September Success Stories: Fidra (Dandie Dinmont)

My elderly father and his wife were struggling to look after their Dandie Dinmont terrier, Fidra, so we agreed to rehome her to live with us in the country. At the time she was struggling with bladder stones and was on a urinary kibble diet, which although it was helping the bladder stones was irritating her very sensitive tummy as she had a history of pancreatitis.

When we transferred ownership at our vets, he told us she had 78 pages of notes transferred through to them from her previous vets and she was only 5 years old! Soon after she ate a stone and required an operation to remove it. I resolved to try and find a better diet for her as the low fat pancreatitis friendly kibble was leading to frequent UTIs and bladder stones, and the urinary care kibble was irritating her pancreas.

Our German Shepherd was raw fed as it helped his sensitive skin, but the thought of managing the fat and mineral content of a raw diet for Fidra was very daunting. That is when I found Paleo Ridge online. The Paleo Plus Special diet looked very promising and because there is a lot of nutritional information on all the products, I decided to give it a go. Transitioning her to a raw diet was a slow process, I very gradually increased the proportion of raw food and only increased the proportion once her tummy had settled at each level.

But we got there, and for the last two years she has enjoyed a varied diet from the Paleo Ridge range and she has been to the vets only twice for her annual checkups. At 8 years old she is the healthiest she has ever been, no longer overweight, calmer, enjoys her food more, has better teeth and less gunky eyes, and her fitness is transformed.

She still has a sensitive tummy and I have to stop people from giving her any titbits or unsuitable treats (she loves the dried lamb lung and the turkey liver from Paleo's treat range) and I mix some of the products to keep the total fat and mineral levels at the right level, but it is easy enough, if only it was this easy to fix my own sensitive digestion!