Question about food brands?????

[Vnyborg]

A few wks ago I tryed wellness and my puppy had an allergic reaction. His face became real swollen, I had to take him to the emergency vet hospital.

I switched to nutro and his doing fine, nice coat(soft & shiney), he burps alot and has eye boogies sometimes.

My question is I was thinking about trying canidae or chicken soup. Would either of these 2 brands be ok since wellness wasn't good?

 

[courtney323]

Hi Vnyborg -

What exactly was your pup allergic to, in the Wellness? I would definitely try to find that out first. I'm assuming it was the protein source (ie. chicken or lamb).

I would assume that you will have the same odds of this happening again, irregardless of which kibble you put him on. That being said, I would tend to keep him on a high quality food, versus a lower quality like Nutro (although Nutro is not the worst food out there).

Good luck, and I hope you can figure out what, exactly he is allergic to (are you sure it was even the Wellness??)

 

[gmacleod]

Just to note, if he was allergic to something in the Wellness the cause is not necessarily the protein source A great many dogs are allergic to particular grains, with corn or beets being the prime culprits. Not sure Wellness has either of those, just illustrating the point.

Nonetheless, being allergic to something in Wellness won't make him allergic to any other kibble, unless it also happens to contain whatever he was allergic to. If you don't know what that was, then I'm afraid it's a case of trial and error until you find a good quality food (or several) that suit him.

Without knowing which 'flavour' you tried or what you've got him on now, I'd be slightly inclined to suspect it was the fish LOL - I think Wellness does indeed contain fish as one of its ingredients. Obviously, from my position that can only be a guess though.

 

[Vnyborg]

I'm not sure what ingredient he is allergic to. How do you figure that out?

I don't want to risk his face swelling up again, I know that was very uncomfortable for him.

 

[gmacleod]

Well, either you have to go through a process of trial and error with various ingredients till you find the culprit (and incidentally, it could be more than one thing), or else you can take him to your vet for allergy testing.

Last option is kind of a mix of 'assume' and 'trial'. Look at the ingredients of the Wellness, and look at the ingredients of other foods like the Nutro that you know he's fine with. The things present in both foods are unlikely to be the cause. It could be possible to narrow things down to just one or two possibilities that way, and while you won't actually know for certain, it's not a big deal to avoid just a couple of things.

 

[Vnyborg]

I was just looking at all the ingredients of each food, I think it may be the fish. I forgot to mention that solid gold was bad for him too. They have fish in their food too.

Canidae might be good because I tryed "innova" and everything was ok.

Which is a better brand "canidae" or "innova"?

Is it important that the food has glucosamine in it? A nutro rep said thats the most important thing a food should have.

 

[courtney323]

If you go to www.naturapet.com there is a neat feature that allows you to compare Innova with up to 4 other premium kibble brands.

Innova seems to be a great food, but one warning, I did see "herring" in the ingredient list (even though it is further down the list).

I've had some good results with Canidae, Wellness and most recently Eagle Pack Holistic. My dog does not seem to tolerate Lamb very well, so I do steer clear of that.

Good luck finding a great food!

 

[gmacleod]

Mmmm - does sound increasingly as though fish may be the cause. Wonder if it's all types of fish?

Anyway, as to which is better Canidae or Innova, they're both good quality kibbles and the real answer depends on your individual dog. One food may suit him better, or he may do just fine on both. If he's good on both, there's nothing wrong with rotating foods - variety is good From postings on this board, I'd be inclined to say that more people seem to favour Canidae. I, incidentally, feed raw so am not the greatest authority in the world on kibbles There are hundreds of threads here about choosing a quality kibble though, so just browsing through the feeding forum will give you a good feel for the results people are getting from the various brands available

 

[Vnyborg]

Thanks for everyones advice.

I'm gonna get some samples of canidae and see how he does on it. I'm mixing innova with nutro right now and he is doing good. I'll let everyone know how he does.

 

[Iaboy]

I would recommend this website as it has some useful information on dog food and some of the manufacturers hype. I believe it is very unbiased.

http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/articles.html

Good luck