Bad Gas!

My rescued pit mix, since he was a puppy, has always itched and scratched. He never had hives, red or flakey skin, or itched himself raw but it was constant and I felt so bad! I tried every food - all natural, no wheat, no fillers, no corn, raw, vegetarian, pescatarian, limited ingredient, everything! Nothing cheap and nothing from the grocery store. Finally we settled on, oddly enough, a "weight management" chicken Blue Buffalo by chance. He itches every once and awhile, but is doing so much better. He's been on it for about two months and everything's been great. For about two weeks he has had awful gas. Unbearable and all the time! He has no diarrhea, no vomitting, no fever, he does not act sick. I've done research and every source has pointed to his food. I'm so scared to change his food, yet again, and set off his itching. What else could it be? If it makes any difference, he's neutered, about two years old, in good health, have never noticed any food allergies. He does take a daily fish oil supplement, but has been taking it every day since I adopted him.

Okay, so chicken is probably safe. Welcome to the life of us with food allergies!

Try feeding him just chicken - boiled is fine, nothing fancy is necessary - for a few days, with some brown rice for some bulk. See if that eliminates the gassiness. Then read the ingredients on the bag, and see what else is in the food, and see if you can add one ingredient at a time to the chicken and rice (as long as that leaves him gas free), and you should be able to work out what the problem ingredient was, and then look for a food with just things you know are safe! If chicken and rice still makes him gassy, try chicken and potato ... you get the idea!

My initial thought was "protein itch." If the food is too high in protein, the excess makes them itch.

I tried grain free foods, but those tend to be very high in protein. After lots of trial and error, I settled on Halo Spot's Stew CHICKEN. (I have one girl who can't eat fish, so the salmon was out.) Halo uses barley and oatmeal, two rarely used grains in pet foods, so they haven't had time to develop allergies to it. So that is one thought.

I looked up the formula you are using; low protein, and nothing jumps out and says "problem." Of course, the Blue Buffalo line in general is a high quality food.

What do you use for treats? Does anyone else besides you feed the dog? (family members, day care) Could that be the source of this issue? Just a thought.

Thanks for much for the advice! Because of his skin issues and NOW the gas, he doesn't get a lot of treats! I give him ice most of the time as a treat because he loves it and it obviously doesn't trigger any allergies. I'm normally the only one that feeds him and if I'm away, he gets a pretty strict diet. He has been eating this food that seems to not bother his skin for months and only now is starting to get this awful gas. I'm worried about cooking his own meals, honestly.. but I'm going to take him to see his vet in the next few days and see what they say.

The ice could be it! The cold ice going into the warm digestive tract may cause muscles spasms, and in doing that the muscles release gas. Maybe try slices of raw sweet potato, raw carrots, raw green beans, to use as treats.

Mention the ice to the vet when you go!

I definitely will, although he really doesn't get it all that much. The gas is constant and really unbearable, where as he may get a peice of ice once every few days. Something that I've started recently was a third meal time. He gets his breakfast around 7-8, half of dinner at 3-4 and his 'second dinner' at around 9-10. Maybe it's his newly added late dinner? He used to get his dinner around six, but his new roommates (two other dogs) get their dinner at 3-4, so we wanted to make a universal doggy dinner. He wasn't used to the earlier dinner and started puking bile before breakfast because his stomach was empty. The vet said to feed him a smaller meal just before bed, which I've been doing - no more bile. But could that late dinner be upsetting his stomach?

I do not think that late dinner would upset his tummy at all. Have you tried the "limited menu" yet? It is certainly worth a shot, and if you look, you can usually find chicken on sale, particularly as I doubt he cares whether it is light or dark meat. And either rice or potatoes is pretty cheap as well, so you needn't break the bank trying to clear the air!

Try brown- not white rice....Linda

I know this thread is old, but have you thought about putting him on a raw diet? A lot of Pit Bull owners feed their Pits raw, because the breed is very prone to having skin/food/whatever else allergies.

If you're interested, some people on this forum (http://www.pitbull-chat.com/forums.php) would probably be able to help if you wanted! :)