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  1. #1
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    Acana made soft stool. What to do?

    I have switched my dog from Royal Canin to Acana Wild Prairie very slowly. Now she has been completely on Acana for three weeks. Even since then her stool is very soft. Her stool used to be fairly firmed with Royal Canin. My husband did not want to switch and I insisted. Now her soft stool made us think if we should not have switched. What should we do? Someone mentioned that it is because of the probiotics and once the dog get used to it, the stool will be better. Is it true and how long will it take?

    Also, the protein percentage of Acana Wild Prairie is exactly the same as it in Royal Canin. We tried to feed less, but she just kept begging because she felt she did not eat enough and felt hungry.
    Last edited by greagre; 09-08-2015 at 06:19 PM.

  2. #2
    Chief Pooper Scooper JenC's Avatar
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    Sometimes Acana is too rich. Or you don't need to feed as much as you were.

  3. #3
    Senior Dog Maxx&Emma's Avatar
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    It can also take longer for her system to get used to the food, sometimes several months. You can add a probiotic like Forti Flora, plain pumpkin will also help.
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  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maxx&Emma View Post
    It can also take longer for her system to get used to the food, sometimes several months. You can add a probiotic like Forti Flora, plain pumpkin will also help.
    But I think, to be a dog food that we can feed for a long time, it should not rely on other companion food like pumpkin. My dog used to do very well on Royal Canin, but knowing that Royal Canin is not a high quality food, then we switched to Acana. Does this mean these not-highly-rated food also have their upsides?

  5. #5
    Senior Dog Maxx&Emma's Avatar
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    You shouldn't have to rely on something like pumpkin long term. My opinion about diet is that what ever you can do to make it better, you should do. I feed a combo of rotating, high quality kibble, home cooked and raw. I could not have done this when either of my dogs were young because even slight changes would cause soft poos. Emma was about a year and a half and Maxx was just over 2 before I was able to slowly transition them to changing kibble without issues. Now they can eat something different every meal without problem. All dogs are different and some never do well with changes others have no issues whatsoever.

    I don't think there is an upside to a diet that is not quality or varied but that is my personal opinion.
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  6. #6
    Senior Dog smartrock's Avatar
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    Sometimes it feels like when you insist upon doing something your spouse doesn't agree with, that's when things do not turn out quite how you hope.

    I think I saw in another thread that your pup is now about 10 months old, right? How much are you feeding her each day? As someone else suggested, sometimes feeding a little more than the dog can tolerate will lead to softer stools. Someone else mentioned foods being "too rich", which I interpret to mean that they contain more protein and/or fat and usually a higher calorie content for the amount you are feeding compared to other foods.

    I don't know which formulation of Royal Canin you were feeding, so I looked up the Royal Canin Labrador food (since you said the protein content was about the same), just for comparison. Royal Canin Lab (RCL) has 11.5% fat, the Acana Wild Prairie (AWP) has 17% fat. RCL has 276 calories per cup, AWP has 434 calories per cup of food. Based upon these numbers, Acana is a "richer" food than the Royal Canin Lab formula and you could not feed the same amount of AWP as RCL without possibly seeing a difference in the stools or weight. Depending upon what Royal Canin formula you were feeding, maybe she just needs a little less of the Acana.

    My dogs are both adults now but when I switch from a food with higher calories to one with lower calories, I have to adjust the amount I feed as well. This is my first thought on the reason for softer stools.

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  8. #7
    Chief Pooper Scooper JenC's Avatar
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    BTW Royal Canin is fine. So is Pro Plan.

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  10. #8
    Senior Dog smartrock's Avatar
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    Another BTW, my dogs also look like they're starving even when they've just eaten. It's a lab thing. They eat like speed demons also. I sometimes put some unsalted green beans into the food because they're low in calories but seem to add some volume to their meal, hoping to make them feel more full. No matter, if I put down a second meal, they'd eat it as if they had not just eaten.

  11. #9
    Senior Dog Snowshoe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by greagre View Post
    But I think, to be a dog food that we can feed for a long time, it should not rely on other companion food like pumpkin. My dog used to do very well on Royal Canin, but knowing that Royal Canin is not a high quality food, then we switched to Acana. Does this mean these not-highly-rated food also have their upsides?
    Who is doing the rating? For myself I don't like to rely on websites that rate food, I want to make my own decision. I like the site I'll link below for explaining ingredients and how to read labels.

    The food my breeder uses, the food we fed our previous Lab all her life, does not come highly rated on some sites. However she lived 14.5 very good years on it. Despite that I did decide to rotate and picked two new foods with completely different main proteins and fillers, even different companies. However I kept the old food as well and since it worked just fine I also kept protein, fat and kcal/cup numbers as close as I could between the three foods. To me that only seems sensible, the dog is doing well on a certain calorie level so keep it there. It does seem you had a HUGE change in calories, nearly double. Your higher calorie food is closer to what my three were but maybe it was a shock to your pup's system.

    ETA: LOL, and here's the link I forgot:

    The Dog Food Project - How does your Dog Food Brand compare?

  12. #10
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    Acana is a very rich food. I also tried it for Toby...I actually returned it because it gave him such soft stools.

    Many Labs do better on a food that does not contain so many ingredients.

 



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