Pets
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Dog food instead of Hills Prescription W/D?
My MIL adopted a dog a few weeks ago and the dog has soft stools. The vet put him on Hills Prescription Diet W/D, which firmed up the stools. But, MIL would like to put him on a better quality food. Any suggestions? I know it's going to be trial and error but I told her I'd try to come up with some suggestions for her. She's considering Innova or Natural Balance. She tried Blue Buffalo without any luck. His stools were firm when she fed him boiled beef and rice.
Thanks for suggestions.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
Re: Dog food instead of Hills Prescription W/D?
Taste of the Wild, Orijen, or anything where the first few ingrediants are actually meat and not some kind of by product or grain. I feed all raw beef and beef organs with a little bit of Orijen Six Fish for the fish oils. If boiled beef worked nicely then feeding raw might be the way to go.
ETA: here's a list of dry food and it's ratings - http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
She thinks I'm crazy for feeding mine home cooked food... I'm sure raw would completely blow her mind. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised that she's even willing to ignore the vets suggestion so I feel like it needs to be baby steps at this point. I gave her the dog food analysis website hoping she would at least look at it. I was shocked to get her email this morning saying she is going to return the Hills along with the dog food analysis printout and ask the the vet why they would recommend it. hehe.
I think she's overwhelmed with all the options. I will suggest Taste of the Wild and Orijen.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
We feed Innova. It's a solid, 5 star food. It's more gentle on our guy's stomach than Orijen, so you may want to start there. Orijen and TOTW both have pretty high amounts of protein (especially Orijen), which is what I think was giving our guy problems. It's the same reason we can't feed him Evo.
He has loose stools and he needs to lose about 5 - 7 lbs. He already lost a pound with my IL's - they are careful not to overfeed him and he gets more activity. He's a little Shih Tzu if it matters.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
HAHA that's funny. I wonder how the vet will respond to that :P Vets push the brand that sponsors them so that's why they prescribed it.
I'm not a raw expert but was told that cooking it takes out the nutrients that dogs get out of raw. But if she's willing to feed him boiled beef and it helped then that would be a good start. Then she can slowly move towards raw
My aunt and uncle have a german shepherd and are weary about feeding raw too. Plus they eat raw in the wild so it makes sense that raw should be best for their digestive system...imo.
I'm going to try Hilo on TOTW because it looks about as good as Orijen for half the price.
Not sure if you're suggesting boiled beef in addition to kibble, but boiled beef alone is not balanced and should not be fed to a dog for an extended time. It will harm a dog more than feeding prescription food.
OP, you're right that tummy issues can be trial and error, and I agree that the DFA website can be really, really overwhelming. Personally, I suggest kibbles that are grain-free so some brands I'd recommend would be Acana, Evo, Orijen, California Natural, TOTW (might be a little hard to find right now though), and Nature's Variety Instinct to name a few.
Thanks for the input everyone. I'll pass this along to my MIL. We have some extra Wellness Core that our foster dog isn't going to eat so we're taking that to her this weekend. If it doesn't work, we'll get her to try some of the other recommendations.
Thank you again. I really appreciate the help!
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
My dog sometimes has loose stool which seems connected to a food allergy. You got good food suggestions, I would consider adding pumpkin or fiber capsules to his food.