Bulldogs World

It's clear how devoted you are to her and she sure is pretty. I don't have any good advice to give because I too am going nuts with trying to find the right food for my Tuffy who suffers from food sensitivities but wanted to wish you luck. I'm sure someone on this board will be of help to you!

My girl Audrey is my first bulldog also. She was on Royal Canin puppy for her first year. She did fine at first, no gas or other issues, then she started with the yeast issues close to her first birthday. They seemed to very quickly get worse and worse. She was scratching her face on everything, licking her feet constantly, her face and feet smelled like Smart Food Popcorn, and she got a very stubborn ear infection that would NOT go away. She was also vomiting a few times a week. I knew I had to switch her off puppy food, and decided to try grain free. I waited til after she recovered from her spay, then switched her slowly to Taste of the Wild. She threw that up more often than kept it down. I had been leaning towards raw but was still balking at the whole idea of it. So, I read and read everything I could find, and decided to just try it. I did pre-packaged at first, I was still afraid I'd mess it up somehow.

She LOVED it! Better yet, she went from vomiting whole undigested meals of kibble to NEVER again vomiting a meal! Her face stopped smelling. Her ear infection cleared up, AND didn't come back. She didn't scratch her face on everything anymore, or lick her feet anymore. Her coat got so SOFT I couldn't even believe it, and very very shiny.

The pre-made stuff was outrageously expensive, so after a few months I decided to just DO IT! Bought some chicken and fed it to her. OMG she devoured it. Audrey absolutely LOVES her raw food! Now she eats whatever the grocery store has on sale. There are ways to feed raw that cost FAR less than the grocery store, but for me the convienence of the local store is too easy. Plus I only have one to feed now, so it's really not that expensive.  

Here on BDW I posted a Raw Diet Diary and wrote daily updates, then weekly updates.

I will NEVER feed kibble again. I also stopped all poisons on and in my dog. She looks great, maintains her weight, and still NO stinky itchy face or feet or ear infections.

do. Kofi is my best bud too, and I want to keep her as long as possible. It is just the two of us.

I started her on raw July 19, and I just want to tell you that it has been such fun for me.

Judy Wilson is also alone with her dogs, and has been feeding raw for years. You may want to e-mail her if she doesn't happen to see your post. Remember, you don't have to feed bones. Judy said it was awhile before she did that, feeding eggs with shells for calcium.

That being said, it is very important to educate yourself before beginning to mix your own. 

I believe that you would see a quick improvement if you began to feed raw. Bravo is a good start.

Good luck to you.......Good reading to inform beginners: Raw Dog Food, Make it Easy for You and Your Dog by Carina Beth MacDonald.

Very good for some folks to feed. I imagine your bully would do fine on a raw diet. It sounds very easy to do once you get started, and pre-packaged foods are becoming more readily available. There are many here that feed raw and if you are interested in that, you will find a wealth of information here that will help you make your decision with confidence.

If you choose not to feed raw, a high end, grain free kibble would probably work for you. I have a girl with mild allergies and I feed Natural Balance Sweet potato and Bison. She loves it and does very well on it. I have two dogs and for me, the cost of raw is not workable right now. If I just had one, I might be more interested in trying it. 

Best of luck, and just listen to those folks here that feed raw successfully and their dogs do fabulously on it. They won't steer you wrong.

stains, red itchy feet, and shedding.  I was feeding her Solid Gold, then Taste of the Wild, Wellness Grain Free.   Finally the beginning of the yr, I switched to the Bravo Patties.  She gets fruits and veggies, oils, and seameal.  Her weight went from 62 to 50, poops are good, tear stains are gone, her labs are great,  feet licking is periodic I think alot of it is habit.  She has more energy and she is 10 1/2.  Good Luck with your girl.

Is PetCurean and Nature's Variety commercially available or is it an internet-only product? I just purchased some grain free treats tonight (fish and sweet potato) and PetCo (who had the patties on their website) told me that they do not sell any of the specialty raw stuff in stores.

We do have a higher end pet store with two locations that has frozen, etc, and I know carries Bravo; I just want to make sure that I don't get stuck out in the cold as far as availability. 

That is a good idea as far as mixing. I don't get tear stains per se, but we do get goop IN the eye that runs down it and makes a mess. The yeasty skin is by far the worst part of the whole issue. 

I don't feed raw(raw meat that is not cooked) I cook these up in the microwave to add some variety to their kibbles but they don't eat it everday cuz i see lots of fats when I cook them up. Mine is on a royal canin lowfat diet and i give him fish oils one pill every other day and he seems to shed less. sometimes it could be the shampoo you're using. I use hexadene shampoo and bathe once a week.

my 6 yr old kibby has gone thru many different foods..with us,  its trial and error and unfortunately it takes a while because most food effects will be visible within the first 2 weeks and then wont go away for about 4-6 , even if stop feeding them that food.

i got kibby at 5 from a rescue and she is my first bully ( i have had many dogs before, but never had to deal with allergies!).. funny, her foster mom was feeding her kibbles and bits, i think because there is a picture of a bulldog on the front! but kibby kept having ear infections... so i soon switched her to royal canin bd24 .. it gave kibby runny poo and gas... then i switched to diet royal canin food because the vet made us and she was too fat... she did really well on that food - good poos, but still ear infections.. so i figured it was the grains... so then when she was done losing her weight, i tried to put her on duck and potatoe (i forget the brand- the one that most people use here- natures balance?) ... that food made her turn red and yeasty all over and gave her uti... i also read somewhere that some kibble has way too much protein in it and can make them have runny poo /uti/ or skin issues...  then i figured maybe it was too much potatoes and duck protein..so then i switched her to natures variety chicken and tapioca kibble... then her poo was too runny again...  now we have switched to natures variety salmon and brown rice - which i am happy to say she has been on for close to a year now without any issues.. her ears are better, no yeast.. still occassional idc.. but with these bullies- i soon learned that it is very hard to ever obtain and make them "perfectly" free of any issues at any given time!! just impossible.. i use to pull out my hair and freak out everytime something new popped up.. a pimple? missing hair spot? runny eyes? congestion? ughh .. too much!!! i am sure everyone on this board has gone thru the same trauma!

runny/red eyes, some congestion - external allergies..i have learned to give a claritin  (vet solved that one for me!)

idc - mostly from dirt and moisture stuck in between the toes, sometimes the food.

uti - from the food or pooty is not cleaned often enogh (they are so low to the ground you know!)

dark brown or too much ear wax- usually the food

itchiness-redness-pawlicking- usually the food or water

pimples- she lays her face on the floor.concrete alot, and needs to be wiped after every meal- but you still cant always control it.

so sorry for rambling .. getting back to the food.. so from my trial and errors.. i have learned that kibby can handle some grains, like rice or brown rice.. not corn.. she can eat fish, chicken, turkey as a wet topper for her kibble.. not too much lamb or beef or venison... too much potato and sweet potato make her yeasty. it took me about 6 months to get her dry food correct.. hopefully it will last! :)

i havent tried raw yet - i am sure it works but i just dont have time. i have seen alot of freeze dried raw and have some samples.. i am planning to try to bake it into treats for my ladies and see what happens! good luck with your bully!

Okay. As Judy suggested, /thanks!!!/ we went cold turkey on the kibble and she's been eating raw patties for 4 days or now. There haven't been any ill effects at all...(yet??). She seems to really enjoy eating the food and she is much more interested in the preparation than she was with the dry. She's supposed to sit by the dining room table until it is ready and then she can come into the kitchen when it is put down for her. Well, most of the time since starting this she snorts and wiggles and tries to creep into the kitchen. Guess that means she likes it!

The raw patties feeding guide says that a less or average activity dog can eat 1-2 patties per day. This is kind of confusing, because the difference between 1 and 2 is kinda a lot! So I'm feeding .75-ish per feeding. The patties themselves are pretty big, so I cut them in half and she gets half-patty and 1 "chunk"  per meal (I also bought the bag of chunks or whatever they're called). They do not defrost as quickly as they say they will

A lot of what I have read says that I can rotate the variety. I was wondering if anyone with bulldog experience knows if this would be true for bullies as well. She was on a chicken-based dry food before, so I chose the poultry variety of raw food. However, they also make venison, bison, duck, blah blah blah. I was just wondering if I could change it up and see how that works because obviously if some of the original problem has anything to do with chicken, we might see more improvement with a different protein. She ate plain cooked bison and brown rice when she was sick once. Lots of gas but she did like it.

She hasn't had any gas on the raw, though and her bathroom behavior is on the same schedule. Her stool's a little bit softer this morning, but that could be the adjustment. I did note that it is way smaller.

Kind of wondering what to do for treats (something that I could take on a walk, so no I am not carrying a raw hock on a walk :) so for the time being I bought a bag of dried liver and have been trying to use it sparingly. Ordinarily, I'd lay off treats entirely during the adjustment period but here in the semi-city it is important that she does not ignore me in certain situations when out for a walk.

There are a lot of dogs particularly in my neighborhood that live outside without training or supervision and sometimes I've got to distract her so she doesn't indicate interest in a dog that isn't as nice as she is. :/