Creative solutions to dog food problems.

For as long as I can remember, our family has had dogs. So it was no surprise to anyone when my husband and I got our own. We chose Dobermans for their brains, beauty, and protectiveness.

As often happens, the image of the perfect dog did not mesh with the one we eventually purchased. She was a small, shy, neglected, half-grown pup, but we let pity for her rule our decision. Although timid, she would do anything to please and training her was fairly easy. The really noticeable problem we came up against was flatulence.

It's easy to make jokes about it until the odor wafts its way into your nose or that of your guests. If she had been an outside dog, it wouldn't have been a problem, but in the house it was.

A second difficulty was her tendency to be sick. It started out once a week or so and became more frequent. We took her to the vet, but the doctor could only say that her digestive system had been messed up with poor dog food. Her solution to the problem was to feed charcoal tablets and change the dog over to expensive prescription dog food.

Like most people, we're far from rich and this sudden constant looming outlay of money didn't go over very well. Now was one of those times to be thinking creatively.

I've since come to the opinion that there is nothing that helps the health of stock like keeping a good eye on them, and noting any changes. I'd been taught to give Pepto Bismol to dogs to calm an upset stomach, but when I started to think about trying to solve her problem myself, I began to notice a pattern. The more Sheba was sick, the more often I'd give her Pepto, and in turn she became sick more often. In conjunction, her gas seemed to be getting worse and worse.

I reasoned that since the Pepto is alkaline, maybe she needed something more acidic. I'd worked in a kennel for a couple of years and we frequently added cider vinegar to the dog water to sweeten their breath. Maybe it could help her stomach, too. So I added about a tablespoon of vinegar to her water.

As soon as she smelled it, she drank nearly the whole bowl. "Jackpot!" I thought, and over the next week I seemed to be right. The sick episodes stopped almost immediately and the gas also subsided to the point where we hardly noticed it anymore. Once we had her system balanced out, we were able to pretty much eliminate the vinegar.

When Sheba died, we acquired another hard luck Doberman by the name of Zeus. He was an older dog who had been neglected to a lesser degree, but had been passed from home to home with similar problems. Just changing him to a good quality dog food helped a lot, but his gas problem has been harder to control.

Our experiences have taught us several contributing factors to the problem. The first is that high protein dog food tends to make it worse. Keeping the protein level to a minimum was a huge help. Second, certain brands can upset some dogs but not. others. Sheba couldn't eat any dog food that we tried manufactured by Purina but she could eat the Wal-Mart brand. Zeus, by contrast, couldn't eat the Wal-Mart brand but can eat Diamond. If your dog has problems with one kind of dog food, try a completely different manufacturer. It may make a difference.

Third, vinegar in the dog's water (I use about a tablespoon per gallon) can not only help its stomach but also help freshen the breath.

Finally, a trick I learned recently, is to add fenugreek to the food. I usually fry about a teaspoon of the whole fenugreek (a spice which can be purchased at a grocery store or wherever you get your seasonings), with a scrambled egg and put it on the dog's food. Given once or twice a week it makes a distinct difference. It makes the dog's skin, breath and the gas smell like maple sugar, which is a huge improvement over the alternative. So if you can't completely eliminate the problem, you can go a long way to disguising it.