Dr. Angie Krause (00:00)
Welcome back to Tails of Truth, where we tell the truth about veterinary medicine. I'm Dr. Angie, and this is my co-host and veterinary nurse extraordinaire. And today we're going to talk about novel protein diets, which is something your veterinarian may have asked you to try. And I find myself in exam room saying, let's try a novel protein. And I think I'm aware now that most people have no idea what I'm talking about.

JoJo (00:29)
Well I think it often creates an influx in your inbox. Like is this what you meant? Is that? Is this a novel protein?

Dr. Angie Krause (00:29)
I'm

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we're going to create an episode. If so, if I told you to try a novel protein, I'm going to give you more insight into what I mean and the different times you might try a novel protein diet or a hydrolyzed protein diet for cats or dogs. So think we should start with the kitties because I do. I think you're right. You were saying as we were hitting record that we use novel protein.

JoJo (01:02)
I have.

Dr. Angie Krause (01:08)
more for cats, but I don't know, I still use it in dogs, but cats with inflammatory bowel disease, suspected inflammatory bowel disease, or symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease like diarrhea and vomiting. One thing we'll often try is a novel protein diet. And novel just means that your cat's likely never seen this protein before or has never eaten this protein for an extended period of time. So I think of novel proteins being like duck,

pork, rabbit, kangaroo, venison. What am I missing?

JoJo (01:43)
Well, there's now alligator and elk.

Dr. Angie Krause (01:46)
Okay, I didn't know there were elk. Who's making elk? I mean, don't tell me, but...

JoJo (01:50)
⁓

I don't know which brand it is, but I saw it recently. Yep. Yep.

Dr. Angie Krause (01:54)
Okay,

yeah, so the idea is that your cat might have a sensitivity to a food and that when we change that protein that we would decrease symptoms without that because hopefully the new food your cat is not sensitive to. And that often is helpful in cats with inflammatory bowel disease. And so for a lot of people that means doing a prescription diet, but it can also mean

doing an over-the-counter diet. And I think this is where it gets tricky is if I've recommended that you feed your cat a novel protein diet, like what in the world do you do? Where do you go?

JoJo (02:34)
because the cat is typically eating what proteins? Chicken, beef, some type of fish, turkey. Yeah, that's probably the big five, four.

Dr. Angie Krause (02:41)
Yep, turkey. Yeah, I would say tuna. Yeah.

Yeah, so we're just trying to move away from that. And I think we often use prescription diets because we know those novel prescription diets have had the line, the manufacturing line cleaned before using it. So there's not going to be any cross-contamination.

Now it would be interesting like with other proteins. So let's say that line was also used for chicken and how well did they clean it or are there lines specifically used for venison, SKU So I think the advantage of the prescription diets is that we know that the ingredients are going to be just that protein and there's not gonna be cross-contamination. really?

JoJo (03:29)
I had no idea that's new to me. So it's

like when you go and order something if you're gluten free and there's a difference between the food might be gluten free versus the whole kitchen.

Dr. Angie Krause (03:42)
Yes. Yeah.

JoJo (03:43)
Okay, so you're

saying that prescription foods are beneficial because the entire manufacturing process is clear of that contaminant. That's pretty cool. I did not know that.

Dr. Angie Krause (03:51)
Yes. Yeah, of like

any other contaminants. Yeah, so we like to tout them is better, but they are more expensive. And I don't know that all cats require that. The other problem with non-prescription diets is that pet food companies can do what's called label floating, where they change the ingredient, but don't change the label. And so they have X number of days to change the label.

JoJo (04:11)
⁓ huh.

Dr. Angie Krause (04:19)
after they change the ingredients. And so if you get an over-the-counter food, it might not say exactly what's in it. So the ingredients that are in the kibble, the canned whatever, might not be what's actually in there. Yeah.

JoJo (04:34)
terrible. I

thought you were speaking just of just another area to be careful of. For example, I had one this week where she went to go buy rabbit and I'm not throwing this brand under the bus but she went to go buy I am loving you rabbit and she happened to read the ingredient and the second ingredient is beef broth and then beef liver.

Dr. Angie Krause (04:50)
huh.

JoJo (04:56)
So it's not a pure rabbit, so you have to read the ingredient list. But now I hear you saying you may not even be able to trust the ingredient list that's there.

Dr. Angie Krause (04:57)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah, I don't think that's like happening the majority of the time, but when your cat is having symptoms, whether they're having skin allergies or they're having vomiting or diarrhea, like you kind of want to get it right the first time whenever possible. And so know that that's a possibility. Now the downside to using a prescription diet, like let's say that works, you're using that for a while and that stuff's expensive. And so if you feel like that's not really something I can afford.

I think using a limited ingredient over the counter is fine knowing that if you opened up a new batch of canned or kibble or whatever you're feeding and things there, your cat begins to have symptoms, that is a possibility.

JoJo (05:50)
I will say it is a possibility. I don't know why. With certain prescription brands too, we have seen this from bag to bag, sometimes with pets and once they order another bag from the same company, their pets back to being solid. So if you've been on a prescription food for a long time and suddenly your cat or dog is having loose stools again, call the manufacturer and request a bag. Sometimes it is.

Dr. Angie Krause (06:04)
Yeah.

Have we seen that with

prescription diets?

JoJo (06:18)
us recently.

Dr. Angie Krause (06:19)
Can we say which one? Yeah, I do. my god, it's one of my favorite diets.

JoJo (06:21)
I don't know. Do you want me to specifically old to me? No. I

know. But as soon as they got a new bag and say had ordered it from Chewy and I just recommended that they call Royal Canin and find out if it was the bag and sure enough switched and right back to solid stools

Dr. Angie Krause (06:40)
Interesting. Okay, so there was a contaminant. There was some even it might not have been a dangerous contaminant, but it caused symptoms for this dog. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So that's any food. So if you have a kitty and I say, let's do a novel protein diet, you have all of your kind of prescription novel protein diets. And I usually use Royal Canin and not because I have any allegiance to that brand, but it seems like they have the most palatable ones.

Although maybe once I'm in the rut of Royal Canin maybe the palatability of the other, you know, Hills and Purina and, blue and all the other prescription diets, maybe it's just as good, but I just always go to Royal Canin. So you could do that. and then you could do a canned or kibble. Obviously I'm always going to be a proponent of canned and not kibble. It's probably a different episode. Maybe we'll, maybe we'll figure out how to link it in the show notes.

JoJo (07:33)
Hmm.

Dr. Angie Krause (07:37)
why I don't love kibble for cats. But you could do an over-the-counter novel protein. they do make them. I think Evanger's make some.

JoJo (07:45)
Ziwi Peak does, I think.

Dr. Angie Krause (07:47)
Okay. That doesn't have chicken because sometimes it'll be like, this is venison. But like you said, with that I in love and you SKU has venison. And then the next thing is chicken or, know, there's some other protein. And so you.

JoJo (08:00)
I

don't know. don't think that I think yeah, I think I recently looked at their venison and it was according to the label and another thing that people can do again. I know this is privilege of living in big city. So it may not but if you have boutique pet stores, those people can be so knowledgeable so you can go in and ask for a novel protein and ask them what's in it. They'll probably have options for you.

Dr. Angie Krause (08:06)
Okay, and it's just venison.

Yep. Yeah, read the ingredients. And then you can always do novel proteins in raw diets too. Like for kitties I'll often do like the Stella and Chewy's pork or Stella and Chewy's rabbit. and I think instinct has some too, ⁓ that are

JoJo (08:42)
And Viva,

Viva Pet. Yeah, they'll they'll come out with just it'll be a limited time that they have them though. So your pet can't be on it long term. That's the problem. Yeah.

Dr. Angie Krause (08:45)
Yeah, Viva Ra,

I hate that, I know,

because then that creates so much insecurity. But I mean, I like the brand and that when you want something that you can rely on.

JoJo (09:04)
And just

from a touting from another episode that we did, I don't remember the name of the episode now because we're 45 episodes in or close to 50, but Viva Raw now has their advertising their HPP process. Yeah.

Dr. Angie Krause (09:18)
good. I'm so happy

for them. Yeah. They had a rough go, using some other, other kill steps. And so, yeah, that's good. Okay. That, that makes me really happy for them. You know, they're a really cool company because they have completely balanced food. and last time I checked in, which was a while ago without the use of synthetic vitamins and minerals, and that might have changed and

If they are using synthetic vitamins and minerals, I still recommend them. But they're a really cool company with a great story, and they definitely really care. yeah. Okay, so we've got.

JoJo (09:53)
Okay, it's hard

for me to separate out cat and dog in this conversation. I don't know. Well, I don't know because so for cats, let's maybe finish out on what they would be using it for. And how do they know when they need to switch novel proteins? Or can they have a variety because a lot of cats like variety. So so what are they trying? I mean, if something's working for your cat, if you stop your cat's diarrhea,

Dr. Angie Krause (09:58)
Should we move over to dog? Because I think we did cats.

Okay.

Right. No they can't.

JoJo (10:20)
I think you're probably pretty inclined to just stay with what you're doing.

Dr. Angie Krause (10:23)
Yes, unless your cat goes on strike and then you have to. Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. You might have to have a couple novel proteins. But overall, I think that once cats feel better on a food, they tend to be happy on it. So you're feeding these novel proteins if your cat's itchy, if your cat's over grooming. Sometimes they're just really allergic.

cats that have ear infections or scratching their face a lot. So the scabby faced cat's chin acne might be a reason to do it. And then vomiting and diarrhea would be the main reasons because we suspect inflammatory bowel disease. And cats just don't do as well on hydrolyzed proteins. And we'll talk about hydrolyzed proteins with dogs. Yeah, with inflammatory bowel disease. So yeah.

JoJo (11:08)
Okay, and so when

you're telling a cat parent to get a novel protein, you're not necessarily caring which protein, just something different that your cat has not been eating or been introduced to.

Dr. Angie Krause (11:16)
No.

Yes. And they have to like it. Some people will be like, I got this rabbit, but my cat hates it. What do I do? And you're just like, well, you have to get a different food. You can't.

JoJo (11:29)
Yeah, and

sometimes it's not the rabbit they hate, it's the texture of the food. So you're also talking texture. Oh yeah, we're temperature. I love cats for this. Time of day. mood.

Dr. Angie Krause (11:34)
There's so many things they could hate. Or temperature.

Or location or anything. Time of day.

Yes, totally. Yes. Okay. So dogs. So when I tell dogs to be on a novel protein, it's often for the same reasons, like intestinal disease, itchiness, like itchy, allergic dogs, well, we'll switch over. Sometimes it's also about just like eliminating with dogs, eliminating their allergens. So maybe.

They're allergic to chicken. So let's say they're eating chicken. I'll be like, let's do anything but chicken. And so I don't necessarily care what they are going to feed. It just needs to not have chicken in it. So it can have 10 other proteins in it, but it just can't have chicken. So that's one way to do it. But then another way to do it is to say, okay, I'm just only going to feed my dog pork or rabbit or, know, something like that. And that's the only protein source they're getting. And for cats and dogs, remember if you're doing a novel protein diet trial.

We're trying to do it for like six to eight weeks and you can't feed any other protein. So if you are feeding your dog like pig ears or something and we're on a rabbit diet, like you can't do that. You can't feed any of another animal. So, which is kind of a bummer because food is love and it's a rough trial.

JoJo (12:59)
But we start with protein. Do we start with protein because that tends to be the biggest trigger?

Dr. Angie Krause (13:04)
Yes, it tends to be the biggest trigger, but it's not the only trigger. It can be any grain, any vegetable, any fruit, which is kind of overwhelming when you think about it, but don't think about it. Just try the nut.

JoJo (13:08)
sure not.

I think I just

went into overwhelm was just like going through an ingredient deck in my head. I think I totally zoned out there for a moment thinking about it. It's a lot. I'm so amazed when people do diet trials ingredient by ingredient.

Dr. Angie Krause (13:20)
Yeah, don't worry about it.

Let me worry about that.

I know, and this is why in dogs I just use Ultamino Because Ultamino is completely broken down into amino acids. And so this is where we get into hydrolyze. We're either doing a novel protein for dogs, or we're doing hydrolyzed, which means they take the protein and they chop it up into smaller groups of amino acids. And then Ultamino is broken up into individual amino acids, so it's almost impossible to be allergic to it.

JoJo (13:58)
Yeah, and that's always confusing for people because the ingredient is chicken. So if you're trying to cut out chicken, they're like, what are you doing, Dr. Angie? Like, yeah.

Dr. Angie Krause (14:03)
Right. Yep.

Yeah, if I've prescribed

Ultamino to you, just please don't read the ingredient deck. Just trust me. If you, if I'm working for you, you're probably holistically inclined and you're looking at this thinking, my God, I need to fire this woman. Don't fire me. Just feed the food and then, and then we'll, we'll figure it out. Do we have a whole episode on Ultamino or is that in our itchy dog?

JoJo (14:26)
We we do.

I don't know where it is. I'm so sorry you guys. Once we do so many episodes. And we talked to patients and I'm like this we talk a patient about that or do we record that? It's hard to know. But I'll link them. I will link them. I will know when I go to edit this. So I'll link any diet related episodes for dogs and cats in the show notes.

Dr. Angie Krause (14:34)
I We'll try to...

I know.

because I say the same things over and over.

Okay. Okay.

Okay,

okay, because we're talking about novel protein, but it's hard to talk about novel protein without talking about hydrolyzed protein. You know, like it's, that's difficult. cause basically this, this episode just turned into a diet trial. And so what does that mean? And so for your dog, just means that either you're just avoiding, like if you've been feeding beef, you're avoiding beef. And if that doesn't work, then you're trying a specific protein and that's called like a single ingredient.

JoJo (14:59)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Angie Krause (15:20)
And then if that doesn't work, then you do novel, a novel protein that you think your dog hasn't seen before. In cats, we get to that novel protein diet a little bit faster. In dogs, I feel like we have more wiggle room. So guess they are pretty different of how we do it.

JoJo (15:33)
They are and

I'm thinking when I think about the cat list of proteins that are accessible to cat parents, it seems longer than the ones available to dogs. Because dogs don't have, do they have the same access to kangaroo and alligator and I guess I just don't remember a time when we've offered that.

Dr. Angie Krause (15:52)
I have no...

I don't know. I've actually never, I've never had a dog on kangaroo. That's gotta be so expensive. Well, I wonder if it's because cats are 10 pounds. And so it's more accessible to feed kangaroo. Can you imagine feeding kangaroo to a dog? you imagine?

JoJo (15:59)
Right, but we've had cat.

⁓ I wonder.

Such a weird

thing. And when I think of kangaroo and alligator just total off the wall, those are very muscular animals.

Dr. Angie Krause (16:22)
Yeah, I guess they are. It's gotta be really lean. That can't taste good.

JoJo (16:24)
Aren't they so muscle meat?

No. I also thought that. Those look like bland animals. Yeah, I don't know. That's interesting because I just think of we go to Ultamino more often for dogs.

Dr. Angie Krause (16:28)
Yeah.

You're like, that is not tasty. ⁓

I go, yeah, because the thing is, once I tell you, like, okay, we need to do a diet trial, the fastest thing you could do is Ultamino if you have a dog. But it's also reasonable to just avoid the protein you're starting out with because Ultamino, one, is expensive and two, is high maintenance. And so if we just have like a minor problem, I think, and you're like, I'm feeding a chicken-based formula, avoiding chicken.

is a really economical and easy thing to do. By the time I'm getting to Ultamino, I'm just trying to figure out if there are food allergies because usually my patient's itchy. This is a made up statistic, but I would say like 90 % of the time I use Ultamino, it's because I have an itchy allergic dog and 10 % is because they have digestive problems.

JoJo (17:27)
And I would say on the cat side, it's the exact opposite.

Dr. Angie Krause (17:31)
Exact opposite. I'm hardly ever like I see some cat dermatology problems, but it's it's not as much as I see them vomiting Yeah, they're puking. Yeah

JoJo (17:38)
Yeah, it seems more gut. Interesting. Which is

why the science needs a catch up for cats, which we are. Because they're not dogs.

Dr. Angie Krause (17:47)
Yeah,

I know poor kitties Poor kitties And you know what? It's like exactly all the studies were done on dogs or we don't have any studies in veterinary medicine. We're like, I hope this translates. And it usually does.

JoJo (17:51)
Yeah, different species. It's like men and women, right?

Right,

it's all real world experience.

Dr. Angie Krause (18:06)
But I have to use this moment. This is a little plug for Cerenia which is anti-nausea. It says on the box, it's USDA, or not USDA. That's the wrong governing body. FDA approved for dogs, but it's also okay for cats. just want to, public service announcement, you can use Cerenia for cats, despite what it says on the box. Just don't look at the box. Don't look at it, I promise. Help your nauseous cat.

JoJo (18:21)
Absolutely. Yep.

That should be, yeah,

all the studies we've done for dogs and not cats. So we're catching up in the feline world. So maybe it's exciting that they have more protein options than dogs. It's a win in the cat box.

Dr. Angie Krause (18:39)
But what if we're not?

I know.

In the cat box. Did you mean to say... ⁓

JoJo (18:47)
I didn't,

but it totally works. That could be a slogan for a cat food company. There you go. You're welcome.

Dr. Angie Krause (18:53)
my gosh. It's yours. it.

Okay. Well, that's my spiel on novel protein diets. But if you want me to help you and your pet specifically, you can go to boulderholisticvet.com. You can go to Book a Consult and you can reserve time on my calendar.

We can go over your Dog or cat's medical records. I can give you my opinion about what you should be feeding, what diets to try next. We'll collect records from your veterinarian, or you can collect records from your veterinarian, and I'll go over it. And then we'll meet via Zoom. It's all recorded, and I can help you out.

JoJo (19:36)
That's good. And also you can look in the show notes for other episodes that relate to this to take a deeper dive into whether you want to look at cat diet or dog diet. Okay. Bye bye.

Dr. Angie Krause (19:47)
Okay, sounds good. See you next time.