Stool

[marke]

You can feed your pup raw bones with no issues, i.e. chicken feet (great source of glucosamine). As long as the raw bones are not weight-bearing bones, i.e. leg bones, they are ok for the bone to eat. If you feed marrow bones, be sure the bone is bigger than their muzzle to avoid having the bone stick to their muzzle.

i'm sure you could , or grind up a raw chicken leg . just adding bones to the diet , i'd wonder how you'd dose it without getting into feeding raw ? and from what I've seen the transition to raw food takes awhile , the transition period includes stool issues , soft loose stools to diarrhea . when you cook the food there doesn't seem to be a transition period . I have to think the cooking must make it easier to digest ..... the stool should straighten up almost immediately .... I've thought food grade bone meal would work , one time my dogs got a bag of bone meal for the garden , their stools were hard like chalk for almost a week ........but I wouldn't know how to dose it , and would be concerned about the proper calcium/phosphorus in the diet . personally i'm not interested in feeding my dogs raw , there seems to be a lot of bone in a chicken leg , I felt a chicken leg a day shouldn't hurt a healthy dog , as long as i adjusted for the additional calories , and it did work rather quickly for the reason I did it ...... again this was an adult dog , not a pup ........and actually the only dog I've had where it's stools were an issue I felt I needed to do something about .....

 

[Penelope's Mom]

I accidentally found out the source of Penelope's loose stools last night.

I asked my grandson to feed her and I guess I should have been specific, because he gave her Oliver's food, which is Pedigree. (it's the only food we have found that doesn't make his hair fall out.) This morning, her stool was firm for the first time since I've owned her, so now I know the Authority is the cause.

Now I need to find her a good, relatively inexpensive food that I can get her started on. Sigh. She can't eat Diamond or Authority and I don't want to keep her on Pedigree. Any suggestions?

 

[ruthcatrin]

hmm, which Pedigree, Diamond and Authority formulas?

 

[Penelope's Mom]

Diamond - chicken. Authority - Chicken and rice and lamb and rice. Pedigree - Adult formula - chicken. I do not want to keep her on the Pedigree...at all. I fed it to Franklin when that is all I could afford, and while I'm not rich now, I can afford a better food for her.

 

[ruthcatrin]

Hmm, the Pedigree is noticeably lower protein and fat, wonder if thats her issue. What do you have for stores? Are you limited to what you can get at the grocery? Or do you have Petco/Petsmart?

 

[Penelope's Mom]

We have Petsmart and Petco close by

 

[ruthcatrin]

K, lemme do some poking around!

 

[Penelope's Mom]

Thanks, Ruth.

 

[ruthcatrin]

Ok, this is going off of online pricing and availability so check local prices cause they'll vary. But Diamond runs about $1.5/pound, and if you were buying it I'm going to assume that worked for you price wise.

Blue Buffalo runs upwards of $2/pound (or more for some of their fancy stuff), less if you can find it on sale, not my favorite brand, but not horrid. Some lines are better than others, especially for a growing pup.

Natural Balance runs from $1.8 to $2.5/pound, but the formula's I glanced at quickly not only have protein/fat levels closer to the Pedigree that she did ok on they also have good calcium/phos levels for a growing pup. Still check bags before buying, but it was nice to know.

Whole Earth Farms runs less than $1.5/pound, ingredients look decent, but they don't list the calcium/phos numbers on their site, I sent them an email, lets see if they respond....

Solid Gold runs about $2/pound and up, their Wolf Cub formula has appropriate calcium/phos numbers

Canidae runs just under $2/pound, decent formulas, but not all of them list calcium/phos numbers

Avoderm runs under $2/pound, decent formulas, the ones I checked on their website the calcium/phos numbers looked good but check the bags

Castor & Pollux runs over $2/pound, the ones I looked at looked decent

The Hills Ideal Balance line runs less than $2/pound, and at least some of them have good calcium/phos numbers. Protein and fat numbers are closer to the Pedigree too

Iams Healthy Naturals line runs a bit over $1/pound, ingredients don't look half bad, the one I looked at had good calcium/phos numbers

Ok, thats just doing a quick scan of Petco's site. I didn't by any stretch check every formula of the ones listed, and I probly missed other brands I should have looked at, but that'll hopefully get you started. And some of them I don't know ANYTHING about other than whats on Petco's site. I know Natural Balance used to be pretty decent but I vaugly recall them being bought out a few years ago, so I have no idea how they are now. Canidae and Solid gold used to have at least some of their lines made by Diamond. I'm SO not a fan of Hills or Iams, but if you can get the specifically mentioned lines-formulas on sale they're not bad.

 

[Penelope's Mom]

Thanks so much, Ruth. This is a huge help and I'm off to get her some food as soon as Petsmart opens.

 

[ruthcatrin]

Whole Earth Foods responded to my email!

Their Puppy formula, and their Grain Free Chicken & Turkey formula are both within range for a growing mastiff pup. The calcium to phos ratios aren't perfect, but not horrible.

 

[mountainfila]

I accidentally found out the source of Penelope's loose stools last night.

I asked my grandson to feed her and I guess I should have been specific, because he gave her Oliver's food, which is Pedigree. (it's the only food we have found that doesn't make his hair fall out.) This morning, her stool was firm for the first time since I've owned her, so now I know the Authority is the cause.

Now I need to find her a good, relatively inexpensive food that I can get her started on. Sigh. She can't eat Diamond or Authority and I don't want to keep her on Pedigree. Any suggestions?

If I were you I would keep her on the pedigree for a couple months and then switch her to something else, give her poor insides chance to calm down from having runny poop for so long. I went through the same thing with my female that I just lost to cancer. When she was a pup I put her on this "holistic" all naturalfood made by riplees ranch and she had soft serve poop for the whole time she was on it, about 6 months. Then I noticed she was getting itchy and had yucky ears and she had the same brown guck between her toes, yes she was a mess. So it turned out that I could not get the food any longer, so I had to change so we tried every high end food available, still same poops never firm ever. So after I had to quit my job do to medical reasons, I had no choice but to buy a cheaper food. I did feed pedigree with my other dogs and had great results with it, so I went back to it and she thrived on it and never had a runny poop after that BUT she still had a bad yeast problem that the other foods caused, I blame her cancer on the food I was feeding her, that caused her to have a poor immune system because of her constantly having runny poop, if I had not of jumped on the band wagon and fed all these so called high end foods, im pretty sure my girl would still be with me. I will not make the same mistake with my pups I have now, they do quite well on the pedigree, firm small poops, shiny coat, white teeth, no dandruff , no gas. I also supplement with some meaty bones couple times a week. Also I narrowed it down to my dogs not doing well on foods that contain potato , even if I give them a couple fries or mashed or potato chips, they itch for a few days, and all the high end foods contain potato in the top 4 ingredients, also now it seems they are switching to pea fiber and a few other things to use as binders.

At least if she is having solid poops when you switch to something else you will be able to notice if the other food agrees by seeing if her poops are still the same or she is having a reaction to the new food. Just an idea.

 

[ruthcatrin]

I'm already seeing reports on the pea protein too...... Though for the dogs who need grain free (and some do) I'm not sure there's a ton other options if the owner can't go raw. You'll notice though that I didn't specify any of the above as grain free only! I do try to avoid the ones with corn products in them though, I still can't figure out how we've not had a huge aflatoxin problem in pet food in the last couple years.....my biggest issue with the foods like Pedigree is the generic meat meals, cause god forbid you have to deal with a protein allergy cause you'll never know for 100% what they were getting!

 

[mountainfila]

I hear ya Ruth, im not a fan of pedigree either but its what works for my crew unfortunately lol everytime I have tried to switch to a better food, even a slow switch never works, they get bad gas, runny poop and really don't like the foods I choose for them. I also worry about the aflotoxin as this is a corn based food and I don't like the bha/bht preservative either. I also don't know if Canadian pedigree is different then the usa pedigree as ours is manufactured in Canada and we also have strict import rules on our ingredients and processing is a lot stricter up here. If I could feed raw I would in a heartbeat, if I only had 1 fila hahahaha, I would be feeding close to 20lbs a day for the 4 of them and in turn I would have to become a vegan as I wouldn't be able to afford to buy meat for myself lol

 

[ruthcatrin]

And it does, in the end, come down to what works for the dog and owner. Doesn't matter how high end quality the food is, if the dog is miserable on it or the owner can't afford it then it isn't doing anyone much good!

 

[Penelope's Mom]

Mountainfila, I know where you're coming from. She has firm poop for the first time in two months and I am hesitant to switch her. I just feel like I'm being a bad mommy leaving her on something like Pedigree when I can do better for her. As I said, my daughter feeds her boxer Pedigree because every time she switches his food, he starts losing hair. It works for him but I know there has to be something better.

 

[ruthcatrin]

MF makes a good point though, as much as I don't like Pedigree, leaving her on it for at least a couple weeks to give her system a rest may not be a bad idea. If you did just buy something use it for training treats maybe, that way she'll already be started on it when you're ready to switch her.

 

[Hector]

You have to go with what works in the meantime and then switch to something better later on that works. Runny poos is hard on the body.

 

[Penelope's Mom]

Okay then. Pedigree it is for now, I guess. Thanks, everyone.

 

[mountainfila]

When I was weaning my pups onto solid food I bought 6 large bags of Kirkland chicken and rice I think it was, the main one they carry, I fed it before and liked the food as my previous dogs did well on it. After about the 3 bag I began to notice everyone seemed to be scratching more and more and they all had brown guk in their ears, so I just happen to be changing an empty bag out of the bin and had a boo at the ingredients, low and behold the 3rd or 4th ingredient was potato, I didn't know they had changed their formula as I had not bought it in a few years, I don't live close to a Costco. They also pooped ALOT lol and it was like soft serve all the time, I just chalked it up to weaning but after I ran out of the Kirkland stuff and everyone was in a hot mess lol I went back to pedigree and within a couple days everyone had firm poops, I cleaned all their ears out and they are nice and clean and pink to this day. They get fed 3 times a day 2 cups per feeding and they only poop twice a day, and for the size of the dog they poop the size of a medium size dog and not one runny poo since we switched, makes yard clean up a breeze lol. And I also give extras because the protein and fat are lower then I would like so I do supplement with some raw bones and meat, mostly beef, some pork and for treats I buy a huge box of milk bone cookies and the box lasts us for about 2 months, when kiva was still here we would go through a box a month, so I now know why she was 20lbs over weight haha she was a foodie through and through right till the end. Should I switch to something that is better quality or should I do what I am doing, looking at my pics and vids and seeing the condition of my dogs, do my dogs look like they are lacking anything. Don't feel bad for feeding a food that agrees with her and give her extras to compensate if you feel that bad, why force a dog to eat a food that doesn't agree with their bodies, runny poo is a sign that its not agreeing with them. I will also say yes it bothers me a little bit that this is the food im stuck with but my dogs do well on it and it shows. I also had a compliment on how my dogs smell, the bf son was visiting and one of the girls was sitting on his lap and he stuck his nose into her neck and then said your dogs don't smell lol, he says the frenchies his brother has stink , they feed blue buffalo and the dogs have yeast bad and never have firm poop but that is what they were told to use for dogs with allergies, I don't think its workin for them lol