This is a specific conversation about Dog food for sensitive stomachs — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
A rescue Akita with a kennel background and ongoing stomach trouble — that's a combination worth thinking through carefully, because the gut issues could be food-related, stress-related, or both feeding into each other. Sensitive stomach problems in dogs generally come down to food intolerance, ingredient sensitivity, or a digestive system that needs a simpler, lower-load diet to function well. With a dog who's been through kennel stress, the anxiety piece can genuinely make the gut more reactive even to foods that would be fine otherwise. To help you properly: how long have you had him, what symptoms are you seeing most — loose stools, vomiting, gas, or a mix — and what has he been eating since you brought him home?
We've had Koda for about four months. He came from a rescue kennel where he'd been for almost a year. The main issue is loose stools pretty much every day, sometimes with a bit of mucus. Occasional vomiting, maybe once a week. He's been on Royal Canin Maxi Adult since we got him because that's what the rescue was feeding him. He's not underweight but he never seems fully settled after eating — paces a bit, sometimes grass-eating in the garden.
inparticular.ai
That picture makes a lot of sense. Chronic loose stools with mucus, post-meal restlessness, grass eating — that's a dog whose gut is consistently irritated, and in a recently rehomed Akita, that's almost certainly a combination of ingredient load and residual stress. Royal Canin Maxi isn't a bad food, but it's not a simple one — it has a fairly long ingredient list with multiple protein sources and additives, which is a lot for an already-reactive digestive system to process. The pacing and grass eating after meals suggest discomfort, not just loose output, which tells me his gut is working harder than it should be. Before I give you a specific recommendation: is he on any single protein source at the moment, and has the rescue or a vet flagged any known sensitivities or allergies?
No known allergies mentioned. The Royal Canin has chicken and pork in it I think. No one's flagged anything specific. We did take him to the vet early on and they said try a bland diet for a week, which helped while we did it, but as soon as we went back to the Royal Canin it came back. Vet said to try a sensitive food but didn't point us to anything specific.
inparticular.ai
That bland diet result is actually really useful information — it tells you his gut can settle, and that the Royal Canin is likely the trigger, not some underlying condition that needs medication. The fact that symptoms returned immediately when you reintroduced it points strongly to ingredient overload or a specific sensitivity to one of the proteins, chicken being the most common culprit in dogs that present like this. My recommendation is Burns Sensitive Salmon & Brown Rice — it's a single animal protein source, very short ingredient list, no artificial additives, and the brown rice is gentle on the gut without being too low in fibre. It's designed precisely for dogs like Koda: reactive digestive systems that do well when the food stops asking too much of them. Burns as a brand is also notably low in protein percentage by design, which counterintuitively reduces the digestive burden on sensitive dogs. Transition slowly over ten to fourteen days — swap about a quarter of his current food each few days. Given his stress history, keeping mealtimes calm, consistent, and in a quiet spot will also genuinely help; anxiety and gut motility are directly linked in dogs.
That sounds really logical actually. Is Burns a brand I can trust for a big dog long term? Akitas are quite specific aren't they — they don't need massive amounts of protein apparently.
inparticular.ai
Yes, and that's exactly why Burns suits Akitas particularly well. You're right that Akitas don't thrive on high-protein diets — they're a breed that historically did well on a relatively modest, rice-and-fish based diet, and high meat protein loads can actually contribute to their digestive sensitivity. Burns is formulated at lower protein levels than most mainstream brands, which aligns well with what Akitas need. It's been around since the nineties, it's made in Wales, and it has a genuinely strong track record with sensitive-stomach dogs including larger breeds. For a 5-year-old Akita, the Sensitive Salmon & Brown Rice adult formula is appropriate — you'd be feeding roughly 300 to 380 grams per day depending on his weight, which you can verify on the back of the bag. It's available on Amazon UK in a 6kg or 15kg bag, and the 15kg is good value once you know he tolerates it. Start with the 6kg first.
Really helpful, thank you. One last thing — should I be worried that this is something more serious, like IBD or colitis? He's had this for four months now.
inparticular.ai
It's reasonable to keep that in mind, but the pattern you're describing doesn't strongly suggest IBD or colitis right now. The key signal is that the bland diet worked — inflammatory conditions like IBD tend to persist even on bland food. What you have looks much more like dietary sensitivity combined with a gut that's been under stress. That said, if you switch to Burns, transition carefully, and after six to eight weeks he's still having loose stools more than a couple of times a week or you see blood in the stool, that's the point to go back to the vet and ask for a faecal panel or further investigation. Give the food change a proper run first — most dogs with dietary sensitivity show clear improvement within three to four weeks on a food that suits them. Koda's four months is long enough to be worth addressing properly, but not so long that it points to something structural. You're doing the right thing by tackling it now.
