It seems very fitting that the first time I ever laid eyes on my beautiful  pet greyhound Max, he was munching his way through a patch of grass at the Retired Greyhound Trust centre in the Borders, where we adopted him from.  We were told this was because he had a bit of a ‘nervous’ stomach & that he was eating the grass to try & settle it.

May 2008 – Max, just after we got him home

It didn’t take long to figure out that Max had ‘food issues’. Greyhounds are not notorious for their appetites nor their ability to master common doggy commands, like ‘sit’ or ‘stay’. However, Max was different…

From day one he was the most food motivated dog I have ever come across! Left unsupervised he would clear kitchen worktops, raid the bin, empty the biscuit cupboard, leave the strawberry patch bare – there seemed to be no end to this dog’s appetite. Put a 15kg bag of dog food down in front of him & he would polish it off in 1 sitting!

kitchen counter surfing

At first we thought he must just be ravenous after all that time spent in racing kennels, & put his food motivation to good use in training him to touch, sit, down, stay & come. The one command we never had much success in mastering though was ‘leave’, especially when it came to potential food stuffs!

We had been advised by the adoption agency to continue feeding Max the ‘working dog’ mix he had been fed at the kennels. However, it soon became clear that this was not for the best – Max was obviously not digesting this properly, & the brightly coloured red, green, yellow & orange pieces of kibble were screaming out to me that this food contained far too many unnatural additives to be healthy for a dog (as was the gas poor Max was emitting!).

After a bit of research of my own & a chat with our vet, we changed Max onto a very basic dry dog food called Chappie. & whilst we soon noticed an improvement in his digestion, I would never have described what came out ‘the other end’ as 100% normal. However, we just put this down to him ‘being a greyhound’ (they often have sensitive digestion) & got on with it – he seemed happy enough, even if he did have an insatiable appetite…

Then, in early months of this year, 18 months after we had first adopted Max, & a good year since we’d stabilised him on his Chappie diet, Max’s digestion suddenly deteriorated. At first we thought he’d picked up a virus & fed him a diet of plain boiled rice, as advised by the vet, to see if it would settle down. But things continued to worsen & it became obvious poor Max was losing weight & becoming dehydrated.

He was prescribed several courses of broad spectrum antibiotics in case of bacterial infection, but with no positive effect. Analysis of a stool sample revealed high levels of undigested fat, indicating that Max’s pancreas may not be functioning properly. A blood sample was drawn to check his pancreatic enzyme levels, & in the meantime we were given synthetic pancreatic enzymes to add to his food. These did seem to help a little, but the blood enzyme levels came back normal in the end.

However, his blood protein levels came back very low, indicating a protein losing enteropathy, which would normally be responsive to treatment with steroids. Max, who by this point had lost about 20% of his body weight & was looking in poor shape, with dry skin & a wiry coat, was given several steroid injections, but with little effect.

Short of invasive surgical procedures, which would have been inappropriate given Max’s condition & co-morbidities, there was no way to tell  exactly what was going on with Max’s gut. It was at this point that our vet suggested Max might have developed a food allergy, &, as a last resort really, we commenced him on a completely hydrolysed veterinary diet. The reasoning behind this (I think) was that if the carbohydrates, proteins & fats within the food were already broken down then his malfunctioning gut wouldn’t need to do anything to them in order to digest them.

Well, regardless of the science behind it, it worked! We’d finally found something that Max was able to digest & the poor boy started to put back on the weight he’d lost. Several months down the line, Max was thriving. He weighed more than he ever had done, was full of energy, & had a sleek, glossy coat.

Curiously, his drive to eat anything remotely edible seemed to have slowed & he would no longer scavenge for food like a bottomless pit the way he always used to. It suddenly dawned on me that perhaps my pet had been trying to tell us something for all these months – unable to properly extract the nutrients he needed from his diet, the dog was simply hungry!

Looking back, I think Max must have had some kind of low level food intolerance all along. What caused it to come to a head earlier this year, I don’t know, but now that it has we have been able to properly recognise it & ensure that he no longer has to suffer the consequences in terms of both hunger & indigestion any longer.

July 2010 – Max on top form, doing what he does best

Because our pet insurance company would not cover the expense of the completely hydrolysed veterinary diet Max had been prescribed, & because it unfortunately cost a whopping £80 per 15kg bag, we were unable to continue feeding Max this food long term & started to search for a cheaper, more sustainable alternative.

We are very grateful to our local greyhound rehoming charity, Gracehounds (where we adopted our other greyhound, Molly, from) , who offered to help us cover the cost of the veterinary diet whilst we began the long process of finding a suitable alternative. Each alternative had to be very gradually introduced into Max’s diet to see if he would tolerate it, & immediately removed & his digestion re-stabilised if he did not.

After trying half a dozen different foods, we eventually managed to get Max completely & successfully weaned off his hydrolysed diet onto a salmon & potato based one, made by Wafcol. Whilst not cheap, this food costs 1/2 the price of the veterinary diet, so is within our budget, & seems to suit Max just as well. It’s been 3 months now since we made the switch &, touch wood, Max’s health continues on an even keel.