So we are still trying to find a quality food that Cori can digest. She did not do well on the Kirkland puppy and only so so on the Nature's Recipe. Our vet has suggested Natural Balance and grain free foods. What foods would you all recommend? She does well on chicken so probably don't need to do a novel protein.

Thanks for all your help!

~Sarah

If you're looking for a grain-free food, Orijen Large Breed Puppy is the only one I know of that has a high enough protein % with low enough calcium/phosphorus ratio for puppies. My Luna was on it for 7 months and did very well with it. The grain-free Natural Balance formulas have only 21% protein and 10% fat which is very low for a young puppy.

The regular Natural Balance formulas are very grain heavy and complex, similar to Kirkland. A lot of people think well of Innova Puppy, but again the ingredient list is very similar to Kirkland.

Hope you can find something that works for your little one.

A few questions before we send your baby puppy for a ride on the dog food rollercoaster :( - What problems with digestion have you been seeing? When was her last fecal exam? Was Kirkland the food the breeder (or rescue organization) fed? How much do you feed, and what sorts of treats is she given?

A few questions before we send your baby puppy for a ride on the dog food rollercoaster :( - What problems with digestion have you been seeing? When was her last fecal exam? Was Kirkland the food the breeder (or rescue organization) fed? How much do you feed, and what sorts of treats is she given?


On Kirkland she has pudding like stools and she has had accidents in her kennel(at night). On Nature's Recipe she had soft serve like stools ,(also they were very big and frequent)and did not mess in the kennel. For treats she gets just her dog food (training) and for special treats she gets chicken jerky. We were giving her veggies but thought maybe that was upsetting her tummy and have stopped, but no change has been seen so far.

We have not done a fecal on her, and the vet did not feel it was a problem caused by worms or parasites. Her stools are awesome when she is just on boiled chicken and rice (she is currently eating ck and rice). They think it is either an allergy or intolerance to some ingredient in her food. I'm tempted to just have them run a fecal test just to make sure.

She has been getting about 2 1/2 - 3 cups a day, broken up into 3 meals. She currently weighs about 27lbs at 13 weeks.

The breeder was giving her a different food and we transitioned her to the Kirkland food and she had problems right away. She was on it for about 2 weeks and we then changed to Nature's Recipe for another 2 weeks after speaking to our vet and have transitioned her back to Kirkland to see if maybe it was just stress that caused the loose stools. She has also been on chicken and rice quite a bit during that time to help but as soon as she is on the dog food she has the loose stools.


Thanks for your help!


~Sarah

If this was my puppy, I'd opt for a full fecal (looking specifically for coccidia and giardia) before another food switch. Boiled chicken and rice is an extremely low fat diet, and even a puppy with parasites can produce a good stool on a low fat diet. We've had a few folks here who have struggled for months before getting a diagnosis. :( Many puppies have been exposed to coccidia, for instance, but most handle it without problems until the stress of the move to a new home or a major change in food gives it a "foothold."

Good luck!

If this was my puppy, I'd opt for a full fecal (looking specifically for coccidia and giardia) before another food switch. Boiled chicken and rice is an extremely low fat diet, and even a puppy with parasites can produce a good stool on a low fat diet. We've had a few folks here who have struggled for months before getting a diagnosis. :( Many puppies have been exposed to coccidia, for instance, but most handle it without problems until the stress of the move to a new home or a major change in food gives it a "foothold."

Good luck!


Ok...So we did the fecal test and it came up negative for any parasites. So we are going to try Natural Balance and hope that it works. If not then we will probably go to a grain free food. Does anyone have any suggestions on food or has anyone used Natural Balance?
Wish us luck!
Thanks for your help!

~Sarah

What was she on at the breeders? Did she have any issues with that?

Ok...So we did the fecal test and it came up negative for any parasites. So we are going to try Natural Balance and hope that it works. If not then we will probably go to a grain free food. Does anyone have any suggestions on food or has anyone used Natural Balance?
Wish us luck!
Thanks for your help!

~SarahDid your vet send the sample off to be checked for giardia and coccidia?

Natural Balance Potato and Duck is grain free. :) A lot of folks have fed NB with success - it's lower in protein than I personally would prefer for a puppy, but you'd probably be fine. If you'd like to save those unique ingredients for a later trial, California Natural has a chicken and rice food (unfortunately their lamb formula has an excessively high calcium content.)

One thing I'd suggest is to be very strict about the number of calories. If you switch, be aware that NB has a higher number of kcals/cup. If you stay on the present food for a bit longer, try cutting back to 3/4 cup per meal, with any kibble used for treats taken out of that total. When training a puppy, it's easy to accidentally overfeed ;)

Since your troubles began after your first food switch, another suggestion might be to back up to the food she was weaned onto. I'm not sure how effective that might be after all this time, but generally it is safest to keep a puppy on the breeder's food for at least the first bag.

Good luck! Happy poops ahead, I hope.

you've gotten great advice so far from knowledgeable people.

1 - How long were you an those foods? Your pup is but 3mts so that seems like a lot of food changes in a short time. It usually takes more than a month to see how a food acts with their system. less than that and your dog is still "detoxing" for the effects of the prior food and dealing with the change itself

2 - Were you doing gradual changes or just going one meal on one food than the next meal straight to the other?

3 - what type of stool testing did your vet do? I know that i can get the "general" one that is cheaper, but I've often had to do a more detailed one that covers ghiardia.

4 - have you talked to the breeder? What was the puppy on at the breeders, and how were the stools then? Has your pup had runny stools from the day you had her? Did you feed her the same food as the breeder?

you've gotten great advice so far from knowledgeable people.

1 - How long were you an those foods? Your pup is but 3mts so that seems like a lot of food changes in a short time. It usually takes more than a month to see how a food acts with their system. less than that and your dog is still "detoxing" for the effects of the prior food and dealing with the change itself

2 - Were you doing gradual changes or just going one meal on one food than the next meal straight to the other?

3 - what type of stool testing did your vet do? I know that i can get the "general" one that is cheaper, but I've often had to do a more detailed one that covers ghiardia.

4 - have you talked to the breeder? What was the puppy on at the breeders, and how were the stools then? Has your pup had runny stools from the day you had her? Did you feed her the same food as the breeder?


We were on the foods for about 2 weeks each and we did the gradual change over a week's time. The reason we switched from Kirkland was because she was having really messy accidents in her kennel at night and normally she is very good about not messing in there. Also she was having to go out several times during the day b/c of the diarrhea. Fortunately I was home most of that time and could take care of her. She did not have that reaction to Nature's Recipe (which we also did a gradual change to) but the stools were huge and still fairly soft. Mostly we changed from NR because of the size of the stool, seemed to us that she was not digesting much of it or that it is full of fillers.

The vet did look for giardia and other parasites. I know giardia may not be present in every stool so we will probably repeat it in the next week or so, just to make sure.

The breeder had her on a food called Exclusive Chicken and Rice. She did well on it but we could not find it in our stores and had never heard of it. We did change her gradually from it since the breeder gave us a very small bag.

I really want to find a good food that she can do well on. I've been doing a lot of reading about Natural Balance. My concerns with it are that they do not list calcium % and the first ingredient is actually rice just based on weight since the chicken is mostly water. I was looking at Innova and that seems to be a really good food ingredient wise. I've also been searching food information on dogfoodanalysis.com and it has been a great help as well.

I want to thank everyone for their great advice. I really appreciate it.
This is our first dog so we really aren't sure how to handle everything with her and hopefully we can get her stablized.

Again thanks!

~Sarah

Go to this Exclusive site and look for a local dealer... www.pminutrition.com

You're not doing your baby any good by continuing to switch foods, personally I'd go back to the beginning and leave her be. Loose stools could be a simple sign of overfeeding too, so cut her food back a bit. If she's ok, but looking thin, SLOWLY increase the amount.

Eagle Pack Holistic Lg / Giant breed Puppy is a good choice.

Natura Innove Lg breed pup is about equal..

Those being my top pup foods I don't feed it...Why? my breeder uses California Natural Lamb and I can't argue with the results.. Very firm stools and the pup is growing just fantastic. :thumb4:

Honestly your pup sounds like it has Giardia.. The treatment with Panacur is simple and takes just a few days.. Ask your Vet if it would hurt to try it.. From all I have read testing is hit or miss depending on the life cycle of the parasite.

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_panacur.html

Go to this Exclusive site and look for a local dealer... www.pminutrition.com

You're not doing your baby any good by continuing to switch foods, personally I'd go back to the beginning and leave her be. Loose stools could be a simple sign of overfeeding too, so cut her food back a bit. If she's ok, but looking thin, SLOWLY increase the amount.This is exactly what I would do if this was my puppy - return to the last food my puppy did well on. Have you spoken to your breeder? Your breeder knows your puppy better than the rest of us, and perhaps will have some insight. :) In any case, if you have been considering the NB Ultra (for some reason I assumed you had chosen the P&D) it has a "kitchen sink" full of different ingredients and might be a difficult transition for a puppy who has recently had digestive issues.

Just a note about the fecal exams - the vets around here have recently begun sending out fecals to test for giardia and coccidia because both were so often missed on the in-house test. (Sounds like this is something you are already considering.)