Review on 🐶 Hill's Science Diet 7+ Adult Small Bites Chicken Meal with Barley and Brown Rice Recipe Dry Dog Food by Crystal Drake

My Maltese is 9 years old, he is already 7 years old (rescued from a shelter when he was 2 years old). He has always been healthy except that his vet has been telling us for the last several years that his liver enzymes are starting to rise. The trend continued last year when enzyme levels were high enough to be of serious concern and the vet started talking to us about corrective actions (medication, prescription food that would cost $70 a pack, and possibly future surgeries if the situation worsens). ). I decided to try changing his diet to see if that would help and if things don't improve after 6 months then we'll do what the vet said. The first change I made was that I reduced almost all of the goodies. It was tough for my pup and I because I loved giving him leftovers and he loved it too. But I found that rewarding him with walks and more playing time made us both feel better about the change. Second, I searched the internet for information on diets for dogs with liver problems and found that they should be lower in animal protein and low in copper. finally decided to try this one. I like that the pieces are smaller so that helped a lot for older and smaller dogs like my little guy as he could easily eat without biting through the big pieces. He loved this food. He ate it with relish and after 6 months his liver enzyme tests came back showing positive changes. We kept going and a year later his vet said that not only did he have perfectly normal liver enzymes, but he didn't even appear to have had any liver damage before. If he hadn't had years of testing in his system he would say that based on recent testing he doubts my dog has ever had liver problems. Dog food, which helped, but other than that and leaving out the treats, we didn't make any other changes. In the early months of our venture, I gave him canine liver enzyme support pills bought at a vitamin store, but I gave them up after only a few weeks because I noticed the pills made him vomit more. I will say that he does not like this food if it stays in a plastic bag for a long time. He avoided eating it and could sometimes go more than 24 hours without food. Until I bought a dog food container that was made out of stainless steel and big enough to hold a small bag of dog food. Since then, he never skips a meal and makes sure he eats everything in his bowl. I suspect that after a while it tastes like plastic in the bag, but that's pure speculation. :)