5 Month old with Giardia & overall sensitive stomach

[Marlena and Henry]

Hi Everyone,

I've been investigating new food for our 5 month old, 17 lb mini-Goldendoodle, Henry, for awhile now.  He has been on Life's Abundance Small/Medium puppy kibble and has had intermittent mushy/normal stools & smelly gas ever since we took him home from the breeder.  Adding pumpkin firmed up his stools until now.

He just came home from boarding with Giardia, urgent diarrhea & lethargy.  The vet put him on 5 days of Panacur & I added Proviable (of course they wanted me to give him Fortiflora).  He hasn't gotten any better, has started vomitting a little & now they're adding metronidazole.  They also want me to put him on Hills I/D.  So, now is the perfect time to change his food.  I want something simple preferably with no lentils or chickpeas.  I see that Karen likes Wellness Simple LID salmon & potato, but is that ok to give to a 5 month old?  I really appreciate your feedback & everything that you do to help people in this group!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Hi Marlena,

The Wellness Simple LID Salmon & Potato is perfectly fine for a puppy, and definitely much better for him than the Hill's garbage. It is an ALS formula and suitable for dogs of any age. Just make sure that you feed enough; the feeding guidelines will be for adult dogs, so if Henry is still growing, you will need to feed more. You can figure out how many calories per day he is getting with the L.A. food and then feed the appropriate amount of the Wellness to equal that.

Make sure that you give the Proviable at least 2 hours apart from the antibiotics, and longer is better. Most importantly, you need to continue the Proviable for at least a couple of weeks after the metronidazole is discontinued. 

[Marlena and Henry]

Thank you so much Karen! Do you think I should transition him slowly to the Wellness...or just go straight to it 100%?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

The two foods are so different, I think it would be better to just switch him cold turkey. 

Please keep us posted.