Is this the Holistic Select Lamb and Rice or Eagle Pack's Lamb and Rice formula because Holistic Select is now owned by Wellpet. Am very sorry to hear about what you and your baby have gone through. The reason I ask is the last bag of Holistic Select Duck formula I bought may be the culprit in a situation which just started last month with my one sibe. My two sibes love this formula with some canned Merrick BG or a meat topper and my boy started having intestinal issues right before Thanksgiving. Now he is 12/13 and I have included this duck formula in our rotation for over two years because the dogs love it, but Blaze started having sort of mush, but formed poop. We also had coyotes around and one morning Blaze flew out as usual and before I even saw it he had his nose in a load of diarrhea from something(coyote, loose dog, who knows) . I got him away from it but this situation with Blaze developed concurrently with that load of diarrhea and the switch to holistic duck. I ran a course of metronidazole, took a stool sample to the vet which was clear of parasites at the time and the stool started to improve a bit. Not for long however, and we were back at the vet again this week, with another parasite negative fecal and formed mush poop for lack of a better description, lol
The vet knew better than to suggest Science Diet to me and asked if we would be willing to start cooking for the dogs again and I said yup, so he is on a bland diet and an antibiotic/anti-inflammatory med and now the process begins to figure out the culprit. In the past two days his stool has firmed up, but I won't delude myself into thinking this is over.
He is on a lengthy course of this medication in order to hopefully eliminate a bacterial problem in the intestinal tract if that is the problem, and at some point we will be seeing if he has suddenly developed a sensitivity to duck instead. Of course I know it could be other problems as well, but hopefully not. He looks awesome per our vet he looks 5/6 years old, she palpated his abdomen and poked and prodded very thoroughly and all seemed well. However as we go along I suspect we will draw blood too, he had recent blood work in June so we would have something to compare it to if something else is going on. Taking it one step at a time at this point though, and plotting his diet with the vet on a weekly basis for the next 6 weeks or so.
I am thinking it would be wise to call Holistic Select though, although I wonder if that would be a waste of time. Would they tell me if they were sourcing anything differently or making subtle changes to the formula? In some ways I am hopeful this is bacterial but with both my guys being seniors I have to be aware other problems could be devloping.
Finding that SAFE food is becoming more challenging for sure. Our guys do well on Acana, and some other grain and grain free foods as we use about 4 different kibbles in their rotational diet. They also get the canned Merrick BG, Evangers and the occasional tripe or meat topper. If this is food related I may just say the heck with it and go back to full time cooking for the dogs.
Hope your beloved GS continues to improve and pull through this incident and wish you the best in your serch for the safest foods possible. I know most folks here feel good about Champion's Orijen and Acana. Our guys do okay on the Acana, but the Orijen seened to be a bit too rich/nutirent dense(?) for them. Our guys have also done well on Honest Kitchen and being stupidly squeamish about raw I am thinking the future for my sibes wil inlude cooking their food, Honest Kitchen, and I want to look more closely at Grandma Lucy's, Addiction formulas, and a few others.
Best of luck to you and your dog, and if you get a chance I would really appreciate knowing if this was a Holistic Select formula that you fed your dog.
Thanks!!
