Should I Give Up On Blue Buffalo? - UPDATED

[Camilla and Darwin]

I am sorry if this post is redundant... but I did a bunch of searches and couldn't find a situation that was similar enough...  I am not sure how to actually search inside the food groups discussions... short of browsing through all 45 pages.. 

So, we recently changed Darwin from Holistic Select to Blue Buffalo. It was the better choice for numerous reasons, including quality, price, and availability. We changed him gradually, and he did okay for the first week, although his stools were pretty soft. However, a week in, he started having bad diarrhea. I figured this was just due to the change and we put used either white rice or some pumpkin to help his tummy out. They helped, but as soon as we stopped the rice or pumpkin, he was back to explosive diarrhea.

 I was confused. We fed him two different formulas of HS, chicken and rice, and lamb and rice. Well, the Blue Buffalo we switched him to was Chicken and Rice... so they had similar ingredients. Was the tummy upset from the food? This went on for THE ENTIRE bag. (a big bag) We had to put pumpkin or rice in his food every single day or he would get the runs. And even with the rice or pumpkin, his poop was soft. He had to go out twice as much as usual. Not at all like it used to be. I was worried he was sick with something because it had lasted through the entire BB bag... 

I decided to get a bag of Holistic Select. If his poop went back to normal, it probably meant he wasn't sick and it was the food upsetting him. Well, the 1st day he was back on Holistic Select, his poop was PERFECT again. Without pumpkin or rice. He is currently back on HS. 

Any advice? I wouldn't think the differences in the food would be that great, since they were similar formulas... but he didn't do well at all on BB, for the whole bag. Should we try another formula? Should we stick with HS? 

UPDATE: We have now completely switched him over to Wellness. It is the "Core" line, grain free. He is doing great. His poop is nice and firm (yay!) and he LOVES it. It is so much more readily available, and a better food so we are happy campers here! 

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

Our Daisy had the same experience with Blue Buffalo so back to Orijen. It is pretty expensive but she attacks her food (never has she done this before the switch) and no issues at all with the runs.
I am ashamed to admit that she came from the breeder on Eukenuba and we had her on it until I joined DK - when I read more and more on the Food Group I just had to switch.

[Camilla and Darwin]

I think Darwin would do pretty well on Orijen. It's completely out of our price range unfortunately. I know that you feed less, but even calculating that in, it would cost us a lot more. Perhaps one day! Darwin came to us on Purina Puppy Chow. Luckily we joined DK soon after and learned all about good food. :-)

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

How's it going with the Wellness?

[Camilla and Darwin]

We are still doing a gradual transition. I know it's probably overkill but we had 1/2 bag of HS left so we started putting a tiny tiny bit in every day. We are at about 1/2 HS and 1/2 Wellness right now. So far so good.

[Julie & Wrigley]

I have a 5 month old Labradoodle. He was eating lots of dry dog treats (old mother hubbard) and nutro max puppy. He wasn't really into this food (wouldn't ever finish it and didn't get excited when we'd feed him) and had diarrhea a few times per week. We switched him to BB (chicken and rice puppy) and things settled down. He recently became picky and wasn't willingly eating his food so we bought some Vita Gravy and put it on his food and he LOVES it. But now this week his diarrhea is back. I was thinking of trying a salmon/potato formula of food but I"m not sure what to add to help the flavor. I've heard the canned pumpkin works well, but can you feed that to them with every meal? I'm tempted to try the pumpkin w/ the BB (and no vita gravy) before switching him again since it's quite the process.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

There's nothing wrong with adding pumpkin to every meal, but the problem is that there are often shortages of canned pumpkin, and you hate to have to rely on something that may be hard to find. Have you tried adding plain unflavored yogurt? That's widely available, and also adds probiotics that help regulate digestion.

[Julie & Wrigley]

Would you recommend trying pumpkin with blue buffalo before I try switching to Orijen large puppy? I'm leaning towards Orijen but I just don't know!!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

IMO, there is no commercial food available that is better than Orijen. While it may not be the right food for every dog, it is definitely worth trying.

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

Julie, If you wanted to stick with Blue Buffalo, which would certainly be a fine choice, then adding the pumkin and or the yogurt will make it very attractive to your LD and you can see if things settle down again before switching. You can use both or either for every meal without a problem. (Non-fat plain yogurt is recommended)

Orijen is a very nice food, but I find it rather pricey for us. I would use it if our dogs had issues and didn't tolerate anything else well, as that would make it worth the extra cost to me. However, I would easily spend about $2-300 more a year on Orijen over Wellness or Candidae, both grain free recipes.

You may switch to Orijen and still have to try the pumpkin or yogurt to settle his tummy down, so you really have nothing to loose at this point by trying it with the BB. Like Karen said, it may not be right for every dog.
Just my thoughts.

[Julie & Wrigley]

Thanks for the suggestions. I bought some Orijen today and will slowly trade that in with some pumpkin to see what happens...

[KC]

One of the ladies at the pet store recommended Holistic Select to us saying that it was really good for binding stools and getting hard stools. I didn't follow through because I was trying to go grain free, and the one she was pushing on me had a LOT of grains, even if they were the good ones. Apparently she was right!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Not only does it have a lot of grains, but the ingredient that is "really good for binding and getting hard stools" is beet pulp, which is a controversial filler believed to promote yeast infections. None of the higher-quality foods contain beet pulp, they use tomato pomace instead.