# Sick of changing dog food...



## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

I am getting so tired of changing Ranger's dog food. I never wanted to be one of "those" people and yet when I look back on it...Ranger's had three different foods in the past year. Not different varieties of the same kind, but three different brands. Soon to be four. The only hope I have is that my reasons for changing were pertinent and not just because I/Ranger wanted a change. 

He was on Iams when I got him and was scratching/itchy all the time so we swapped to Orijen 6 fish for suspected allergies. Orijen cleared up the itchies and he did great on it for 7 months until they did a minor formula change. All of a sudden, he was the gassiest dog known to man and his coat started getting dry and brittle. So we swapped to Innova Evo red meat which cleared up his digestive "issues" and he's been thriving on it. 

Unfortunately, I've had to cut him down to less than 2 cups a day since he's not as active and was starting to get a little more padding than necessary on his ribs. He is just miserable on 1 3/4 cups of food. He's eating grass non-stop outside, becoming more protective of bones which he's NEVER done before and starting to actually eat sticks. I tried the green bean diet and that made him way too gassy.

So now I'm about to make a fourth food change as I can't see us returning to our usual high-active level in the next 3 months and I can't take how greedy with food he's becoming. I'm going to walk down to the pet store today and see what food I can get...I'm debating between fromm duck and potato and regular innova. Whatever I can feed him the most on the least amount of calories.

I empathize with people who have to do this with allergic dogs. I can't imagine if Ranger was actually allergic to anything and we had to go through this!


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## esSJay (Apr 13, 2009)

Poor Ranger. There must be some other fillers that you can use besides green beans to help fill up his tummy, especially if he isn't having any other issues with the food itself. What about some other low-cal veggie, or many a supplement? carrots, peas, sweet potato (not very low-cal though)? I'm sure there are others but I cant think of any!


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## Laurie (Sep 20, 2009)

We just switched our guys to Orijen (All Life Stages)...just the regular formula (not the fish or red meat). So far so good.....their poos have been good (pretty bad when you pick it up and say "yep, it's a nice poo"), have cut down on how much I'm feeding them and no gas!!!! We had them on Horizon which was good but just wanted to up their protein a bit (especially with Lincoln because he has such a high metabolism) as they're quite active during the summer months.

Hope you find something for Ranger.....you may want to give Horizon Complete or Legacy a try.


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## jenlaur (Jun 24, 2009)

Have you thought about Acana? Same makers as Orijen (Champion) but less protein (32 vs 40%). I have all 3 of my guys on it and they have all done well. Lots of energy, beautiful coats, firm poops and no gas.

We just adopted a 6 year old rescue. His owner did not provide any of the food she had been feeding him so we put him on Acana from the first feed. Riley is almost a year and has been on it since she was 5 months. Sara, our 14 year old weimy tolerates it also without any problems at all.

Good luck!


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## GoldenCamper (Dec 21, 2009)

Since he is doing well on his current food, add in some boiled rice to fill him up, just a thought.


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## babbs (Feb 9, 2010)

Since you've had luck with Innova, why don't you go with the Adult low fat version; or even the Lg Breed Adult has less calories/cup then Evo, which is what you want if you're looking for less calories. Fromm Salmon is lower calories also if you're looking for fish.


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## Kirby'sMom (Feb 26, 2007)

I know what you mean about switching. My guys were doing great on Canidae, until the 10th 30 pound bag. They got sick on it and I figured there must have been another change in the recipe. So, we switched to Blue and they did great, until the last bag we bought. They both got terribly sick the same night as the first bowl out of the bag. They had runs with blood in it and threw up a lot.! Yikes! I was upset and worried. Well, I fed them boiled rice and chicken for three days and they recovered quickly. I considered cooking for them, but that got to be a lot of work, so we are now feeding raw and they are loving it! They're both doing great. Cosmo was always a gassy puppers and he isn't any longer! Their poops are smaller and solid and they go a lot less. Kirby always pooped only once, maybe twice a day, but Cosmo could go 4 or 5 times and huge, smelly piles every time! 
I am happy with the raw diet so far. I just don't trust dog food companies anymore as they always seem to change things or add less than quality ingredients. :no:


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## sameli102 (Aug 23, 2009)

If you do switch to Fromm try the whitefish and potato, it only has 325 calories per cup compared to 370 per cup and up for the other varieties.

My 8yr old tends to get itchy AND has a weight problem AND lives for food. She has always done well on Fromm and seems very content with the whitefish.


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## Willow52 (Aug 14, 2009)

babbs said:


> Since you've had luck with Innova, why don't you go with the Adult low fat version; or even the Lg Breed Adult has less calories/cup then Evo, which is what you want if you're looking for less calories. Fromm Salmon is lower calories also if you're looking for fish.


I feed Hank Innova Large Breed Adult, it has 380 kcal/cup. At 10.5 mos, & 70 lbs., he eats about 3.5 cups/day.

I see the EVO Red Meat has 527 kcal/cup.


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

If you're doing well on EVO red meat, you might be OK with another beef food that's not quite so rich. If the Iams was making him itch, then chicken is the most likely culprit. However, only 10% of atopy in dogs is caused by food, so the improvement with the switch to fish may have been coincidental. Have you tried an elimination diet to figure out what the allergen may be?


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

Thanks for the ideas everyone. Ranger is officially out of food after a little accident yesterday evening.:doh: So I'm off to the pet store today after work to pick something up...what, I don't know just yet but I've been looking into different foods all afternoon so I have a few ideas at least.

Tippykayak - I'm really not sure if it was allergies making him itch when he was on Iams or if it was stress adjusting to his new life or what. He occasionally gets fed some Go! food that has chicken in it but maybe he doesn't react because it's only a few meals out of the month? No idea. I'd like to stick with something meaty/beefy since he loves it so much but I think more important is upping the amount of food without getting too many calories. 

I'll let everyone know what happens today! And the subsequent results...fingers crossed!


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## Garfield (Apr 7, 2009)

Ranger, did you decide against the Innova Red Meat?


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## BorzoiMom (Nov 18, 2009)

The Orijen is a very good and clean food. 
If you want to do raw, you might want to check out K9 Cravings. http://www.k-9kraving.com/ 
Its the only raw diet that is USDA inspected and approved. Not sure if its available in your area though, but check it if you wish to feed raw.


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

Garfield said:


> Ranger, did you decide against the Innova Red Meat?


 
I checked with the pet store I usually go to and they don't regularly carry the regular Innova as everyone usually buys the Evo so I'd have to special order it. I'm not usually organized about things like that and I'd hate to run out of dog food due to me not placing an order in time, or the shipment running late, etc. There's a little petstore close to my parents' house I might check to see if they carry it, but otherwise I'll have to go with something more readily available.


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

Well, went to the pet store and they were out of practically everything!! No Fromm, no innova, none of the brands I had looked into...so I ended up getting a small bag of Acana Lamb and Apple. Has fewer calories and is apparently a fairly "hypoallergenic" food since it's only got lamb in it. I guess I'll see how this bag goes - he sure inhaled it! He also got 1.5 cups instead of his usual 1/4 - 1/2 cup supper so he was super happy and wasn't following everyone around drooling or eating grass!


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## CarolinaCasey (Jun 1, 2007)

Aww, I'm glad Ranger has a full belly and isn't begging like a fool!!  Let us know how things go with this food.


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

So far so good...I couldn't do the gradual change so I fed him his supper last night expecting a few wake up calls in the night to let him outside. Imagine my surprise when I woke up at ten am after a sound sleep! Ranger went outside and pooped normally! Yay!


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## BorzoiMom (Nov 18, 2009)

Good news! Arnaca is a good food!


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## lgnutah (Feb 26, 2007)

Maybe instead of a food change, can you find someone to exercise him more? Maybe even a neighbor child who likes playing fetch with him in the yard? Just a thought.


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

Ignutah - I was thinking that too, but he already gets walked by a dog walker twice a week for 2-4 hours at a time then I try to get my mom to walk him once or twice more so he is getting enough exercise that he's not destructive or unhappy. It's just that when I'm healthy we're out and about for most of the day so he stays very slim with hikes, rollerblading, walks 3-4 times a day...and now he's at the minimum of 3-6 walks a week and he's putting on the pounds. 

Unfortunately, he's not much of a retriever...I bought him a new ball yesterday to fetch with and it only lasted about 7 throws before he wandered off to eat some grass!


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

Ranger said:


> Tippykayak - I'm really not sure if it was allergies making him itch when he was on Iams or if it was stress adjusting to his new life or what. He occasionally gets fed some Go! food that has chicken in it but maybe he doesn't react because it's only a few meals out of the month? No idea. I'd like to stick with something meaty/beefy since he loves it so much but I think more important is upping the amount of food without getting too many calories.


It's really hard to pinpoint the cause of itching. Up to 10% of the time, it's a food allergy. The other 90% of the time, it can be this panoply of other factors. Sometimes, it's not allergies at all, and the dog just has dry skin. Baths and fat supplementation can take care of that (like Omega 3/fish oil supplements) without adding too many calories. 

If Ranger's skin has fairly high fat needs (instead of allergies' being the problem), the food switch may bring back some itching when you switch to something lower calorie (which will probably be low fat). If that's the case, I'd definitely try fish oil.


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## lgnutah (Feb 26, 2007)

Ranger said:


> Ignutah
> Unfortunately, he's not much of a retriever...I bought him a new ball yesterday to fetch with and it only lasted about 7 throws before he wandered off to eat some grass!


Brooks is the same way. He is obliging and will bring it back a few times and after that it's like, "OK, what's the deal, I showed you I could do it, now it's boring"


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## Stircrazy (Nov 30, 2009)

I reciently switched from Orijen regional red to Arcana grasslands. Kona did well on regional red but he had big poops that were always on the edge of being soft, and lots of gas. two weeks after the switch he has no gas, and small hard poops. and still no itching. when we first got him and was on a vet bought puppy food he was iching like crazy, couldent take more than 10 steps with out scratching.

Steve


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

tippykayak said:


> It's really hard to pinpoint the cause of itching. Up to 10% of the time, it's a food allergy. The other 90% of the time, it can be this panoply of other factors. Sometimes, it's not allergies at all, and the dog just has dry skin. Baths and fat supplementation can take care of that (like Omega 3/fish oil supplements) without adding too many calories.
> 
> If Ranger's skin has fairly high fat needs (instead of allergies' being the problem), the food switch may bring back some itching when you switch to something lower calorie (which will probably be low fat). If that's the case, I'd definitely try fish oil.


Hmm good point about the lower cals maybe meaning lower fat. I started giving Ranger fish oil capsules last winter when his coat when really brittle. Once I switched to the evo, he didn't need them anymore but i think I'll start adding them again. We live in a really dry, arid climate and that doesn't help at all either.


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