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Good idea to change food???

KingstonsMom

Well-known member
I currently feed Kingston Eukanuba Puppy Small Breed formula. He likes eating it and is at a nice healthy weight. However, after learning more about the ingredients, I am considering changing his food to either Canidae or Royal Canin (because they are recommended and easy for me to find).

I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do. Am I messing with a good thing, since he likes the Eukanuba? The only problem I see with his food is that he poops a lot and it is quite smelly. He also has frequent gas.

What should I do? Since he's a puppy, would he stay healthy on the Canidae or Royal Canin brands? Would I need to give him additional nutrition outside of his dry food? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
I rotate foods fairly often. I think dogs get tired of the same old food each time. There isn't a perfect food. I have used Canidae, Merrick, Solid Gold and our next change will be Timberwolf. The only negative changes to using the premium foods that I have found is that there isn't a lot of fiber (they don't add a lot of junk)-- so I do suppliment with whole fresh foods.
 
One way to ease the transition is to slowly add in the new food -- maybe a fourth of it the first day, moving to a third the next day, then half, then three fourths, then entirely the new food.

I always like to supplement dry foods anyway -- what a dreary life to eat nothing but kibble! :lol: -- you'll find some suggestions in the Caring for Your cavalier section.
 
KingstonsMom said:
I currently feed Kingston Eukanuba Puppy Small Breed formula. He likes eating it and is at a nice healthy weight. However, after learning more about the ingredients, I am considering changing his food to either Canidae or Royal Canin (because they are recommended and easy for me to find).

I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do. Am I messing with a good thing, since he likes the Eukanuba? The only problem I see with his food is that he poops a lot and it is quite smelly. He also has frequent gas.

What should I do? Since he's a puppy, would he stay healthy on the Canidae or Royal Canin brands? Would I need to give him additional nutrition outside of his dry food? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'd think he'd stay healthy, maybe even be healthier if the ingredients are more healthy. But those junkier foods probably taste better than the healthier ones to some dogs at least, that's certainly seemed to be true of Zack. Some of the empty calorie ingredients have stimulating flavors. So some pups might not show as much enjoyment of the healthier foods.

If you decide to continue with the food that's causing gas and smelly poop, you could try putting digestive enzymes on the food. Zack is fed Innova Evo and it caused gas. He never had gas on any other food (and i tried giving him many different kinds). I was going to change to another food and stop giving him the Evo--i know that if it were me, i would not like having a lot of gas--but the pet store guy told me about the enzymes, he said other customers reported it works. i tried it and it worked, i very rarely smell gas, once in a while. The stools are not smelly at all and are firm and easy to pick up.

Once i forgot to sprinkle the enzymes on the food and the smell of gas returned. I would like to find a kibble that doesn't cause gas. I'm thinking of trying Stella and Chewys freeze dried raw meals. Zack loves them. On Sundays the pet store has free samples of them.

Some knowledgeable people say that puppy formulas are unhealthy for dogs and that puppies should always be fed regular dog food, not puppy formulas. I don't know what the basis for this belief is. I give it credance only be cause the people i've heard asserting it show themselves to be generally knowledgeable, but i don't know what the evidence for saying puppy formulas are unhealthy for puppies is. They say it's not the right balance of nutrients and that it can cause too rapid growth of skeletal tissue, out of proportion to other tissue. I've never heard it said by anyone that regular dog food is not adequately nutritious for puppies so having heard that puppy food may cause health problems, i always fed Zack regular dog food instead of puppy food. And he's a healthy little guy.
 
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