Trying new dog food

[Tankersbabe]

Haven't been on here in a while guys...I do read occassionally, but not too often anymore.

Anywhooo...hubby and I decided to switch our dog food. Semmi has been on the Purina ONE Salmon based food for about a year now. It is quite a step up from the Puppy Chow she had been on for years due to 'allergies' that turned out to be related to seasonal flank alopecia. Her old owner fed her nothing but Puppy Chow because she would start losing her hair when she would switch her off of it...but it turned out to be seasonal flank alopecia and she was switching the foods in the fall (after her hair had grown back in nicely in the summer and she thought it would be safe again). When we got her, we kept her to the puppy chow for a few years and decided that it was too full of fat and we needed to move to something a little better. Plus the seasonal flank alopecia diagnosis kinda sealed it for us.

The Purina ONE is not the greatest food, but her coat did improve and we are still battling the alopecia with fish oil and melatonin. (Dog takes more pills than anyone I know!) Not as bad as last year, thank goodness! We still have quite a bit of hair and only a few bald patches.

We read labels and compared products for two hours on Saturday and settled on the Nutro Natural Choice Senior formula. Our girl is 10 years old, and maybe this is a good step up.

We bought the small bag to make sure she would eat it, and so far so good. She LOVES it!

Opinions please...hoping this will help with the coat too as we believe there is an underlying problem with corn somewhere in there.

Thanks!

Stef

 

[Lunasmom]

check in the feeding the forum...but i am now feeding luna california natural, which is supposed to be very good for the coat and skin. But when you do make the switch, make sure to do it slowly.


Can i suggest doing a search for premium kibble. Purina One and even nutro natural choice are pretty much a gross food that is horrible for doggies. There are much better premium foods that are pretty much the same cost because you feed less, there are less fillers so the dog doesn't have to eat as much. and they poop less!

 

[alibrennan]

Roxy eats Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Puppy. (Yes, I know, most say boxers are not large breed but it's what our vet recommended at the time.) And it's not a horrible food. It may not be the best, but it's certainly not the worst by far. We plan to switch her to an even better adult food soon, but she's done really well on it so far. I have no complaints about it. She barely has gas and only poops 2 maybe 3 times a day. Her skin and coat look great.

 

[gmacleod]

Mmmm. The dog food that suits every single dog is yet to be invented But that doesn't mean you need to feed a low quality food to your dog - simply that *one* premium food didn't happen to suit him. Chicken Soup is made by Diamond, incidentally It is their premium line of food. They also make Premium Edge (the next best), Kirkland (a mid range food) and Diamond (the lowest quality one). Actually, there are several other brands made by Diamond too, but I don't recall their names right now. But just because CS doesn't happen to suit your dog, it doesn't mean that some of the other top quality foods won't have him thriving.

 

[alibrennan]

I also wanted to give you a suggestion. You can request samples of dog foods that you are interested in trying directly from the manufacturer's websites. I have done so myself and I currently have samples of Premium Edge and Canidae on their way to me. Maybe this would help?

 

[AJsMom]

We fed AJ Nutro Natural Choice for a while and he ended up getting hot spots all over his stomach. We switched him and his hot spots are gone now. It hasn't solved our food problem - we are still searching for "his" perfect food - I have some samples of Flint River Ranch on the way and I am also going to try Merrick - but that was just my experience with Nutro Natural Choice.

 

[alibrennan]

Hey AJs Mom, my Roxy loved the Wilderness Blend of Merricks. We had several samples from Merricks and that was her favorite by far!!! The bowl was licked clean. By the way, what are hot spots??? I've never heard of that.

 

[Tankersbabe]

Update:

Well, we are into the Nutro Natural Choice Senior formula by one week now.

I know it is too soon to really attribute anything to the dog food, but her energy level is really high (she's 10, so she was getting pretty laid back and lazy, and now wants to play a lot).

Her poop is not less yet, but the gas and smell have really decreased considerably. She was quite the gassy girl, and we have noticed less 'noise'.

As for the hair, of course, no signs of an allergy reaction or improvement in her current condition, but we are still doing the doses of melatonin and fish oil everyday... A couple more weeks will give us a better idea.

She LOVES it though...we are still mixing it a bit with her old dog food, and she will not touch the old food now if you put it in the bowl first. She's all over this Nutro stuff. Licks the bowl clean and goes snuffling for more. I'm waiting on her to learn how to open the pantry door and get into the bag. They must put doggie speed in it or something because she is hooked.

Am hoping for good results. She's happy, her skin isn't one big oozing bald mess (so far), and it is readily available without having to drive to another city to buy it.

Thanks!

Stef

 

[Net45582]

Yea-always great to hear good news. I'm in Va also,a couple of hours from you and haven't had much luck in finding good foods for my girls. I don't think its allowed to post a store name here...but maybe give a hint where you found it? Maybe you could use *'s as some of the letters. I have ordered some of the Timberwolf Organic small bags but I'm afraid shipping costs aren't going to let me be able to keep my girls in it. Thanx
Wanda Kiddo & Chancey

 

[gmacleod]

Yes, it is allowed to post the names of feed stores here.

You should note though, that when it comes to things that are *not* allowed (and the site rules are pretty clear), trying to circumvent the rules by the "inventive" use of letters and symbols, or spelling things out with spaces etc is a very fast way to get your account deleted. I would not recommend trying that.