# Puppy food switch???



## Ronda (Aug 23, 2010)

Food gurus, I need your advice! Vet is advising a food change from Wellness LBP due to the past 10 days from having diarrhea to soft, unformed soft serve like poop. 

Saphira has been on Wellness LBP with a dollop of greek yogurt since she came home and has had no issues until now. Have done a 7 day course of Flagyl 250mg twice a day and the boiled chicken and rice bland diet adding kibble in slowly. 

Everytime we get back to more kibble than chicken/rice, poop gets soft again but still formed...last night and today though, poop has been soft serve and not formed. I tried some canned pumpkin mixed in the last two meals but poop is still mush.

She has had two negative fecals and is bright and active, even putting on almost 2lbs in the past 10 days since this has been going on. Vet feels that maybe Wellness is just not agreeing with her anymore and that we should try something else. Vet does not feel that this looks like EPI and SIBO but did not do any bloodwork.

I don't mind a food change, but I don't like her recommendation...science diet ID for a few weeks and then Nutro. I'd rather keep cooking rice and chicken and work in a better food than Nutro. 

My other choice when originally deciding on a food for Saphira was Orijen LBP. Should I try this or would this be too rich to change too? Any other suggestions for foods? Somone I know suggested Holistic Select for giant/large breed puppy...I have never fed this before. 

I did pick up Eagle Pack Holistic Solution to add in to her food to hopefully help her poor tummy out...ingredient list is 
Stabilized Rice Bran, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Natural Chicken Flavor, Inulin, Dried Aspergillus niger Extract, Dried Aspergillus oryzae Extract, L. acidophilus, L. casei, B. subtilus, B. licheniformis, B. coagulins, Aspergillus niger, Enterococcus faecium. You can see the link here for more product info.

Currently her last meal was Friday morning and I am fasting her until tomorrow morning to rest her tummy as we have not done a 24 hr fast yet. Not sure where to go after that...boiled chicken and rice with the Holistic Solution and canned pumpkin or try her normal food with same supplements or chicken adn rice and slowly transition her onto something else???? If something else, what? Origen, blue buffalo, artemis, etc???:help:

Thank you,
Ronda


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## sable123 (Jul 11, 2010)

Wellness is owned by a private investment company now only interested in cutting corners. Very few people mention this but speak horribly of P&G owning Eukanuba & Natura. 

Switch foods. Wellness is not the food it was. The foods I use are not available in Southern California but I would give Loyall Puppy a try and you don't have to add anything to it.

The dog food snobs don't like Loyall but more and more professionals are having great luck with it. Pro Pac is also a nice product, along with Earthborn.

Avoid adding supplements.


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## JakodaCD OA (May 14, 2000)

I think there are alot of dogs that don't do well on wellness, to 'rich' maybe? Your not the first I've heard that their dogs had diarhea on it..

I'm not a dog food snob at all, but loyall has no meat in it, it's by products and alot of junk in my opinion.

Maybe you have to try a few types to see what works for her, but that can be a catch 22 and may also give her diarhea

I like California Natural, Pinnacle, Natural Balance.. Right now i'm feeding Cal Natural, even tho I'd love to feed Pinnacle it's not readily available for me. 

Hope you can straighten those poops out,,if not, SEND HER TO ME!!))


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## sable123 (Jul 11, 2010)

JakodaCD OA said:


> I think there are alot of dogs that don't do well on wellness, to 'rich' maybe? Your not the first I've heard that their dogs had diarhea on it..
> 
> I'm not a dog food snob at all, but loyall has no meat in it, it's by products and alot of junk in my opinion.
> 
> ...


The low-ash varieties of by product meals are skin, meat, organs, intestines & bones. Dogs need amino acids not meat. Meat is not nutrition.

I admit it reads like a train wreck but it does a good job for 75 cents a lb.


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## Draugr (Jul 8, 2011)

sable123 said:


> Dogs need amino acids not meat. Meat is not nutrition.


XD

That's the best one I've heard in a long time!!!

~

To the OP:

I'd go ahead and switch off the Wellness, but definitely avoid SD and Nutro. It sounds like the Wellness might simply be too rich. I had that problem with my dog and a specific TOTW variety - Wetlands. Runnier poop on Wetlands, but he was absolutely fine on High Prairie.

I would rule out a medical cause first, however. You've added a lot of fiber to her diet and it seems to have no effect. Coccida, maybe?

Eagle Pack is a pretty good brand. Give that one a try and see what happens.


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## zyppi (Jun 2, 2006)

Just a thought, but if you switch, try a food not based on chicken. Sofie couldn't handle chicken as a pup.


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## Ronda (Aug 23, 2010)

Thanks guys...will play around with the ideas and hopefully get this straightened out. Luckily she is happy and active and I guess you would call this more soft stool than actual liquid diarrhea. I have a cool little pet store nearby that has a couple of brands and always has small bags or samples.

@Anne, I was originally thinking to take her off chicken too but when we were on chicken and rice to rest her tummy, she was fine on it then. I'm leaning towards another meat source too.

Ronda


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## PaddyD (Jul 22, 2010)

sable123 said:


> The low-ash varieties of by product meals are skin, meat, organs, intestines & bones. Dogs need amino acids not meat. Meat is not nutrition.
> 
> I admit it reads like a train wreck but it does a good job for 75 cents a lb.


I wonder where amino acids come from. :crazy:


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## Ronda (Aug 23, 2010)

Draugr said:


> XD
> 
> That's the best one I've heard in a long time!!!
> 
> ...


She's been dewormed 3 x all together and had 2 negative fecals in the last 10 days. I'm very lucky that I work at a vet so anytime she even sneezes funny, in we go.  I was originally thinking Giardia but the course of Flagyl would have taken care of that. 

Only other thing I can think of that could have set her off is the day before, on the Fourth of July, we were all over town socializing and out to bass pro shop and I always take treats with me and she did have a ton while we were out. I'm always working on focus in these places and randomly throwing commands at her so that equals a lot of rewards and I remember thinking that she had so many I should prolly skip her dinner and then my dh fed her before I told him. She gets Natural Balance rolls cut up as treats. Wonder if that was the original upset and then over feeding her that night and now her gut is just inflammed and upset and out of whack thanks to the antibiotics???

Ronda


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## Draugr (Jul 8, 2011)

That sounds like a reasonable explanation to me. Try getting some probiotics in a drugstore to restore her gut flora. Maybe that will help with the digestion?


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## Dinahmyte (Sep 26, 2004)

I had my pups on the Wellness LBP as well and they'd have soft stools off and on. They were also eating about 5 cups a day each. (Seems a little high to me). I switched them to Fromm LBP and they are eating a bit less and stools are much better. When they are adults I plan to switch them to TOTW like my other adult dogs. 
I would also test a stool sample for intestinal parasites, and consider adding a probiotic for a few weeks to get some good bacteria in the gut.


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## kr16 (Apr 30, 2011)

Get some natural balance synergy kibble, that stuff is the poop wonder food. It made for good poops. Their LTD grain free foods are also safe for puppies, the bison is the lowest calcium and the duck which I use is good also. 

Pumpkin gave my dog the worst poops ever. It can go either way. 

This all goes to my post I made last week on this and pudding puppy poops. IMO, the foods are to rich and we do not give the pups enough time to adjust to them. I solved my pudding poops with the synergy mixed with the LTD grain free. I do not use the synergy anymore.


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## s14roller (Nov 18, 2010)

I had gone though a bad of Wellness LBP and while I think it's great food, I don't think my dog has had firm stool on it either. The food just might be too rich. I recently bought a bag of Innova adult food and started mixing that in to switch over...so far, even at 25%, the stool was a bit better...

My breeder has been using Innova for a while which was the reason I wanted to give it another shot...

With food, there's enough good choices out there that you can try switching the dog off Wellness and seeing if another brand is better. My mom's dog does wonderful on Wellness core.


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## Draugr (Jul 8, 2011)

A lot of the higher-end kibbles have significantly higher protein content then a raw-meat diet would have. Just something to think about. There's no evidence to suggest dogs are harmed by high-protein diets (at long as the proteins are of appropriate quality - grain proteins CAN be difficult on their organs, if that's their primary source, particularly if they don't get enough water), but if your puppy is having problems on a higher-end food, that may be why - the kibble is just simply too rich and too protein-concentrated to digest properly. You don't want too little protein, obviously, since they are growing so fast, but I'd think too much might give them GI upsets, too.


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## Ronda (Aug 23, 2010)

Just an update...got somewhat firmer poops (actually formed, but still soft looking) this weekend with Wellness LBP mixed with canned pumpkin and her Holistic Solution supplement. Stayed with Wellness through the weekend just trying to sift thru all the different kinds of food and see which one to try first (and hopefully last) 

Still not entirely pleased with poop status so I'm trying Solid Gold Wolf Cub....it has bison and fish instead of chicken as the protein source (as opposed to Orijen) and we'll see how that goes. Switching slowly of course. As soon as I have her switched over completely and the poops look good, I will transition her off the pumpkin and Holistic Solution Supplement.

Thanks for all the advice/help. Hopefully my next installment of "As the Dog Poops" will be even better.

Ronda


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