Share your favorite dog food please

[ang79]

Trying to figure out best dog food for the pekingese mix we recently adopted. Foster mom fed her Wellness Core RawRev dry (the orange label bag which is grain free turkey). She would not eat it the first few days we had her, unless I topped it with wet food or chicken broth. I'm guessing now it was anxiety from the transition. I picked up some Purina wet food just to test out and she ate that, but then started getting really runny poop, so vet said to give her boiled chicken and white rice until that cleared up. I also had purchased some Blue Wilderness beef/chicken canned food from Target to try as I felt that may be a better food than the Purina. She seemed to like the small amount that she had of that. Anyways, tests came back that she has whip worms and hook worms (poor thing!). She just finished the first round of meds for that and is finishing up probiotics. Vet also gave us a few cans of Science Diet sensitive stomach, so I've been alternating between that and the chicken/rice. She started to have better poop for 2 days, so I started adding back in some of the Wellness kibble (which she now loves). And now her poo is runny again Not sure if I started the dry food too soon? I only have 1 1/2 cans of the Science Diet left, so I either need to pick up more of that at the vet tomorrow when I pick up heart worm meds, or get something else.

So, what is a good dog food (wet or dry) for small breeds? The vet suggested the Science Diet or Royal Canine, but I kinda feel like they push those brands because they sell the prescription stuff and I haven't really been a fan of the Science Diet when we had to use it for one of our cats. We try to do good quality foods for our cats (dry Natural Balance LID Duck and a variety of wet food by Merrick, Natural Balance, Halo, Instinct, etc. that we order from Chewy or Amazon subscription, so I'd like to do the same for the dog, once we settle on a food she likes and is doing well on. But I also don't want to break the bank on dog food! So happy medium of good quality/good price would be nice.

[keh602]

We use Nutro Wholesome Essentials small bites lamb and rice. It’s what our first rescue dog came to us with, and it worked well for her for over 14 years. Our current dog was labeled a picky eater by her foster, but she’s been eating the Nutro without issue since we got her almost two months ago. The price is much better on Amazon than the pet stores.

[wendibird22]

Google for a list of vet approved foods that are NOT grain free. There’s currently research about grain free diets causing heart problems in dogs. The runny poop could be caused by switching the foods back and forth. You need to transition from one food to another very slowly. My big dog gets 2C of food so when I changed brands I started with 1/4C new and 1 3/4C old for for a week and then 1/2C new and 1 1/2C old and so on.

Our vet strongly recommends Purina Pro Plan.


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[mmsmom]

You will get more info that you ever need on dogfoodadvisor.com

And agree that you have to make changes very slowly. Mix in 1/4 for a few days, then 1/2, etc. Should take about 10 days to completely switch foods.

[ang79]

You will get more info that you ever need on dogfoodadvisor.com

And agree that you have to make changes very slowly. Mix in 1/4 for a few days, then 1/2, etc. Should take about 10 days to completely switch foods.

I did start looking there last night. Both the wellness core I have and the Blue Wilderness are rated well at that site. The dry food is the same she was on at foster home, but the wet food is different. Foster mom didn't normally feed her dogs wet but when Bailey didn't want to eat the dry food she topped it with a bit of wet food that was donated to the rescue and she couldn't remember what kind it was. Do most people feed dry food for dogs? We switched to doing wet food (along with some dry food for free feeding) for our cats because when I researched it seemed like wet food was better for them.

[Melaine]

Our pup has been sick twice and we have switched good a few times. I wonder if the antibiotic for the infection may hurt her gut? Anyway, we switched a couple weeks ago to Hills food and she finally seems to be having normal BMs.

[twowhat?]

It'll probably be a little rocky until she's recovered from the worms and the meds/antibiotics!

Dog Food Advisor is helpful but they make recommendations based on published ingredients and proportions by weight (order of ingredients listed) which is helpful but it really comes down to what agrees with your dog. Start with a small bag of something and introduce it slowly and see what happens. You can always donate any "didn't work" brands. Always add water to dry food...it's dehydrated and many dogs won't drink enough water to make up for that. Think about how much water is in a fresh piece of meat and imagine all that water is taken away in dry dog food - that's hard on the kidneys over time. We had a vet tell us about the water early on and I feel it's made a huge difference in our dogs' health.

Personally, for a small dog, I would consider a fresh diet if you can afford it (easier for smaller dogs since they eat less). I haven't tried the many companies out there who do this, but there are several. If I had a small dog I'd probably cook for her (it's tricky figuring out all the appropriate vitamin/mineral/etc supplements though, so going with a pre-made fresh food is easier). Our dog ate a high quality dry kibble (with lots of water added) for the first several years of her life and as she began to get older, we have switched to a mostly home-cooked diet with some kibble supplementation for when we don't have enough homemade food cooked up. It's a little scary how much more alive she looks after switching to fresh cooked food. She's very old (16ish) and we don't expect her to live that much longer, but her quality of life has improved dramatically with the switch to fresh food.

I'm not brave enough to do raw ALTHOUGH whenever we buy a whole chicken for our family, I butterfly it and cut up the backbone and neck into small chunks with kitchen shears, pour boiling water over it just enough to knock down the bacterial load on the surface but not enough to cook the meat through or the bone (cooked bone is dangerously splinter-y!) and she gets the basically raw neck and backbone. She LOVES this, it's probably her favorite thing ever.

And whenever I make chicken stock, I do it in the Instant Pot and cook the bones for 1 hour - after that long under pressure, the bones crumble in my fingers. I strain out the stock for humans, and then crumble the bone to make sure they are all thoroughly soft, and freeze it in batches, and it gets added as a supplement to her fresh food. It feels good not to throw all that away!!

eta: we do feed grains, though the bulk of the carbs our dog eats comes from veggies. Oatmeal is great too and fabulous for anal sac health by keeping the poop nice and bulked up. Sweet potato (fresh and microwave-baked, not canned) has been a LIFESAVER for our dog's anal sac health, so much that we add a spoonful of sweet potato to EVERY one of her meals. In a pinch if we have no other food available, she can have egg and oatmeal for dinner.

[MSWR0319]

We feed American Journey dry from Chewy. Our vet wanted our dog on a grain food with salmon and no chicken or beef because of suspected allergy issues. This was the only one with grain that didn’t have any by products in it. She had been on grain free from day 1, but last year the vet said research was stronger and stronger that grain free was not good for their hearts unless medically needed. You’ll have to do the food transition slow, as some dogs are more sensitive to others and they start getting diarrhea. Our first dog never reacted. Our current dog is more sensitive and we had to go slow.

ETA: Our vet did tell us that Pro Plan was the best dog food from a box store and if it didn’t have chicken in it, we would have gone with that. My sister just asked her vet what to switch her dog to, and she also suggested Pro Plan, and it’s a different vet.

[ang79]

Our pup has been sick twice and we have switched good a few times. I wonder if the antibiotic for the infection may hurt her gut? Anyway, we switched a couple weeks ago to Hills food and she finally seems to be having normal BMs.

I was wondering about the meds the rescue gave us, causing issues, I think it was metronidazol, they gave us 5 tablets to give her if her poo was runny from anxiety of transitioning homes. We did do that, and then she also vomited a few times so the vet gave us the probiotics. She hated taking the meds, I actually only got 4 of the 5 days into her. Then we got the results from the vet about the worms and we began treatment for that last Friday (panacur). Its 5 doses, but we have to do it again at the end of June and July in order to make sure we get rid of all the worms Foster mom said she only had runny poo the first week she had her, and she was with them about 7 weeks. So I was hoping once she had 2 days of normal poo that I could transition her back to the Wellness (vet said to keep her on the Hills sensitive tummy food and/or chicken and rice until she was normal for 2 days). But now we are back to runny poo again, so I'm not sure food wise what to do. This dog has certainly been a learning curve! We also have been using Wellness treats, which foster also used.

I have also noticed that she likes to lick/groom herself a lot and also scratches quite a bit (reminds me of our cats the way she does it!). I checked with foster mom and she said she only noticed the paw licking after she came in from walking in wet grass. We've gotten in the routine that I use a dog wipe on her feet if she is muddy, otherwise I wipe her feet with a towel when she comes in to get off wetness or grass. I've noticed the licking and itching after being outside and after eating. I figured it may be an anxiety thing, as she is still adjusting to us. Maybe the different wet foods we've been using are causing allergies though? Or the chicken? Though the Wellness core is mostly turkey......

[mmsmom]

Paw licking and scratching can be signs of allergies. Sounds like you are just going to have to keep trying the foods to figure out what works. We only do dry food mixed with some water. Previous dog had allergies to corn which is common so look for foods with no corn. Many dogs also do not do well with chicken so you could try a different protein. Right now though while she is on meds I would not make any more changes.