meats such as turkey or chicken. Fish is also a good choice for dogs with sensitive stomachs.
3. If you are feeding a dry food. Make sure the food does not contain any of these vague ingredients such as ‘’meat meal’’, ‘’corn, wheat, barley, potato…’’. These foods, whilst labelled ‘’sensitive stomach’’, are full of the very ingredients that are causing the problem.
Irritable bowel syndrome, or inflammatory bowel disease are not created overnight.
It can be the product of feeding the wrong diet to your dog for a long period of time. Think about it this way, if you ate pasta and bread 5 times per day and had a sensitive stomach, would those foods make the problem better or worse?
Same with your dog.
Other solutions to stomach inflammation:
Fast the dog for 48h, add a natural bone broth to aid hydration.
Add a little fibre to their diet. Read our article on best fibre for dogs and cats.
Kefir: a natural solution that works really well to improve gut microbiome.
Tree Barks Powder/Slippery Elm: Slippery Elm protects the stomach by creating a mucus type film around it. Us Humans can have it too!
Psyllium, oregano can also aid digestion.
We do not recommend you start giving your dog several products all at once. Please be sensible.
Do not overload the dog with different things.
Choose a food free from inflammatory ingredients (contact us for more guidance), and make sure the dog isn’t experiencing something more serious like hyperlipoproteinemia, which is the inability for the pancreas to break down fats.
Stomach problems can easily develop into pancreatitis, diabetes, and more chronic health conditions.
