This is an experience I have had regarding giving corn to dogs:

My little Cairn Terrier has during the past year developed an autoimmune problem that causes lesions near her eyes, nose, mouth, and genitalia. I took her to the vet a total of three times. Each time, they prescribed a course of antibiotics, topical antibiotics, and eye drops. (I thought eye drops for genital lesions was an interesting approach.) Each time, the problem would clear up, but would reappear soon after finishing the antibiotics.

The last time (about two months ago) I started feeding her homemade food, and for a carbohydrate source, I used corn. I would grind cracked corn and cook it a long time to improve digestibility. Even though I had changed her food to what I thought was a more wholesome alternative, once the oral antibiotics ran out, I was still fighting a daily battle cleaning her yucky spots and applying topical antibiotic, trying to keep the situation under some kind of control.

Then I accidentally ran out of cooked corn and instead used some of our bread for a few days. There was a noticeable improvement. Since then, I've been using rice for carbs, and she has almost completely cleared up. :)

I'm wondering if the corn in the feed was the GMO Starlink that the FDA won't allow in human food because it can cause food allergies. If so, is that what they're using in most pet food? If it does this to pets and people, do we really want to eat animals that have eaten this stuff? What are the alternatives?

-- Laura Jensen (lrjensen@nwlink.com), February 16, 2001

Answers

Cairn! My second favourite breed! (right after my Westies, their cousins) Autoimmune problems are such a bear to deal with, and I don't have a lot of answers about Starlink, etc., however, you might think about either rice or oatmeal for your Cairn instead. They tend to have less side effects, esp. in the scottish terriers.

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), February 16, 2001.

Regarding feeding corn to your cairn: Even non-GMO can cause allergic problems in dogs. It's one of the primary allergens for certain breeds. I would never feed a dog food with corn in it to any of my dogs.

My little allergic guy is on rabbit and potato. He gets organically raised baby carrots for or bits of cooked rabbit as treats.

-- Connie (Lawbag@earthlink.net), February 16, 2001.

I too would think it was corn .You can feed rice with hamburgar , chicken or turkey .Add some cooked veggies and you have a good diet .I would add a doggie vitamen or linatone.Vitamen c and e will also be good and some good old brewers yeast/with garlic.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), February 16, 2001.

What does Brewer's yeast do? I've heard of people feeding it to their dogs and horses. Where do you buy brewer's yeast in large amounts?

Stacy Rohan in cold, nasty, windy Windsor, NY

-- Stacy Rohan (KincoraFarm@aol.com), February 17, 2001.

Stacy -- I believe that nutritional yeast is superior to actual brewers yeast, as well as being milder tasting and more acceptable to the animals. You can order it out of most of the discount animal catalogs -- Omaha Vaccine, Valley Vet, probably Jeffers as well -- in tubs. It is supposed to be a good source of B vitamins, among other things, and the nutritional yeast is a better source of the B vitamins. B's do a whole workhorse load of things, including strengthening the nervous system, so it is inter-related to things as diverse as lessening the effects of epilepsy to skin problems and I've even heard it used on some horses to control behavioral problems.

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), February 17, 2001.

Thanks Julie,

I'm always looking for ways of keeping our older Morab more comfortable. He's 21 this year, and while there haven't been any problems, I'd like to keep it that way.

Stacy Rohan in Windsor, NY

-- Stacy Rohan (KincoraFarm@aol.com), February 18, 2001.

Connie is right about this, and I don't think that the GM parts would actually cause allergies an any but the most seriously allergic or immune compromised beings anyway. The pesticide that it is genetically modified to produce is Bt, which most of us have been using with complete saftey around our animals for years. Bt doesn't hurt anything but the catapillars that it kills, because it is specific to proteins in their gut that don't exist in ours (or your dogs). The whole thing behind starlink not being liscensed for human consumption basically centered around the fact that the Bt DNA molecule in the corn was biggger and more resembling of the types of proteins that can cause allergies because of their breakdown time in the body, not because anyone had any reason to suspect that it actually would cause allergic reactions, which has never been proven. No, I'm not an apologist for the GE folks, I just like to know what, specifically, the hubbub is all about so that I can decide for myself.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), February 19, 2001.