Sushi's Saga

[Olesia711]

oh wow! thanks Jeremy for letting us know that the enzyme icing worked out for your Eddie

[Eddiespaghetti]

I did have to give him up to 300 percent his daily recommended caloric intake. After about a month of that, Eddie cut himself back. We now feed him about what he should have daily. He was finally not hungry all the time and only eats twice a day now, if that. He put himself at his ideal weight.
With the icing start with less water and add water as needed to get to the consistency you want. My partner used to be a professional baker. They knew about royal icing and handled it pretty quickly.

[Olesia711]

Ahhh you were lucky with Eddie.... i never was able to reduce Izzy's amount of food to "normal" as she forever required more calories to keep the weight stable.

Gotta love these EPI dogs.... did you ever notice how we might try to implement "recommended" protocols... and many of our dogs just don't want to follow the rules????? They sure keep us on our toes!

[Eddiespaghetti]

Eddie just stopped eating lunch. After 5 days, we were tired of throwing food away. We stopped feeding him lunch, then he stopped eating all his breakfast and dinner so we just cut it back. Now, he barely eats breakfast. He just isn't starving anymore.

[Beatrice]

Hi everyone,

Sushi has been on 1/4 teaspoon of slippery elm since Dec. 22, 2024. Her stomach rumblings, passing gas have improved although not 100% eliminated. Is slippery elm an indefinite thing or should she be gradually weaned down?

I feel that I have finally conquered the enzyme dose and adjustments needed. For example, my husband came home with tiramisu on sale from Costco. I am on a 1500 calories diet so will not touch the cake. Sushi gets a fair share of the cake. (I know we are bad pet owners.) 2 days later, her anus was covered with oil. Poop was formed but somewhat yellow and oily. I stopped the cake one day, no oily anus. I restarted the cake with enzyme capsule prepared for snacks. Although less in intensity, she still had a bit of oily anus. Next day, smaller piece of cake with same amount of enzyme, no oily anus.

After the cake was finished, 2 days later, oily anus again. I started pulling my hair. Then I realized, oh she has been given medium ground beef. She usually gets lean ground beef, chicken or pork. Since at the time, only medium ground beef was on sale, Sushi gets to eat medium. I did think about the grease but didn't adjust the enzymes. So I started to rinse the boiled ground beef with hot water to wash away any grease stuck on the meat and no oily anus since. So from these experience, I need to pay attention to the food and adjust enzyme dosing.

That brings me to another question. It is ideal to get the optimal enzyme dosing and I have always been conservative in adjusting thinking ah, a few thousand lipase less will not make a difference. However, it does make a difference between and oily anus and none. If you need to, is it better to "overdose" than "underdose"?

I will be starting at new pack of enzymediane which has only 94K lipase units. The current pack is 128K which means the potency of the new pack will be 30% less. This means having to adjust up to 30% in the next batch of enzyme capsules. This is going to be fun.

[jilbert57]

That is interesting. Are both strengths on the enzyme bags the same? 6x or 8x?

Mickey had pancreatitis and a consultant here sometimes, Dr. Penny, told me "just because you are using enzymes on his food now doesn't mean you can increase his fat content of his diet". More than 10% fat in his diet despite being on enzymes would cause great pain.

Jill

[Beatrice]

That is interesting. Are both strengths on the enzyme bags the same? 6x or 8x?

Mickey had pancreatitis and a consultant here sometimes, Dr. Penny, told me "just because you are using enzymes on his food now doesn't mean you can increase his fat content of his diet". More than 10% fat in his diet despite being on enzymes would cause great pain.

Jill

They're both 8X. I really never paid attention to the lipase units until this last one. The label does say can use 20% less. I did not. Sushi's poop were great the majority of the times.

[Olesia711]

Okay.... so i am probably going to make your head spin even more............. different types of fat can also make a dramatic difference.

And i swear there is something about beef fat...my current dog, who is not an EPI dog....now at 3yrs old, doesn't have dietary issues.... HOWEVER.... i can give him a large amount of 90/10% fat beef... but if i give him 70/30% fat beef i have to be real careful not to give him too much or else it will give him loose stools. And yet he can have lots of other types of with no issues.... like butter, heavy cream , etc, etc...

SO... just saying... maybe it could also have something to do with the type of fat (long chain fat???)