Vet suggested 'rotating kibble' - need suggestions for 2nd kibble for itchy dog

[Lynne B]

I started out giving Beck Merrick kibble, but he farted constantly and about drove my husband and I out of the house. The vet said maybe it was too rich..so we tried wellness and innova neither of which he would eat. Finally we tried chicken soup, and he loved it BUT.. he started scratching himself constantly.

I called the vet she said its probably the kibble and suggested I try Natural Balance duck and potato. He loves it, no more itchies, and no farts. But, the vet said that now that he is doing well on it, I should add a 2nd kibble and rotate between the two, but when I asked her what kind she said 'whatever he does well on' I have a pantry full of half eaten bags of kibble, I could go bankrupt trying to find another kibble he can tolerate /sigh

can anyone suggest a 2nd kibble that he might do well on? (he's almost 5 months and weighs 38 pounds if that is important)

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

I have rotated kibble every or every other bag for years. But my main food is homecooked at dinner time. Right now, I am using the Evo Small Bites also. I put out about 3 cups in the AM for 3 dogs and over the course of the day they eat about 3/4 to all of it. At dinnertime, they get homecooked 80% protein, 20% brown rice, veggies.

I had itchy doggies until I eliminated all corn from their diet. But not all itchiness is caused by food. Check out some of the Allergic Doodles discussions. Itchiness can be seasonal, or many other things and not food related at all.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

In fact, chances are great that the itchiness has nothing to do with the food. Please take a look at the "Food & Allergies" discussion here in The Food Group.
If you had allergies, your primary care doctor would probably send you to an allergy specialist, because he really doesn't know much about them. It is the same with vets. Most of them do not know very much about allergies, and even less about food. I have great respect for vets, and I adore mine, but for allergies & food advice , I use a specialist.
Only 10-15% of allergies in dogs are related to food. 85-90% of the time, they are inhalant allergies. Even when a dog does have food allergies, they are never allergic to a particular brand of food, but to one or more specific ingredients. Corn, is most common, followed by wheat, and beef, with chicken and soy allergies occuring occasionally.
Try the salmon or lamb flavor of any premium quality food...you will find tons of info here in the Food group by looking through our many discussions. try a different flavor of Natural Balance. Try a different brand of Duck & potato. Try a venison or bison based food. Fromm, and Nature's variety are the brands I currently use.
The gas is not at all related to allergies of any kind. Look at the label of the Chicken Soup formula you were using and compared the ingredients to those in the Natural Balance. See if it had any of the "big five" allergens mentioned above. That may tell you exactly what to avoid, and then you can just feed any high quality food that doesn't contain that.

[Lynne B]

thanks for the responses, I will compare the labels of chicken soup and natural balance & see what I come up with.

The allergy being food related is just a guess on my part and on the Vet's since he quit scratching about a week after I completely cut him over to natural balance. He had no rash before, just was constantly scratching himself. The gas I knew wasn't allergy related, the vet said that Merrick was probably just too rich & hard for him to digest.

Both my dogs get a few tablespoons of home cooked food in their kibble, usually white meat chicken or turkey cooked with some oatmeal and chopped vegetables

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It sounds like you're doing everything right. It's possible the itching was a reaction to something that was blooming at the time and has since died away.
It's a pain to buy bags of food that end up being thrown away, but most of us have been through it. I firmly believe it's a good idea to change around and also to add fresh foods, dogs need & like variety just like we do.
As you read through our discussions, you will see that I am the unofficial "allergy expert" here at DK due to my unfortunately necessary & exhaustive research on these issues...my guy has the worst form of canine allergies there is, and I am determined to spare others the frustration of searching for answers that I went through, as well as the unnecessary suffering Jack went through. Allergy is one of the most misunderstood subjects there is. So forgive me if I seem to be lecturing at times. :-)

[Lynne B]

I don't think you are lecturing, and I wouldn't mind if you were! I compared the labels, and basically natural balance has about 1/3 of the ingredients of chicken soup, but the main thing I noticed is that there are alot of different grains in chicken soup including: cracked pearled barley, whole grain brown rice, oatmeal, millet, white rice,

I have a friend who's a large animal vet, I called her she said she would rotate either natural balance (not her favorite) or Evo with Taste of the Wild. She thought that Beck's vet recommended nature's balance because it has so few ingredients it's easier to figure out what particular ingredient is causing a problem.

[elyse]

Do you know why the vet said you should rotate between the two? I didn't realize that was a good thing and now I'm confused.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I don't know why Lynne's vet wants her to rotate Beck's food, but it is definitely a good thing to do for any dog. Food allergies develop after a dog has been eating something for a long time.Rotating foods may keep that from happening. It's better for many reasons to have variety in their diets. For one thing, if a formula is changed, a company changes hands, or you have another recall disaster, you have something else to feed. It also helps to keep pickier eaters interested in their meals. And who wants to eat the same food every day? If they were out catching their food, they might have a rabbit today, a pheasant tomorrow. It's very natural for them to enjoy different flavors, lol.
Here in the Food Group, we have found that once your dog is accustomed to eating a better quality diet without a lot of junk & filler in it, there is no adjustment period when changing from one food to another, and with feeding a combination of commercial and fresh foods. If you read through many of our discussions, you'll see that many of us are doing this with no problems, and the dogs seem to be loving it!

[Jackie]

I can testify to that..lol I now rotate Beckett's food. The place where I buy his food recommended rotating and Karen added quite a few tips, etc. for me. He loves the one he's on now!..Fromm Salmon. He seemed to be getting bored with the Innova we were feeding him. I can't wait to try a different one next time. ! He adjusted fine. We changed over gradually. It does make sense to me that rotating is a good idea.

[Kyoko]

I also rotate Charlie's food. One of the reason is that we use Fromm, and I can only get it from the certain pet store. If I ran out of Fromm food, and does not get a chance to go to that pet store, I can always go to Wholefoods, and get "Halo" the other brand we use.
Charlie and my old Chow Butter both love them and do well on them.

[Lynne B]

yup- that's exactly what the vet said:
1. can keep allergies from developing
2. variety
3. she had alot of people come in with dogs who refused to eat after that big recall, they had been on the same kibble for years
4. Also, she said that there might be an amino acid or nutrient that is present in one food, but not in another- she said that is less likely with good kibble, but she said why take a chance?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Stick with that vet...she's really on top of the latest info on canine nutrition, and not in the pocket of the Hill's Company. You found a keeper!