[pacalady]

I have been doing research on the best dog food to feed and I am more confused than ever. I find complaints and bad reviews about all of the brands. I have fed Iams lamb and rice for years. For some reason my dogs will always get an ear infection when on other foods that i have tried so faR and i have fed iams puppy for our puppys but I have heard of some negatives there lately. Then I was in the vet for puppy check up on our Aussie and the receptionist recommended 4health after feeding iit for one week mixed with the iams our puppy started dry heaving. And vomiting. Did research found other complaints about the same thing I dont think I want to take any chances I had found a lot of good reviews about fromm and was going to switch to that but of course I fell across bad reviews. How I cant afford the top of the line and 70 a bag type food. I am thinking about sticking with Iams I have never had problem. I am so confused. My dogs are like my kids. They are family. How does one know what dogs foods are really okay. Talk about confusing. Does anyone have any helpful suggestions..

[theBCnut]

First of all, realize that all dogs are different and don’t do the same on all foods. That’s one reason you will find bad reviews on even the best foods. People don’t differentiate between bad food and bad for my dog.

Feeding the same thing long term is no better for our dogs than it is for us. Eating variety is healthy. Try looking for NutriSource. it is an good quality easy to switch to food that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

One way you can try to figure out what ingredient it is that’s causing those ear problems is to start adding one thing to the regular food for a week and see how your dog does on it. Chichen is a very common food to cause these kinds of problems, so that is what I would suspect. Once you know what your dog is reacting to, it’s easier to find foods that work for it.
/frequently-asked-questions/diet-rotation-for-dogs/

• This reply was modified 11 years, 10 months ago by theBCnut.

[pacalady]

Vet said the ear infections were from gluten which is why they never had them on the iams lamb and rice. Now I have a puppy vomiting vet said it is probably a sensitivety to the 4health. It does have chicken but nutrisource puppy has chicken too. I understand dogs react differently to foods like humans. I guess its all a trial and error. Thank you

[theBCnut]

I can tell you that your vet can’t know that the ear infections are from gluten. He may be right, but he can’t know that, only guess. My dog got ear infections from tomato, but it took amost a year and a half to figure that out.

NutriSource has more foods that are suitable for puppies than just their puppy food. All Life Stages foods are in essense puppy foods since that is the AAFCO profile they are designed to fit into. You might want to look at Natural Balance too.

And yes, it is a lot of trial and error. I’ve been working on finding different foods my dog can eat for a little over 1 1/2 years, so far I have a few formulas from 3 different brands that he can handle, and one of those brands I’d rather not feed. Fortunately I have other dogs who can eat the rejects without issues.

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