Re: My Black Labs Gas
Pat,<br /><br />We have shared our home with dogs for years, and the breeds have been mixed, Boxer(pure), Rotty(pure), Miniature Manchester(pure), and Pit Bull(pure). The only dog that hasn't been gassy is the little Min. Manchester, Mr Bigglesworth. The other dogs have always had gas, but it varied a little depending on what they were fed. When they ate dry food only, they had less gas. Here are our findings:<br /><br />Cheap Dry Food only: Produced the least amount of gas, and the puppy gas was the least offensive. The down side was that the food was not good for the dogs, their stools looked like piles of saw dust, and they didn't like the food. So, we summarily decided that as long as we had a dog that wanted to share our home, they would eat better than that, and they would never eat that crap again unless we were eating balogna.<br /><br />Canned food: Our big puppies like the Prime Cuts and Prime Slices by Alpo. On it's own, not a big gas producer, and their stool look very, very healthy with these foods.<br /><br />Canned and dry mixed: In order to give our Rotti's an adequate daily amount of sustenance, we found that it is easiest to mix some dry food in with the Prime Cuts/Slices (along with rice if we have some left over) plus the dry food helps clean their teeth. Kibbles and Bits/Chunks does not seem to affect her gas much, unless it makes it a little sharper smelling. Beneful seems to make her way more gassy, and I think it because of the vegetable matter in Beneful. The expensive dry foods with the amino acids and stuff (like Purina One, Iams, etc) have about the same affect as Beneful. The net result is that I have determined that the better your dogs diet, the more gassy they will be.<br /><br />Mr Bigglesworth is a another matter. The only food he will eat is Pedigree's Little Champs, Beef and Cheese. This stuff smells just like cheap, off brand, nasty potted meat. He never passes wind, but his mouth smell like a sewer.<br /><br />My advise is this: get a box of Gas-Ex and add one to each meal you feed your puppy (contact your vet first to make sure this won't harm your puppy's digestive process). Otherwise the farty little puppies are soemthing we dog lovers just have to live with. All things considered, it's a small price to pay for the companionship.
