Stinky Ears and/or Flaky Skin?
Low-carb diets for dogs, typically containing less than 30% carbohydrates, prioritize high-quality animal proteins, healthy fats, and minimal fillers to help manage obesity, diabetes, and allergies and yeast (infections).
Do your dog’s ears stink? Do they itch a lot? Do they have very flaky skin? Often these conditions frustrate both owner and their veterinarian.
It may not be an allergy per se but rather a carb load challenge. Try a low carb food. Ok, what constitutes low carb? There’s no magic answer but something below 30% carb load in the diet would be a good starting point.
How do I get this information? It is not printed on the bag as an outright number. First avoid grains and grain by-products. Meat should dominate the recipe. A quick simple calculation will give you an estimate:
100 minus the total of crude protein plus crude fiber plus crude fat plus moisture plus ash
Ash is rarely listed so we generally use and estimate of 6%.
Example for NutriSource Sm/Med Puppy product: ( a low carb food)
100-32 (crude prot)-5 (crude fiber)-21 (crude fat)-10 (moisture)-6 (ash estimate) = 26 % Carb
This is an example only as there are many choices and we can help you identify them!
