nutro ultra vs wellness

[jdubsgirl]

I am currently feeding my dog Nutro Ultra adult food and she seems to be doing fine with it aside from being a little gassy at times and an occasional loose stool (1 every day or 2). I have been doing some reading about Wellness dog food and considering switching to this. I have heard that it is a better food than the ultra. I was wondering if anyone else has made this switch or would recommend the switch to Wellness for my girl?

 

[Cami]

Loose stool, once every day or so is not normal. Hopefully it is the food you are feeding and a switch will make an improvement.
Wellness is a higher quality choice. I have fed my girl Wellness in the past and she did well on it and it is the only food my cat can eat (inflammatory bowel disease).
Choosing the right food can sometimes be harder than it seems. As long as you make the switch slowly (over the course of a few weeks gradually adding in the new) you shouldn't have a problem. That being said not all foods work for all dogs so if there seems to be a problem you may have to keep searching.

 

[mueltrain]

I would definitely recommend you make the switch, it is a much better food and both of my puppies have done really well on it. Have you looked on dogfoodanalysis.com? They have a ton of good info on food.

 

[BxrMommieNAZ]

I'd agree with the others, there's absoultely no comparrison between Nutro and Wellness they aren't even on the same playing field, Wellness is by far a MUCH higher quality food. I'd absolutely ditch the Nutro.

 

[LeeUmm]

I used to feed my girl the Nutro Ultra when I didn't know better. I had all kinds of problems. Loose stool and bad gas.

If you check out Dog Food Analysis - Reviews of kibble you'll see it's a 3 star food I believe from last time I checked.

The suggestion would be to choose something 4 stars or higher.

 

[jdubsgirl]

Wellness Super5 or Core?

Thank you all for your advice. I knew it would probably be a good idea to make the switch, just reassuring to hear that you all agree..

Now my next question is do I go with the Super5mix or Core? From reading the labels on bags in the store it appears that they both have great ingredient lists, but they seem to go from one extreme to the other in protein. Super5 shows to contain 22% protein which seems a little low, but the Core contains 34% protein which is even higher than most large breed puppy formulas. Now I'm not sure about dogs since I am fairly new to owning a boxer, but being involved in college sports and going to school to be a physical therapist, I know that protein is very important in humans for muscle growth and development. It seems that it would be benificial to have the added protein in a boxers diet as they are a muscular breed, but would the Wellness Core at 34% protein be too much?

(I would like to go with the core food as the first 4 ingredients are meats and it is grain free)

 

[jdubsgirl]

Ok, so right after I posted the last thread about the protein contents of the wellness core food, I was doing some more reading on dog food analysis and saw that Orijen and Innova EVO has even higher protein concentrations (38% and 42%), and they are all 6 star dog foods. maybe 34% protein in the Core food isn't so high after all.

 

[BxrMommieNAZ]

Most grain free foods are high in protein, it's a personal preference on if you want to go that route or not. Also though you don't mention how old your Boxer is, Wellness Core states on the bag it is not for dogs under 12 months of age, so just be mindful of that if your Boxer is under a year old. Also Core is more expensive than their Super 5 Mix so that may play a factor too depending on your budget. There's opinions on pros and cons for both, and for as many people who own dogs on the planet they probably all have a different opinion on high protein or not when it comes to foods, so that will just have to be a personal decision on your part.

Good luck.

 

[dsmit]

The concern with the Core is the higher Calcium level of 2% vs 1.7%. This is the reason that the bag and company state that the food is for 1 yr old dogs and older. I would avoid Innova EVO with a calcium of 3.03%. From my research, 2% or higher is meant for adults not puppies.

 

[LeeUmm]

This thread contains great info on the high protein debate.