# Lamb vs. Chicken vs. Salmon???



## TiffanyPartyOf8

Which is best? We adopted him 3 weeks ago and he came with the crappy food that he was eating. He was almost done with the bag so I went to Petsmart today and got Blue Buffalo Lamb & Brown Rice. It says "no wheat, no corn, no soy". We fed Blue to our GSD we had because everyone swore it was the best for a German Shepherd. But here it seems everyone has a different brand that is best for their own dog. Buddy is 8.5 months old and is 72 lb. I'm mixing the crap food with the Blue and he seems to love it. The Iams junk he was eating apparently wasn't his favorite since we had to coax him into eating it by putting toppers and stuff. lol. He would finally eat it lol. Mixed with the Blue he ate it as soon as I put it down (no toppers) and ate it all. BUT I wonder if this is the best for him? Is there a reason you'd feed lamb vs. chicken or salmon vs. lamb or whatever? Or is it a matter of preference? He has skinny allergies of some sort that we are trying to work out with supplements and shampoos and stuff. Another reason I chose a food without wheat or corn.... not that I know if that's what is causing his skin stuff...


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## TiffanyPartyOf8

Sorry if that post was all over the place, I got stopped 3 times while typing by the kids asking for something . lol


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom

Watch his itching and stools to see how he handles it, and transition very slowly to avoid tummy issues. As far as protein sources, I don't think one is better than another..... just depends on what your dog does best on.


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## Angelina

Mine was allergic to chicken. To find out what the food allergies are you have to take him down to 2 or 3 foods he has never had before and then add into it. I took mine down to beef and buffalo, then when he stopped itching and clearing up put in another ingrediate. The chicken sent him right back to itching / chewing fits. Hope this helps!


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## Ranger

Sometimes people try an alternate protein source if they suspect food allergies or intolerances. That's where lamb, fish or duck protein usually comes in, as opposed to chicken or beef. Lots of time people suspect grains causing allergies (corn, oats, etc) but not the meat. 

If you're suspecting allergies, then a switch to an alternate meat protein, grain free food is a good way to go. My guy isn't allergic to grains per se, but he does poorly on them. He too was on Iams when i got him and I thought his itching and poor coat quality was due to the crappy food. I switched him to Orijen 6 fish (grain-free and fish protein) and he thrived and i thought I was proven right about "crappy grocery store brands". Later I had to switch him to Acana Light and Fit and I thought he'd do well on it since it was a good brand and not crappy Iams. Whoops. He did poorly on it and after 3 weeks of it, he was vomiting up whole, undigested pieces of kibble from meals 8 hours earlier. It wasn't the 'bad' brand he did poorly on; it was the grains.

Once you switch completely to BB, give it 4-8 weeks to see any difference. If his itching stops, great. If it doesn't, then check the ingredients between the bags to see if there are any similarities. Lots of times something labelled "Lamb and Rice" still has oats or chicken in it. It took me awhile to figure out what Ranger does poorly on, but it's rice and oats. I can't feed him anything with that those ingredients in it, especially not in the top 8 ingredients.

Hope this food works out for him!


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## TiffanyPartyOf8

Yeah, I'm doing 3 parts of the Iams and 1 part Blue for a few days and then I'll do half and half and then 3 parts Blue and 1 part Iams and then all Blue... But I'll watch his stool, skin and how he acts on it to make sure we're not switching too fast. I remember my childhood dog (a chihuahua) went insane when my parents changed her food. She started puking all the time and had diarrhea. That is definitely NOT something I'm wanting. haha. School starts Monday. That would be a nightmare. hahaha. But definitely going to watch him and go slowly.

Glad to hear it's a preference thing. I hope this is the food for him - he seem to love it mixed in with his Iams.


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## Angelina

Also, here a link that helped me tremendously when I was figuring out my dog's allergies and what food is rated what...hope this helps as well...

DogAware.com: Dry Dog Foods (Kibble and Dehydrated)


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## TiffanyPartyOf8

Thanks Ranger. I'll definitely keep that in mind while we figure out his allergy junk.


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## TiffanyPartyOf8

Thank you for the link! I will be spending some time researching on it tonight after the kid's orientation!


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## Sophie_Mom

Sawyer couldn't handle chicken or duck as a baby. He has done so well on Whitefish based Fromm. Now that he is older, he can handle some smaller amounts of chicken and duck and beef, but not as his main food ingredient. It's a lot of trial and error. And it's so frustrating - Good luck!


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## cofam

Ranger, thank you for that post. I recently switched to acana grasslands (grain free) because Rosebud was almost done with her puppy food she came with (purina one large breed puppy) and Molly (our beagle) was low on food too. We usually use BB wilderness duck or salmon and they do well on it. Unfortunately Petsmart was out and they needed food, so we went to a local pet store and picked up a bag of Acana grasslands. It was free to see if the dogs like it. So far (1 week) they're doing well on it. I'm actually having a hard time getting Rosebud to not eat it in 2 bites, anyone have suggestions on that?

thanks!


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## Ranger

I love the Acana grasslands (and the ranchlands, too). If they'd had that available when I was looking for a new grain-free food, I'd have bought that for Ranger instead of going raw. I had my foster pup on it and Ranger had little snacks of it in his kong. It's a great food! My foster pup started inhaling it, as well!

You can try a food dispending toy, like a regular kong or the kong wobbler (my favourite to use). There's also squirrel dude, a-maze-ball, tug a jug, etc. Or you can spread the meal around in a muffin pan and put a few kibbles in each muffin 'hole' so they have to go from muffin hole to muffin hole to get their kibble.


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## artbuc

Ranger said:


> Sometimes people try an alternate protein source if they suspect food allergies or intolerances. That's where lamb, fish or duck protein usually comes in, as opposed to chicken or beef. Lots of time people suspect grains causing allergies (corn, oats, etc) but not the meat.
> 
> If you're suspecting allergies, then a switch to an alternate meat protein, grain free food is a good way to go. My guy isn't allergic to grains per se, but he does poorly on them. He too was on Iams when i got him and I thought his itching and poor coat quality was due to the crappy food. I switched him to Orijen 6 fish (grain-free and fish protein) and he thrived and i thought I was proven right about "crappy grocery store brands". Later I had to switch him to Acana Light and Fit and I thought he'd do well on it since it was a good brand and not crappy Iams. Whoops. He did poorly on it and after 3 weeks of it, he was vomiting up whole, undigested pieces of kibble from meals 8 hours earlier. It wasn't the 'bad' brand he did poorly on; it was the grains.
> 
> Once you switch completely to BB, give it 4-8 weeks to see any difference. If his itching stops, great. If it doesn't, then check the ingredients between the bags to see if there are any similarities. Lots of times something labelled "Lamb and Rice" still has oats or chicken in it. It took me awhile to figure out what Ranger does poorly on, but it's rice and oats. I can't feed him anything with that those ingredients in it, especially not in the top 8 ingredients.
> 
> Hope this food works out for him!


Oats! Rocky can not handle oats either. His dermatologist put him on Kangaroo & Oats. I mixed a little in and he vomited six times over the next 8 hours. Have tried a number of foods with oats and he has a very bad reaction. He has been doing well on Orijen 6Fish for a couple years now. Thought he was having a problem last winter with the 6Fish but it turned out to be IcelandPure Salmon oil. He had been doing great on it for a year but he went bonkers one day after getting some oil from a new bottle. By the time I figured things out we had gone through the entire cycle of itching, scratching, skin infection and 6 weeks of cephalexin.


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## ebenjamin85

We feed BB Salmon Wilderness because of allergies too. Samantha had a lot of skin allergies as a puppy and we tried several foods. We switched to BB Fish and Oatmeal (I think) to eliminate Chicken and finally to BB Salmon about a year ago. 

We still have some skin allergy issues, but thankfully she hasn't needed steroids from the vet for allergies in over two years as we've been able to treat the small hot spots (usually 1-2 a year) at home. We started feeding Mulligan the same food when he came home and haven't had any issues.


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## Debles

We feed Nature's Variety Salmon (their grain free is Instinct) for Gunner's allergies and the salmon makes their coats so gorgeous!


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## Retriever Dad

My Golden too went right back to itching, scratching, throwing up and miserable but found out it was the Chicken Jerky treats from Costco we stopped and got better. Before that she was itching from Chicken dog food. We switched to Kangaroo by Zignature and she loves it. Vet said Goldens are better with Turkey and Duck than with Chicken. But fowl can give them upset stomachs. Check every label they may say Lamb but some put Chicken meal inside, Chicken is taboo.


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## ceegee

Retriever Dad said:


> My Golden too went right back to itching, scratching, throwing up and miserable but found out it was the Chicken Jerky treats from Costco we stopped and got better. Before that she was itching from Chicken dog food. We switched to Kangaroo by Zignature and she loves it. Vet said Goldens are better with Turkey and Duck than with Chicken. But fowl can give them upset stomachs. Check every label they may say Lamb but some put Chicken meal inside, Chicken is taboo.



You might want to rethink the Zignature Kangaroo. It's towards the top of the list of foods linked to cases of diet-related DCM in dogs.


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