Switching off of Wellness

[Kristin & Hudson]

Hudson has been on Wellness Puppy for about a month now and I am just not happy with his stool since we switched.  It is never firm enough, they are somewhat formed but loose.  And since we switched he has now pooped either 2 or 3 times each time he goes potty.  The first poop is somewhat formed, then the 2nd and sometimes 3rd poop is softer and loose.  Two nights ago my DH had to take him out at 1AM because he had to go (he's never done this before).  He said he shot a rocket of poop out!!  It literally flew out of him.  So I really need to switch the poor guys food.  The past two weeks I've added a Tbsp of pumpkin to his food.  Haven't really noticed a difference with this.  When I transitioned him to the Wellness I was adding yogurt and I think he might have done a little bit better with that but it still wasn't good enough.  The breeder had him on Go Natural chicken and he did great on it.  I couldn't get it locally so I decided to switch him to the Wellness (which is also cheaper). I am now regretting the switch.  SO what food should I go to now?  I've been researching all the recommended foods here.  I thought of just going back to the Go Natural since he did great on it but thought if I can find another food at a local store a bit cheaper I would do that.  Of course if nothing works I will definitely go back to the Go Natural since we know that agrees with his system.  I can get the Fromm gold large breed puppy food (he's expected to be 60-65 lbs at maturity) and am thinking of trying that.  It's priced about the same as the Wellness.  Right now I am thinking of keeping him on a healthy grains diet but should I consider going grain free?  Since he did well originally on a healthy grain diet I thought he would be ok to continue with it.  Oh, for treats he gets Castor & Pollux organix chicken treats in his kong 2x a day.  He also gets Zukes minis when we have training class twice a week.  Occasionally he will get either PB in kong, yogurt, some bananas, or carrots. Sorry for the long post but I want to make sure we do this correctly.  I need some food group encouragement :)

[Kristin & Hudson]

Hi Anna.  I started transitioning Hudson to the Go Natural since Saturday and his poops improved right away.  I definitely think for him it was the wellness causing his issue.  Today is probably the last day of wellness and go natural mixture and tomorrow he will be on just the go natural.  I would have tried the Fromm food because of the good reviews it's gotten here but since I knew that go natural worked for him in the past I decided to just switch back to that.  I don't think one is better over the other.  I originally thought the go natural was much more expensive than the other foods but because each serving is more caloric we feed less.  So the food lasts longer and we end up buying less.  I figured out how many servings were in a bag, how long the bag would last, and how much each serving would cost.  It ended up only costing us .20 cents more than the wellness and fromm.  So that is why we went back to go natural.  Good luck with Buck and let us know what you decide.

[Anna]

thank you so much for letting me know - how well hudson is doing on the Go natural.  This whole food thing is just so difficult to figure out.  Again last night - he had really bad dirrahea.  But then this morning - his poop was good.   And he didn't get anything besides his wellness puppy food.   GRRRRR.  And he does have a lot of stinky gas - which is worse than the kids (and that is saying a lot)

 

So - which Go natural did you use?   My human instinct says - to go for the salmon - bc that's one of the healthiest protein.  But then I can't use human logic for a dog - right? Duck? pork?  GRRRR

And also - does Go Natural have a puppy formula?   I didn't see it online...

What kind of treats do you give him?    

[Kristin & Hudson]

I know, I stressed over Hudson's food too.  It is a hard decision to make when there are so many options.  I feed him the chicken with fruits and vegetables only because that is what he was on before and it worked for him. And there is no puppy formula, all of the go natural foods are for all life stages.  I am going to keep him on this at least until he is 1 years old (he's 7 months old today) before I switch flavors.  I guess when they are young their stomachs and digestive tracks are more sensitive so I want to stay consistent with him.  I don't want to mess with a good thing LOL

 

Hudson never had gas with the go natural or the wellness.  The only thing I noticed was his urine started to burn the grass once we switched to the wellness.  I'm hoping that with the go natural this will stop.  The go natural has less protein so I'm thinking that's the reason for that.

 

For treats he gets the Castor & Pollux Organix chicken biscuits in his kong twice a day during the week.  He probably gets about 6 per day (we put a few in the morning in his kong before we leave for work and our dog walker does the same when she leaves in the afternoon.  He runs into his crate because he loves these treats so much!)  He also gets zukes pb minis when we are training.  Oh, and I have been putting a Tbsp of yogurt in his food while I have been transitioning.  I was doing pumpkin but I don't think that did anything for him.  He will also get a few slices of banana in the morning when DH has his breakfast and every once in a while he will get peanut butter in his kong.  I haven't taken away any of these treats because he had all of these when he was first on go natural and his poops were fine.

[Anna]

you have given me hope.

I was researching like a mad woman trying to find a better treat for him.

But maybe his food is to blame all along.

I'm gonna switch him to either Go natural or Fromm and wait a couple weeks - then maybe I can introduce treats like PB and banana.  Stuff I gave him - which would normally upset his stomach.  then I can really see - if the treats were causing him all these problems or not.

 

So - I've heard from the experts here that you should switch food (within the same line) but does this advise only pertain to the adult dogs?   So with the puppy - don't switch different flavors?  Just use the same one - til they get to be 1 year old?

[F, Calla & Luca]

I would switch flavors even with a pup. I think it's good for them to have variety and to get used to different things.

[Kristin & Hudson]

I was just using the year mark for us since it is a few months away.  I would like solid poops for a few months before switching anything again.  I'm sure F is correct that you can switch varities with pups.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Just give them time with one "flavor" before moving on to another one. You can alternate formulas each time you get a new bag.