[wolff]

Hi,
I normally never fed puppy food to my St Bernard puppies, I’d normally feed them an excellent adult food and they never had any problems with lameness, HD or other maladies the big guys often have, but now with two puppies 12 and 14 weeks old on Nutri Life All gold which I have been using for the past year and a half after switching from Canine Caviar, the puppies just rarely seem to get decent stools.
The stools often wind up being reasonably firm to start with and then finishing up more like heavy whipped cream, not liquid like diarreah, but very messy to clean up.
So I decided tonight to switch them over to the Wellness Core which is in the current editor’s choice list and we’ll see if makes a difference.
Both puppies have been wormed multiple times, but the loose stools is almost what one expects to see from feeding too much food at once, yet they are not putting on the fat/weight they should.
The Nutri Life all gold is an excellent food, but now I’m beginning to wonder if they have changed something in it because my 14 month old seems like her stools are not like they used to be either, my 9 year old seems to fine on it.

The feed is $2 more than my long time supplier but from this site I found another company who ships dogfood and they have free shipping on the amount I would order each time, so that saves me about $14 as my current supply place charges $17 to ship via Speedee.
So it looks like I’ll be switching dog food AND suppliers at the same time!

[Pitlove]

GL with the change wolff! Let us know how the Wellness Core does. I just ordered a case of the canned food myself off of chewy.com and I would like to use their kibble in a rotational diet for my pitbull. I’d really like to know how your giant breed dogs do on it as I myself have a large breed dog. He’s 66lbs

[wolff]

I ordered it today, it supposedly would ship to-morrow, so I’m hoping it arrives Monday/Tuesday.
It’s very similar in it has chicken etc so I don’t see any issue with switching it over quickly. Oddly enough when I have changed premium brands over the years I never did the gradual change over and never had a digestive upset. I think that mostly happens in the cheaper feeds when people switch from one feed to a drastically different type that has mostly corn and the like in it.
I see Wellness also has an adult formula so I will probably change my 2 adults to that.
Yeah chewy is where I went, can’t beat the free shipping and shipping 30# bags of dogfood across the country is NOT cheap!
I’m amazed my Minn supplier can ship to me as low as $17 for the normal 2 bags (66#) of feed I order, it used to be $12 but it’s increased recently, and now with 2 puppied I have doubled the amount I need to order at a time to 4 bags.
I used to feed Canine Caviar dry but then I had one of my boys age 3 develop a fibrocartilagenous embolism in the spine which cased complete paralysis in the rear half of his body. He soon lost interest in eating so that was when I switched to Nutri Life in the hopes the change might do something on that (it didn’t)

[Pitlove]

Funny enough the only time my dog really had a problem switching foods was when we went from Blue Wilderness to Nature’s Variety Instinct. I switched him recently from NV to Orijen and I started out transitioning him the normal way and then when I got to 50/50 I just ended up giving him all Orijen and he was fine. I’m thinking about adding The Honest Kitchen Perfect Form supplement to his diet and trying to just switch him to his next brand without transitioning. I would love for him to have the proper flora to switch cold turkey.

Chewy.com actually ended up being cheaper than Petco where I work even with my discount! Really nice. Thankfully I only have to feed a dog and a cat and my little kitty is my champion eater as I call her. She is not picky at all unlike my dog. Trying out Weruva and Tiki Cat for the kitty from chewy.com as well. 🙂

[zcRiley]

You said they’ve been dewormed multiple times. Did you mean the worms kept coming back or that they don’t have a parasite?

[wolff]

Chewy is based in Florida but says they have distribution warehouses all over, wonder where their closest one to Iowa is, the shipping label might say where it’s shipped from, closer means it will be in transit a shorter time which is good.

[wolff]

Looking at the Wellness, it suggestes for a 30#/12 week puppy about 4-1/3 cups a day, the Nutri Life all gold bag shows how much to feed puppies, and under giant and 30# it has 4-1/2 to 5 cups a day, but Hachi and Jiggs are getting 2-1/2 cups per meal 3 times a day which is 7-1/2 cups or about 50% more than Nutri Life’s chart suggests and they are still skinny, even my vet last week asked what I was feeding.
I know the charts are just “suggested” and variations are expected, but still, that’s quite a difference!
We’ll see how they do on the wellness

[wolff]

Wellness core puppy:
Calorie Content: This food contains 3,792 kcal per kilogram or 417 kcal per cup ME

Adult large breed:
Calorie Content: This food contains 3,540 kcal/kg or 346 kcal/cup ME

Nutri Life All Gold:
KCAL/CUP = 375

[wolff]

zc: they were given Nemex/Strongid several times as a routine for young puppies, they should not have any worms that would cause the loose stools because of that fact.
My dogs are indoor dogs, I have a concrete potty area out back that is picked up immediately, it’s also cloroxed and hosed down frequently with the hose which in my case puts out hot water, but you get a new puppy and you don’t know what they might have or where exactly they were kept for the first 8 weeks and so you have to assume they are going to have worms no matter what.

They came from two completely different breeders a month apart.

[zcRiley]

All puppies’ digestive tracts are a bit different & dietary changes will occur as they age. If you’re able to, give them food for “puppies” (very different nutrient levels from adult food). Then take them off of it after they’re 1 yr. old (since they’re big breed). They may have been allergic to the grains etc. in NutriLife All Gold (Brown Rice, Pearled Barley, Oat Meal, White Rice, Brewers Dried Yeast, Alfalfa Meal). Also ask your vet if a full thyroid panel test would be a good idea (increased metabolism with concurrent weight loss issue).

Wellness CORE Grain-Free Puppy Formula is a great choice. Orijen Puppy Large Breed Grain-Free Dry Dog Food is outstanding. But as I said, it’s all trial and error until A) you like what you’re buying & B) you see outstanding stools & weight formation that’s appropriate.

If you’re not already, spread out the meals as evenly as you can during waking hours, small portions equal to the daily amount (or what they’ll consume) 3 to 4 times per day. It’s easier on their tummies.

[crazy4cats]

Hi Wolff-
I agree wich zcRiley, you should stick to a puppy or an all life stages food with the appropriate calcium level for your new large breed pups.

Also, I would have a fecal test done to rule out parasites. Giardia and Coccidia are sometimes hard to detect and regular dewormers do not get rid of either one of these conditions. They both also can cause intermittent loose stools or diarrhea and they are both fairly common in puppies.

Wellness Core is an excellent choice. Good luck!

[wolff]

I had to start a new thread on this because I was unable to access this one for some reason

I don’t know what the problem is, I was able access every other thread but this one I started, when I tried to read it or anything it kept asking me to log in, obviously I AM logged in or I wouldn’t be able to even read this premium area I paid for!
It seems fixed now but now I can’t delete the other one, oh well…

[wolff]

They may have been allergic to the grains etc. in NutriLife All Gold (Brown Rice, Pearled Barley, Oat Meal, White Rice, Brewers Dried Yeast, Alfalfa Meal).

Possibly so, though more likely than if they were from the same litter, they are from two completely different breeders and lines and 2 weeks apart in age, one is short coated and the other is long coated.
I’m not sure how I feel about the brown rice, I know I’ve read that rice in general is often contaminated with trace amounts of arsenic, and that brown rice has a higher level than white.
This might offer some insight into this issue:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-is-in-your-rice/index.htm

“How much arsenic is in your rice?
Consumer Reports’ new data and guidelines are important for everyone but especially for gluten avoiders
Published: November 2014
We looked at data released by the Food and Drug Administration in 2013 on the inorganic arsenic content of 656 processed rice-containing products. We found that rice cereal and rice pasta can have much more inorganic arsenic—a carcinogen—than our 2012 data showed. According to the results of our new tests, one serving of either could put kids over the maximum amount of rice we recommend they should have in a week. Rice cakes supply close to a child’s weekly limit in one serving. Rice drinks can also be high in arsenic, and children younger than 5 shouldn’t drink them instead of milk.
Brown rice has 80 percent more inorganic arsenic on average than white rice of the same type. Arsenic accumulates in the grain’s outer layers, which are removed to make white rice.”

Wellness CORE Grain-Free Puppy Formula is a great choice. Orijen Puppy Large Breed Grain-Free Dry Dog Food is outstanding. But as I said, it’s all trial and error until A) you like what you’re buying & B) you see outstanding stools & weight formation that’s appropriate.

I saw the Orijen, but the price was out of my range, if I was feeding a Beagle or small dog it wouldn’t be bad, but the $79 price and the even smaller bag yet than I normally buy that’s a double hit- higher price for less in the bag.

If you’re not already, spread out the meals as evenly as you can during waking hours, small portions equal to the daily amount (or what they’ll consume) 3 to 4 times per day. It’s easier on their tummies.

Jiggs came when he was 6-1/2 weeks old, I fed him 4 times a day until he was 8 weeks and then Hachi came shortly after and he was 8 weeks, and by then both are on 3 feedings a day

[zcRiley]

Good luck with the Wellness Core! It’s definitely well priced for the quality. I recently switched to Zignature Zssentials for rotational purposes, $59.99/27 lb bag. It’s very very similiar to Orijen but without the pizzazz of chicken, egg, potato. And I love Chewy.com, don’t go anywhere else.

[wolff]

Looks like the Wellness shipped from Pennsylvania and is scheduled to deliver Saturday in fact!
It’s already left Grove City OH 3 hours ago so it looks like it could really deliver today, that’s fast! If it’s not here to-morrow then Monday for sure.
I have a vet appt for one for vaccinations today too.

By the way I applied some math to both feeds and here’s what I came up with:

Nutrilife: (2) 30# bags (60# total) $93.90
Shipping via Speedee $17.00
Total: $110.90

Wellness puppy: (2) 27# bags ( 54# total) $99.90
SHipping via FedEx $0.00
Total: $99.90

The total weight difference is 6# less with the Wellness order, however, when we calculate the total cost per pound of feed with the shipping factored in, we come up with this:

Nutrilife: $110.90 / 60# = $1.848 per #
Wellness: $99.90 / 54# = $1.850 per #

If that’s rounded a bit to normal currency it’s one penny difference per pound in price, mostly due to the $17 for the shipping v/s free shipping.
On the other hand if my supplier in Minn also carried Wellness and I paid $17 to ship 2 bags of that instead of Nutrilife, we come up with:

$116.90

$116.90 / 54# = $2.16 per #

So even though Wellness is about $3 more a bag for 3# less feed, I get a better feed for $6 less per bag

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