The Schnauzer Forum

My wee Salt and Pepper minature Schnauzers legs and Beard are turning Rusty.
I have researched it on the net they suggest change of diet from Red to White Meat and probiotic supplements.
Anyone else came across this.

It's to do with the iron in the blood when the red blood cells are broken down, it's in the saliva. Some dogs seem more prone to it than others. I've heard of several things that owners have found improve it eg not feeding beef, putting cider vinegar with the mother culture in drinking water, only giving filtered water, washing the beard / rusty bits with whitening shampoo on a daily basis, not giving foods /chews with any added colouring.

I don't know what you're feeding at the moment but it's always worth looking to give the best diet possible. Is she licking her legs for them to be changing colour?

Thanks Very Much for your reply.
We use Pedigree Vital protection mix of dry and wet it claims to have no colouring but there's beef in it , will try something else and use the cider vinegar.

I would most definitely change from pedigree non of them are good. They do not contain quality protein source, by that I mean they don't contain meat but meat/animal derivatives. You can feed a much better quality food for the same price. The better the quality the less you feed so although it may cost more for same size bag it will last longer.

Have a look at allaboutdogfood.co.uk it will help you choose another food as you'll see the highest pedigree vital scores is 22%

Just ask if you have any other queries

Thanks Again

Hi Henry, I am doing a Diploma in Canine Health and Nutrition. For one of my assignments I had to compare two different foods, one high quality one not. I chose two kibbles, Pedigree for the not good quality. The problem is it doesn't have any good quality protein. It is made up of animal derivatives, that is parts of the animal that are not used in human food and can be beaks, nails, etc. it really could be anything. They don't tell you that on the package. The Pedigree range Is also full of cereal fillers and uses beet pulp as the main source of fibre, there is a huge amount of controversy about the use of beet pulp and the effect on the liver. No other natural vegetables. This food will cause dry and itchy skin, gastric intolerances for most dogs, causing licking and hence the discolouration. In contrast the other kibble was Orijen which you will find on the website that Alison mentioned. The ingredients are much healthier, with nutritional vegetables and fruit and it has an excellent nutritional score. So I also think the first step to improving your dogs diets, I would recommend a more fresh diet e.g. raw but if you don't like that idea there are some much better kibble products out there.