Simba's Diet Change and What Helped

Simba is a ten-and-a-half-year-old Golden Retriever who has spent most of her life eating whatever fell off the table. Last spring she started scratching so much that the fur on her belly went patchy, and after a few visits to the vet near our house in Bang Kapi, we learned she was reacting to something in her food.

The vet suggested a change in diet, and we went slowly. We switched over about two weeks, mixing the old food with the new, and kept a notebook of anything she ate. It sounds tedious, and it was, but within a month the scratching had dropped a lot.

What surprised me was how much she got into the process. Simba would sit by the kitchen door every evening waiting for her bowl, tail going like a windscreen wiper. Even the new food, which smells a bit like fish, didn't put her off.

My advice: don't change everything at once, and keep track of what she eats. Ask your vet to help you work out a plan. Simba is slower on the stairs now, but she still wants to walk to the market with me every Saturday morning, and I'm happy to go slowly with her.