Bentley is smelling food and walks away

[Sabrina and Bentley]

Hi DK,

 

I wrote about a month ago that Bentley was throwing up and we brought him to the vet and he checked out ok.  It was around the time we bought a new bag of dog food, so we didn't know if it was a bad bag.  We decided to switch him to Blue Buffalo Large Breed Puppy almost two weeks ago and are slowly transitioning from his other dog food.  Problem is, I'm not sure if he likes it.  He used to always gobble up his breakfast and now he shows no interest.  He sticks his nose in the bowl to smell it and then walks away.  it seems for the past week or so, I've had to pull up his breakfast.  So he's only getting his dinner and I don't give him extra because I don't want him eating once a day (although he may be transitioning to this).  He does eat up his dinner but I'm not sure if it's because he's really hungry or if because he really enjoys it.  He usually gets 3.5-4 cups a day depending on his activity level, so the fact that he's only eating 2 cups a day concerns me.  He also seems to not be drinking as much water either.  He hasn't touched his water this morning and that's not like him.

I will admit that he came with us to a neighbor's party Saturday and made out very well. Pigs in the blanket, meatballs, fruit, chips.  We give him scraps a couple of times a week.  So I'm not sure if he has an upset belly from all of that or if he's holding out for human food.  Since then, we have not given him anything and I made sure my fiance understood that he gets nothing else until he's eating normal again.

He also seems to be lazier during the day, whereas he used to play with his toys by himself or run around the house.  Now he just sleeps alot.  Poop is good, energy level is up when we play with him, etc.  I did some reading online and it seems he could have some funky stuff going on with his belly.  He did get to some stuffing from one of his toys last week and I've was finding it in his poop, but that seems to have cleared over the past couple of days.

 

Anyway, just looking for thoughts, opinions.  I typically am a worry wart because he his my first puppy, so I tend to overanalyze everything...hence my super long posts. :-)

 

Thanks for your help!!

Sabrina

[Tina, Clover, Plus 5 More]

I used to feed BB to Clover and Apollo they hated the little round pieces.  Apollo would eat around the pieces, Clover wouldn't eat it at all.   I ended up switching to TOTW and they both love it.

[Sabrina and Bentley]

Bentley is eating great now.  We have him fully on BB and he's eating his breakfast and dinner every day.  We have started taking him on longer walks in the morning, so not sure if that has helped as well.  Now for the intesely disgusting gas that apparently comes with BB.  So, not sure if we'll keep him on this as I can't imagine that bad gas is a good thing.  We'll finish this bag and see what happens.  it may just be  the transition of dog foods.  Thanks for everyone's advice! 

[Bonnie and Kona]

@Sabrina, My dog had terrible gas with many dog foods. I was advised to give him ProZyme (a powdered probiotic that I sprinkled on the food). This took care of the gas. After doing this for a couple of months, I switched to non-fat, plain organic yogurt. Now he is fine with or without the yogurt. I still give the dogs a spoonful of either yogurt or pumpkin on their dry food just for the nutrition and yumminess of it. I don't know which dog food is best for you but the probiotic really helped my big boy.

By the way, I did find a dog food that didn't give Kona gas but it was not on the recommended food list. I did not want to feed him an inferior food if I could help it so I was delighted to find the probiotic to help him through the transition to good food.