[chowder]

The people in Whole Dog Journal recommend rotating dog foods every 2-4 months to avoid allergies and mix up the proteins and vitamins your dog is exposed to. So I was wondering how many people here actually do rotate their dogs food and which brands they rotate among? My puppy eats Innova puppy food but he's never really had what I would call a perfectly 'normal' bm on it. He's always been a little loose and gassy so I was thinking about switching him over to another food anyway. Also, how many here actually use a large breed puppy or dog food on bigger breeds? The one breeder told me to just feed the puppies adult food from 4 months on to prevent them from growing too fast but the vets totally disagree with this and there aren't that many large breed foods out there.

 

[lorih1770]

Eagle Pack Holistic has a Large and Giant Breed Puppy food. Orijen has a Large Breed Puppy food too.

I rotate dry foods every few months. My current rotation is:
Eagle Pack Holistic Giant Breed (st. bernard)
California Natural
Orijen
Wellness

Canidae used to be in my rotation, but it is no longer since they changed the formaula recently. For some reason my dogs aren't that crazy about Evo so I replaced Evo in my rotation with Orijen (they go crazy over Orijen and do well on it).

 

[BoxerMommie]

Personally I did not use a puppy food I used an all life stages food. I won't be rotating but only because my dog has a gluten allergy as well as colitis and finding a food he could eat was like finding a needle in a haystack. I use Natural Balance Lamb Meal and Brown Rice and will be sticking with that, I once a month or so add a little bit of canned grain free food to his kibble to mix things up a bit.

 

[BabyHusky]

My sibe pup's on Innova puppy and I've been searching for another brand to alternate...I'm thinking Wellness because I've heard great things. Is Wellness Core better? I haven't really looked into the differences for the two Wellness'. My cat's on Wellness and he loves it to death

 

[BoxerMommie]

Wellness is a good food. Depending on your dog's age though Wellness Core may not be an option for you yet, you said pup not sure if you mean puppy but Wellness Core is not suitable for dogs under 12 months of age.

Wellness Core is grainfree the regular Wellness is not that's the difference between the 2.

 

[rannmiller]

Wellness Core is awesome good food! But Boxermommie is right, it's supposed to be for dogs 12 months and up.
Blue Buffalo is another pretty good food, especially the Wilderness brand, again good for dogs 12 months and up.
For puppies, brands that are really good and easy to get ahold of are:
Orijen
Wellness
Blue Buffalo
Solid Gold

Once your pup gets older the world of really good, grain-free foods opens up for you.

 

[Oz'sMommy]

oz is only 8 months old but once he gets a little over a year we're going to add wellness core into his diet.

from a little before he turned 3 months until he was 5 months he ate by nature pork & sweet potato kibble with by nature organic turkey, sweet potato & peas canned food. at about 5 months i switched him to their duck & sweet pea kibble with the same canned. that duck kibble had too many grains though because after a couple of weeks on it he itched like crazy. then we did natural balance sweet potato & venison which he got bored of after almost 2 bags. now he's on natural balance potato & duck which he LOVES! he still gets canned food as well which is a switch right now between evanger's 100% pheasant, wellness 95% chicken and wellness turkey & sweet potato.

i'm hoping to get two bags (5 pounders) of the NB duck into him before i switch again. i want to try merrick's before grain buffalo and then after that oz should be old enough to go onto the wellness core.

then hopefull as an adult his food rotation will be:

natural balance sweet potato & venison
natural balance pototo & duck
merrick's before grain buffalo
wellness core (not the ocean one)

 

[rannmiller]

Oz gets so much good food!

 

[Oz'sMommy]

thanks, i try. oz almost died after i'd only had him for two days (i'm not sure if i mentioned that in this forum before). the breeder fed her dogs a costco brand chicken and rice formula. the vet never figured out what was wrong with him so of course it wasn't necessarily the food. but i swore to myself if my little guy pulled through i would make sure i gave him the best i could (not that i wouldn't have already done that even if he didn't get sick :redface. even i think i take it a bit far at times, haha, but i can't help it now.

 

[rannmiller]

Awww I'm glad he lived through that, sounds very traumatizing! I'm glad you're so committed to feeding him the best food possible. I'd highly recommend adding Orijen or going down to your local doggy boutique store and switching it up with the foods there as well. NB tends to be a little grain-heavy, and Orijen has a whole lot of meat in it with a lot of fish oils and goodness to keep the itching and shedding to a minimum. It's worked wonders on my roommate's dog.

 

[1 chi4me]

I would definitely go for the Eagle Pack Holistic Large Breed. Great food. Check out their site. Especially the health section.

 

[chowder]

My previous Chow ate the Eagle pack holistic Duck because he had food allergies and he did well on their Duck and oatmeal. I was going to try the Orijen Puppy for my new guy but have been reading some news lately about a problem they've been having with bone fragments showing up in their kibble and people having to return whole bags of it to the store. Anyone else hear anything about this or seen anything like this? I didnt' want to pay that much for a bag and have something wrong with it. Plus I get all my food mail order and can't return it easily I'm a little ticked off at Natural Balance right now so I'm avoiding them. My Lhasa has SEVERE food allergies and was on their venison during the food recalls. I had to return all her food and treats that they made and she had major surgery right after that for bladder stones for the first time in the 11 years of her life. She has never had them before or since, but only when she was eating their dog food that was recalled. They swear it couldn't be the cause of it but that's really quite a conincidence. I decided to try their canned again when they reformulated it because they said it was grain free now and just venison. She got really sick on it and when I read the fine print they had added Salmon oil to the venison which she is highly allergic to, even though the outside of the can only said Venison and sweet potato. So, no more Natural Balance for us. I'll stick to Wellness for her but the puppy gets to branch out into new territory.

 

[Oz'sMommy]

Awww I'm glad he lived through that, sounds very traumatizing! I'm glad you're so committed to feeding him the best food possible. I'd highly recommend adding Orijen or going down to your local doggy boutique store and switching it up with the foods there as well. NB tends to be a little grain-heavy, and Orijen has a whole lot of meat in it with a lot of fish oils and goodness to keep the itching and shedding to a minimum. It's worked wonders on my roommate's dog.

yeah i noticed when he started on the NB venison that the first ingredient was sweet potatoes (or regular ones in the duck case). since oz has always loved eating canned food as well i just made sure he ate the canned varieties with lots of meat in them to make up for the less meat in the kibble. saturday mornings he gets a small scrambled egg with some cottage cheese and old fashioned oatmeal. on weekend evenings he gets either boiled chicken breast or some chopped sirloin with his kibble. he's a solid little guy...feels like a brick when he runs at you full speed while you're sitting on the living room floor watching tv, lol. but the vet says his weight and health are perfect now.

we have this really nice dog boutique by my office that i'm at all the time. the odd thing i have to watch out for is that oz doesn't like fish in his canned or kibble. i tried the wellness whitefish and sweet potato canned and he at first didn't want to go near it then when he did eat some he vomited it all up later that night. he has a similar reaction when he eats any of the other wellness canned flavors with ocean whitefish as an ingredient. so the only ones he can eat and thankfully really enjoys are the turkey & sweet potato and the venison & sweet potato, which don't have the ocean whitefish in them. so i'm not sure if he'll be able to eat the origen. but if i can get my hands on a sample size i'm game to have him try it.

now the really "odd" part is that it's not ALL fish he has an issue with. if we're eating salmon for dinner we'll cook him a tiny piece with no seasoning or oil and he goes crazy for it. and he also has these tilapia fish jerky treats he's ga ga over made by a company in seattle.

maybe it's "ocean" fish that's the issue since salmon is river and tilapia is river, pond and lake? who knows

 

[chowder]

The fish thing was common with my two dogs that had food allergies, too. The only fish they could eat without spitting up or having their skin turn red was Trout. Anything with salmon or "ocean whitefish" would drive them crazy. I'm not sure how one fish is different then another but I guess their bodies can tell them apart. The trouble is that a lot of manufacturers seem determined to add salmon and other things to their so-called "venison" treats and canned food. You have to really read the labels when you have a dog with food allergies. All of our treat jars are labeled with individual dogs names so nobody gets the wrong flavored treats in our house!

 

[Oz'sMommy]

The fish thing was common with my two dogs that had food allergies, too. The only fish they could eat without spitting up or having their skin turn red was Trout. Anything with salmon or "ocean whitefish" would drive them crazy. I'm not sure how one fish is different then another but I guess their bodies can tell them apart. The trouble is that a lot of manufacturers seem determined to add salmon and other things to their so-called "venison" treats and canned food. You have to really read the labels when you have a dog with food allergies. All of our treat jars are labeled with individual dogs names so nobody gets the wrong flavored treats in our house!

wow thanks for that tip! i've started to read every label to make sure there's not "ocean whitefish" in it at all. thankfully no crazy reactions to salmon anything. hopefully none develop either!

oh and chowder, have you tried the wellness venison pure treats? they don't have any salmon or other fish. becareful though they do have pure treats in venison & salmon too though.

 

[Jacksie2006]

I try to keep Quinn on the same diet, but I usually do 3/4 of his normal food (Merrick: Wilderness) and then 1/4 of another food, usually a 6 star food. He seems to do good with that, no stomach issues at all.

 

[LPacker79]

Currently I rotate between:

Orijen (regular adult and the fresh fish)
Great Life (Buffalo)
Innova Evo red meat

He gets canned once or twice a week, usually canned tripe or Evo's 95% formulas. Recently I bought 3 cans of the Merrick B.G. 100% buffalo and a case of the Merrick B.G. 100% salmon which he is loving.

 

[LoveNewfies]

I personally think rotating is a good idea. Yes, it reduces the risk of developing food allergies due to over exposure, yes different manufacturers use differing supplements and feeding a variety can keep the digestive system stronger and not so sensitive to change.

As far as feeding a regular puppy food versus a large breed puppy food for larger breeds, there is typically a difference between puppy and large breed puppy food, primarily the calcium levels and caloric density of the foods. Feeding a nice all life stage food is OK, too, as long as the calcium levels in the food are appropriate for a growing large breed pup.

The calcium and mineral content is particularly important until the pup has reached sexual maturity and at least 80% of the expected adult height. We have to keep in mind that puppies are not able to regulate how much calcium their bodies absorb, adults can. The mechanism within them that regulates calcium absorption does not fully come about until at least sexual maturity, later for some dogs.

Too high of calcium in the diet has been linked with increased risk in bone and joint problems. As well, too little calcium can certainly cause terrible problems.

A large breed pup (large being any dog expected to be 50 lbs. or more) should have at least 2000 mg of calcium per 1000 Kcals consumed and no more than 4500 mg per 1000 Kcals consumed. Somewhere in the middle, I like to see around 3000 mg per 1000 Kcals consumed, is ideal.

Regulating a large breed puppy's caloric intake, as well as calcium consumed, helps to ensure a nice even growth to minimize the risk of future bone and joint problems.

 

[danesandhorses]

I usually feed Solid Gold. They do make a large breed puppy. The lady who makes this food breeds Great Danes. I mix Merrick can in for one of my Danes who is on the picky side. Every once in a while I will buy a bag of Wellness or Eagle Pack. My dogs are in great shape and have great coats!