Pancreatitis in RAW fed dog

Hello everyone, I'm hoping someone can give some advice please.
My 12 year old PRT has been diagnosed with pancreatitis. He was unwell 6weeks ago, saw the vet but we were told he had a bad case of gastroenteritis. It took him a while to recover, but he became ill again yesterday.
Today, a different vet, diagnosed a "recurrence" of the pancreatitis....... A condition we were unaware he had.

Jack has been RAW fed and as he has got older I have reduced the red meats in his diet, so he now has mainly minced tripe, tinned pilchards and cooked white fish and veg. He also has chicken, turkey and duck wings/necks.

For treats he has dried tripe sticks, cows hooves and antlers.
He also occasionally has mini bone biscuits.

I understand his diet should now be low fat, so can I continue to feed RAW? Is minced tripe too high in fat? And Jacks absolute favourite dried tripe sticks.......are they off the menu now?

He won't eat anything at all at the moment, but I will start him off, when he's ready, on boiled fish/chicken and rice/pasta/.

Any advice please would be gratefully received.

So sorry your dog is going through this.. We had trouble with Benny a few years ago and the vet diagnosed pancreatitis.

At the time he had raw too a mince of duck /chicken/lamb /beef/lama/deer and fish on fridays...
We removed the lamb beef and fish and ever since he has been fine..He still eats raw.

A lot of the time I think its a bit of trial and error but aim for low fat that seems to be the main thing that triggers an attack.

Have you looked at trying probiotics? Such as green tripe or sauerkraut? I would ask your vet what they think about it, or maybe ask a holistic vet such as Nick Thompson

This might be worth a look

http://www.dogaware.com/articles/wdjpancreatitis.html

Thank you Dorrit. Yes I was thinking it was probably trial and error, but good to know how other people dealt with this horrid condition. Glad to hear that Benny has stayed on a raw diet too, hopefully Jack will still be able to tolerate raw nice he gets over this episode.
The vet said stress could trigger an attack too, and Jack lost his "brother" just before his first attack.

Azz, I've been giving Jack Pro-kolin which is a probiotic paste.
Interesting you say green tripe is a probiotic? because that constituted most f Jacks diet. Will look for more neo on Nick Thompson. Thanks for your input.

Thanks for the link cava14una, I will have a good read of that, probably tomorrow now, when I will hopefully have caught up on some sleep.

One issue I can see with green tripe is possible contamination, and whether freezing might kill the good bacteria.

Bio-kult is a good brand, but the best sources are natural - such as sauerkraut or cabbage rejuvelac - when can be made in 3 days

Good thread on fermented foods on Breedia: http://www.forum.breedia.com/threads...or-dogs.13393/

I agree that green tripe is a good food for dogs that will eat it, (my current pair won't, and I refuse to cook it for them!) However, do take care to remove the fat seaming before giving it to a dog which suffers from pancreatitis. Not all dogs are able to produce adequate amounts of pancreatic enzyme, and some may need a supplementary source in order to deal with foods which have a high animal fat content.

Thanks again Azz and you too CaroleC.
I've read up a bit more today and discovered that with wet food, the fat % content on the packaging has to be calculated to give the fat % of dry matter......which gives a higher % of fat. Very confusing.

CaroleC, the tripe I've been feeding is minced tripe from DAF and Natures Menu free flow tripe, so it's impossible to cut out the fat.��
So I have to find a suitable low fat food that Jack will actually accept, so still lots of research to do.
He'll be on boiled chicken/ fish and rice/pasta for a few weeks yet, so hopefully I'll have a few options sorted by then.
I'll ask the vet about pancreatic enzymes too.......how do they know if a dog needs help with that? Blood tests?

On a brighter note, Jack is a lot more relaxed today, still very miserable but he doesn't appear to be in pain today. And he's managed to eat a small amount of chicken.

DAFdo tripe in chunks
http://www.daf-petfood.co.uk/33-dog-...n-bones-chunks

I'm not saying that he needs pancreatic enzymes, if your vet suspected that I think he would have asked for a poo sample. Just that digesting animal fat does place a burden on the pancreas. Hopefully he will respond to treatment and be back to normal soon.