Hunger / diarrhea issues

[Josh Adams]

Our almost 5 month-year-old puppy is always hungry. I realize this may be normal puppy behavior but his constant hunger has increased recently. We feed him Fromm Large Breed Puppy food on a strict schedule three times per day - 7AM, 11AM, and 4PM. We feed him the amount the bag suggests which is 3 1/4 cups per day. Sometimes we increase slightly if he has a very active day. We provide treats during the day when we're training (inside the house and on walks). Nonetheless, he begs for food between meals. I swear if we put a bag of food in front of him it still wouldn't be enough. Also, he eats a lot of grass and dirt in the yard and on walks. Our vet says this is all normal, but it doesn't sit right with us. Any suggestions?

The second issue is diarrhea. I posted about this issue a while back. We tried switching from Life's Abundance to Zingnature. We did so gradually mixed with a bland diet. That didn't go well so we started over and switched to Fromm LBP. His stools we're okay and he loved the food so we stuck with it. He still has diarrhea issues. About half his daily stool is formed, but the rest is soft, sometimes very soft (usually in the afternoon). We tried removing treats one day and it sort of helped but he still got soft stool once per day. We added treats back in because he was enrolled in puppy school and we couldn't go without treats during training. I ordered Proviable DC which arrived today. We'll start it tomorrow. I hope this helps. Would love advice if I am missing anything. I'll add that we had a stool sample done a while back and it came back fine.

Here are the treats we use for training:

- Cloud Star Chewy Tricky Trainers Liver
- Trader Joe's Beef Liver Begging Treats
- Trader Joe's Joes Chicken & Sweet Potato Flavored Dog Treats
- Vet One Neat Treats
- Occasional pieces of hotdog for high reward training
- NF Greek yogurt

[Josh Adams]

Thank you both for the LID Wellness recommendation. We will see how he does this week before we make the decision to switch foods again.

Our pup has enthusiastically eaten all brands we've provided him (Life's Abundance, Zignature, and now Fromm). He's always begging for more, so it's not an issue of him not liking it, but rather a potential issue of his stomach not liking it. 

[Josh Adams]

We just got home from a long walk/puppy play date. On the way home, Sam had a huge blow out on the sidewalk. It was extremely soft. I treated him quite a bit today on his walks, but it's hard to believe it's the PureBites. And he was fine on his Fromm kibble for three days straight. I'm at a loss. I'm going to have our vet check him out again just to be safe. The poor guy needs a break.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I'm wondering if he's just getting too many treats? If you must treat him out on a walk, use teeny tiny bits. 

[Josh Adams]

We do treat often since we're working on distraction leash walking but I wouldn't consider it a large amount. Maybe we should offset his kibble a bit more to compensate for the treats on training days?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I think that might be a good idea.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Two of our dogs would accept their regular kibble, one won't,  but he will accept a kibble that isn't his usual dinner ( I know you are being careful about his food right now, but perhaps a similar but slightly different kibble - same LID brand with different protein source) would work, if his regular one is not 'fancy enough' for him. It is definitely worth a shot.

[Josh Adams]

Update: It's been two days of good, formed stool. We switched him to 2 meals/day on Tuesday. We have only fed him his Fromm LBP kibble and fresh turkey meat for treats (along with his Proviable). We also slowed his feeding down by placing a can of unopened beans in the center of his bowl, not sure if that helped but it's minimized his gas. I think it's safe to say the Fromm is not the issue, rather it was either the Cloudstar or TJ treats that was causing the afternoon/evening soft stool? We haven't tried the Purebites yet. I also wonder if dried chicken/turkey treats would be ok. Might give that a shot as well. We can't keep treating him with kibble and turkey meat lol.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Sure, dried chicken or turkey treats would work, that's why I recommended the Purebites chicken or turkey, lol. It's just freeze-dried chicken or turkey.
I think it's also possible that the improvement is partly due to the Proviable habving had time to get a colony of good bacteria going. Be sure to continue it for several weeks at least. 

Several people here use Slo-Bowls to slow down their dog's eating, they work great. 

[Josh Adams]

We just ordered Purebites Chicken. We look forward to trying it out! Do you also have a recommendation for soft, smelly chews that have limited ingredients similar to Purebites? He likes chewy textures. We also like these for training because it's faster for him to eat so we can quickly move on (i.e, leash walking). 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Unfortunately, there are no LID treats that are soft or chewy. I've been struggling with finding something myself for my puppy. He has no digestive issues, but I just have an aversion to giving treats with flour, molasses, tapioca, etc

[Josh Adams]

Keep me posted if you find anything - or you might just need to create and market one yourself! LOL :) 

[Tanya and IsaBella]

Have you seen the primal nibs?  They are the highest quality training treats we have found.  Organic chicken, organic honey, sea salt.