any reason in particular you are wanting to change your pets diet? You think it has anything to do with the seizures? I seriously doubt it. Epilepsy is fairly common and an extremely well researched/studied condition in canines and nothing I have read or heard suggests diet has anything to do with it (barring a horribly deficient one).

Here is a great article on it, and it goes over different diets especially raw food diets that might be helpful. Best Dog Food for Dogs with Seizures/Epilepsy

What does your vet advise?

The linked to site two posts up has a lot of sponsored links... just sayin'.

Thanks for replies.....

I failed to mention that we went to our vet on Tuesday. After exam and blood work was normal it was determined that the diet of table scraps, his dog treats (which is chicken jerky/dehydrated chicken breasts) are all loaded with sodium would be the best alternative to try at this time. Didn't want to start him on meds just yet. Wanted to see if his diet would play a roll in them.

She said the seizures were not frequent enough to determine if it was idiopathic epilepsy (which basically means they don't know what causes the seizures. That the change in the salty, high carb food would be the best avenue to try at this time.
His diet is/was terrible....on top of the salted chicken jerky treats probably crappy canned and dry food, he loves rice, baked potatoes and cheese.....just to name a few.

They sell a couple different types of dog food at vets office. But are very pricey when it comes to feeding 4 doggies...two of them being quite large and the other two are medium size (35-45 obs each) and all are quite the eaters. Just thought it wouldn't be fair to give him the special food and not the others. So wanted a healthier food for them all.

Hope this made it more clear.

Now off to check out the links provided.

Thank you all. Looking forward to any feedback.

Thanks for clarifying.

That's a lot of high sodium human food. Maybe you could try eliminating all human food and just feed his usual dog food. This site has lots of information about various brands.

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com

SaltiDawg~I didn't see any pop ups when I went there.

Phoebe,

Didn't say Pop Ups... a lot of the food links state "Sponsored By" Petco, Purina, etc.

I am not taking exception with nor agreeing with anything... just pointed out "The linked to site two posts up has a lot of sponsored links... just sayin'."

SaltiDawg~Not sure why you felt it necessary to point it out....the article had some good points regardless of the sponsored links. Did you read it? All I was doing was trying to help....just sayin'.

Oh for chrisake, I also was just trying to help. I was polite, non-aggressive,and didn't realize you had a dog in the race. When you grow up you may come to learn that when reviews of products are sponsored by a purveyor of those products that there is room to be suspicious of bias being introduced by the purveyor....

I even threw you the bone of, "I am not taking exception with nor agreeing with anything... just pointed out" Well that was charitable - there is a lot of nonsense at that site represented as "fact."

Goto the nannygoats18 suggested link.. advise from a Pro, no sponsors, maybe not 100% accurate, but no reason for suspicion of bias by paid "sponsors."

Who says any of the points were "good points?" You? lol

Wow, SaltiDawg, just wow. I would hate to know you in person. I can have an opinion, and I don't need to be taught anything about "paid" sponsors from you. And no, you were not polite. You were being sarcastic in your post with your "just sayin" nonsense.

Phoebe, I don't think Salti was criticizing you or the link itself, but was pointing out to everyone to be aware certain brands have been attached to the article.

There are many people that don't realize they need to pay attention to the sponsorship of articles and the bias toward products, so mentioning that every now and then just gives everyone a heads-up.

Um......yeah, he was.

"his dog treats (which is chicken jerky/dehydrated chicken breasts) are all loaded with sodium"

Tammy, I lost two dogs to kidney failure within about a year of each other and I highly suspect the jerky treats I was giving them was a big part of it. I discovered later they were very high in salt. I switched to other pet treats but (and this might sound a bit gross) I always licked them to make sure they didn't taste salty. Well it was just hard to get good quality treats without salt.

So I decided to try and make my own, and I bought a food dehydrator. The only thing that goes into my dogs' treats is lean meat, no flavoring, no salt, nothing so I don't need to worry about it anymore. It's actually pretty easy. I get the butcher to slice up meat nice and thin then I cut it into smaller strips and put it into the multilevel dehydrator, switch it on until they are done. I keep a bag in the fridge (not even sure if it's necessary) and put other bags into the freezer to take out when the fridge bag runs out. My dogs love them, no added flavors or salt needed.

I like the idea of the dehydrator....a great way of getting them the protein needed and offering them a tasty treat.

Do you use chicken, pork or beef when making their treats? Ever used venison (deer)?

Any tricks I should know to make it easier? Or Better for them?

Thanks much

I've mostly made them with beef. Any meat should be fine as long as it is lean without much fat because the fat won't dehydrate well, and thinner sliced meat will dehydrate quicker, that's about it. There really wasn't much instruction on meat with the dehydrator because the manual mostly focused on fruits and vegetables but it worked out great.

Thanks much Trance....

I am sorry for the loss of your beloved four legged friends.

Your advice has been so helpful for our beloved friends.

Thanks Tammy :), It was so hard to get my head around how salty the treats really were, I mean you figure if something is being sold for dogs to eat, it should be safe, but just goes to show how careful we need to be! Since I started making my own dog treats, it's shown me that they don't need any salt of flavoring for the dogs to love them.