dry coat

Question
Hi I have a 2 year old cockapoo (13 pounds ) I currently feed her Nutram with chicken,I have tried Merricks, and Wellness and her stools were like mush. I also give her plain organic yogurt every morning and a salmon oil tablet. Any treats I buy are all natural and high quality grade, I give her salmon fillet once in awhile and chicken giblets (hearts and liver) on occasion too. Anything I give her is of good quality. But her coat,especially on her torso is very very dry, however I don't find her scratching often??

What do I do? In the winter she is bathed once ever 6 weeks from groomer (spa shampoo and conditioner)in summer I usually bath her once a week with the same shampoo (no soap in it)

I did notice that there is select ground wheat corn in this food??

She is also not a big water drinker, I change water twice a day sometimes three times and put ice cubes in it, she likes that.

She is brushed daily.

Don't know what else to do.

Answer
Hi Nancy,

Given the current craze for Omega3 fatty acids, a lot of people rush to add extra to the diet when in fact, some extra6 might be what the coat is craving. I'm a big fan of using fish oils for a wide variety of health benefits, but in cases of dry skin/poor coat, sometimes it's an Omega6 that helps. If your salmon oil is very high in EPA/DHA you might cut down to one every other day. Sometimes it's an issue with zinc absorption, or low Vitamin A...I don't recommend just adding those things to the diet, but I'm just illustrating that nutrients other than fatty acids can be to blame. I'm not too crazy about this Nutram food, I'm sure for the money you can do better. I didn't see wheat but it has a fair bit of corn.

Some suggestions to try:

1) Add a little bit of flaxseed oil daily for a few weeks

2) Try foods from the grainfree group, such as Acana or Orijen, perhaps she will assimilate nutrients more thoroughly on grainfree

3) I'm not a huge fan of formula supplements, but something like MissingLink *might* help, and surely won't hurt to give a try

4) Consider a home made diet using all fresh ingredients, which you can finetune to your individual dogs' needs and supplement accordingly.

5) Add a little extra Vitamin E, since you are adding extra PUFAs(polyunsaturated fatty acids). 100 IU of a natural source every other day should be more than adequate.

6) Have a full panel thyroid test run to make sure there isn't a problem in that area, which won't be helped with diet and will require some medication.

And let me know if any of this helps! I like to feed lamb liver for treats, loaded with zinc and they love it, but just a little. Too much liver can seriously unbalance an otherwise good diet. Cooked eggs, dark meat turkey and sardines are all good treat choices that bolster overall nutritional wellbeing, too.

Hope this helps and let me know,
All the best, Catherine