Finding an adult food for Pepper? (think I need to depart from Orijen..)

[Hannah & Pepper]

Pepper is 10+ months now, and after a recent trip to the vet was mentioned that she can be moved off puppy food to adult food, which I knew we needed to do but kind of forgot about until now.

She was previously on Orijen Puppy and was doing well on it initially, but in the past few months, it seems to have gotten worse and she's had lots of diarrhea problems and after a poo test at the vet, no issues in her poop.  When she does get diarrhea, I give her pumpkin and chicken and that seems to help her a lot, which leads me to think that something in Orijen puppy is not sitting quite right with her.  Perhaps the fat content is too high, which I think I saw mentioned in a different thread?  

She has always been on grain free food, but I don't think she needs to move to a LID (yet), as she seems fine with chicken, bison, salmon etc.

Does anyone have a suggestion of a brand/mix that I should try for her Adult food?  Should I still do the normal transition process from orijen puppy, even though she is currently having issues with it?

Thanks!!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

You can switch her to Orijen Original  with no transition, if you want to try that. It has slightly less fat (18% as opposed to 20%), and that might make the difference. 

Otherwise, you could try Acana Regionals, the Meadowland formula. That has 17% fat and the same fiber content as her current puppy food, which can be helpful. Because it's similar in nutritional profile and ingredients, you really don;t need to do a transition with that one either.

[Hannah & Pepper]

Hi Karen!

Thanks so much!! I am going to get that right away and see if it helps!

This might be a silly question, but I still have about 1/3 opened bag of Orijen puppy.  Will shelters take that, or should I just toss it?

Thanks!

Hannah

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I don;t know about the public shelters, the private ones and rescues will not usually take opened food. 

[Hannah & Pepper]

Yeah, thats what I figured.  I think I'll toss it once I try the Acana.  

[Hannah & Pepper]

Thanks for the suggestion Karen! She gobbled up the Acana this am! Now to see how it sits with her!! I appreciate the suggestion!! I hope this fits her better 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I'm glad she liked it. Please let us know how she does. 

[Hannah & Pepper]

We are on day 2 and her poops are great--haven't had this consistent consistency in a LONG time.  I am thrilled--you hit the nail on the head with the recommendation Karen!

I will report back in a few weeks to see how its going, but so far it's great!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I hope that continues! 

[Hannah & Pepper]

So I have some updates, I'm going to list things out in bullets to try to make sense of them and figure out next steps. 

• The first 2ish weeks, Pepper seemed to do great on the Acana Meadowlands.  Her poops were normal/idea. 
• This weekend, on Saturday night she woke up 4 times throughout the night having to go outside and had diarrhea each time.  Luckily it wasn't urgent enough that she went in our room, but she does wake me up at night by walking around and being restless, and when I would take her outside, she would have diarrhea.
• Yesterday, I gave her a diet of canned pure pumpkin and boiled chicken for both her meals and she had no diarrhea this morning.  Her poops were back to "perfect" albeit orange haha.
• I took (another) fecal sample into the vet this morning to confirm that she doesn't have anything, so I will get that confirmed tomorrow. 
• I went back to giving her the Acana kibble this am with some pumpkin, and it appears she has loose stool again, but not full diarrhea.  This morning (pre-acana) her poop was back to normal (round hard "balls") after one day of pumpkin/chicken meals.

All of this leads me to believe there is something in these two foods that upsets her stomach, since her poop gets normal quickly once she has a chicken/pumpkin diet.  She definitely eats/digs up junk in the yard, so I used to think it could be that, but since her poop was normal yesterday with the pumpkin/chicken, it still leads me to believe the kibble is a problem.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what could be causing her these issues with the kibble, especially because her poop was great on it for 2 weeks (same with the Orijen initially, too).

Any ideas of what's going on, or what food/kibble I should be trying next?  Should I keep her on the Acana since sometimes she is totally fine on it and see if she acclimates?  

Thanks for all the help and guidance, as always!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I'm kind of stumped. It's odd that she did well with the Acana at first and then the stool got loose after 2 weeks. I'm thinking maybe a good probiotic would help. Maybe stay with the Acana for now, and order Proviable DC probiotics. And in the meantime, you could just add a little pumpkin to her kibble and see if that helps. A couple of tablespoons of plain unflavored nonfat yogurt would be a good idea, too. 

[Hannah & Pepper]

Hi Karen! I'm stumped too! I fed Pepper kibble with pumpkin last night and her poop is back to normal this am, so I have no idea what her random cause for diarrhea is, since she is generally fine on the kibble.  For now I am including pumpkin with her kibble plus one Proviable DC a day.  I will also start giving her some yogurt!

thanks, as always!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

This sounds promising.

I'd continue the Proviable for a couple of weeks, sometimes all they need is a strong colony of beneficial bacteria in the gut to improve the stool.