[Boxermom]

I’ll try to change to 3 meals a day see if it helps…
And I didn’t know that about the chicken fat! That’s really good news, I may try the Merrick after all!
Thank you!!

[Boxermom]

Thank you, may I ask how frequent meals make a difference? Now I feed twice a day but I don’t mind feeding more often if it could help.
I don’t have all the food options in my country- I tried Regal (4 stars), Eukanuba (3.5), Nutrience (3.5) and Acana (5). I tried two different kinds of Acana because I really wanted to feed him that brand, but no luck. I wanted to try Merrick when found out it has chicken fat in its lamb food, and I think my dog is sensitive to chicken… The Canine Caviar is the first food in the last YEAR, that actually firm up the stool, immediately (within a day). But of course if I can’t get my dog to gain weight on it, then I’ll have to keep on searching…

[Boxermom]

Canine caviar

[Boxermom]

If it’s not a medical condition, Maybe he’s sensitive to certain ingredient?
I tried 4 different brand of food, all of them gave the dog diarrhea/soft stool (not all the time but very often), till it came to my mind that maybe the chicken is the problem- they were all chicken based. He’s now eating lamb based food (with no chicken in it) and doing so great on it- firm stool every time. I don’t know if it’s because of the brand or the meat source, but it’s working 🙂

[Boxermom]

I think Acana and Orijen (Champion Pet Food) have not had a recall as well.

[Boxermom]

Didn’t Abady had a recall in June? =>

/dog-food-recall/abady-dog-food-recall/

[Boxermom]

Thanks Nir, 599 calories per cup is defiantly a lot… I’ve heard it’s a good food but I think for now I’ll stay with the brands that have lower amount of calories. If it doesn’t work out I might give it a chance because it does sound like a very good option 🙂
Good luck with the raw feeding.

[Boxermom]

Thanks for the replies!
Rotation is a good option, though I fear once I found a food with no loose stools I won’t have the courage to change it! 🙂
But I guess rotating both will be cheaper than just feeding Merrick (since Nutrisource is cheaper and the bag is bigger then Merrick’s), so I should give it a try 🙂
And come to think about it, all the brands I tried so far were chicken based, so maybe that’s the problem… Maybe I’ll try the Merrick/ Nutrisource lamb and see how it goes…

[Boxermom]

Hey Nir,
I don’t feed raw so sorry I can’t help, but I wanted to ask you about Canine Caviar- some people told me that their dog stay hungry on it (and restless), because of the small feeding amount. I think it’s 300g/day for 30kg dog? Maybe I’m wrong, but I remember it was less than other quality dog foods like Acana, Merrick, Natural balance etc (I know the reason is Canine Caviar is much higher in calories). How’s your dog doing with his daily amount?
Thanks

[Boxermom]

No, I’m very far away from you guys 🙂 … Though I’ve been to the U.S and Canada and it was amazing!

I have a follow up question, just found out a store that sell NutriSource.
So same questions- has anyone tried it with good results? Is it popular in the U.S? Is the company trust worthy?
And what would you choose between Merrick and NutriSource?
THANKS!!!!

[Boxermom]

Thanks InkedMarie, but from what I’ve seen, those sites don’t ship outside the U.S…
You sure have very good prices for dog food!! I pay almost duble for it 🙂

[Boxermom]

Thanks Sully’smom, I did see shipping on e-bay was 30-40$! I’ll check Amazon…

[Boxermom]

My god this is awful! 🙁

[Boxermom]

I’ll ask them if I can order it, thanks. Or maybe I can just order it from e-bay, I’ll have a look (I bet it will be cheaper). I’m not crazy for starting to use food additive because I really feel like I know nothing about it so I’m a bit uncomfortable with it. I prefer to use fruits/veg if I can get the same affect.

[Boxermom]

Thanks for the info Hound Dog Mom, I’ll give Merrick a try then!

Pattyvaughn- I don’t think we have canned pie fillings either, I’ve never seen one. I tried to look in organic stores, sometimes they have special products like this, but no luck so far. I’ll keep looking though. Thanks for the tip 🙂

[Boxermom]

By the way I can’t find that canned pumpkin anywhere, I don’t think they sell it here 🙁

[Boxermom]

Thank you!
Would you say it’s a popular food in the U.S? lots of people use it? Since it’s new here I don’t want to “test” new food on my dog (my vet said I should wait and let others experiment with it first), but if it’s common in the U.S I’ll be more calm about it.
Do you think the company is trust worthy like Champion Petfood? I mean does it own by some big evil corporation? Haha 🙂

[Boxermom]

Thank you! I’ll think about it!

[Boxermom]

That makes sense Pattyvaughn… But still a bit frustrating 🙂
Do you think soft stool in this case means the food does not digest as well as it should?

[Boxermom]

Thanks pugmomsandy!
I thought that would be the answer… 🙁
It does seem like they mark! So weird. Maybe I could make him not poop if I start a little jogging when I see he wants to go… But then again I can’t run more than a minute or so haha.
Sadly feeding raw, while seems to be the best option, is not possible for me (time & money). As to the freeze dried, we do have Orijen dog food here, but I don’t think the freeze dried arrived yet. Even so, I can only imagine it would be very pricey… Acana is also expensive here, I guess it costs more than in the US because of the long shipping. As to Vital Essentials, we don’t have it my country…

However, if you say that when feeding raw their poop are always firm, then maybe I do have a chance to find some other food that will have that effect on him. It’s a long shot, I know, but I just REALLY want to find a solution so I could be spontaneous and take him out whenever I want…

One thing I don’t understand, is this- if we know that soft stool means the food is not digesting well, does this mean that if I take him out often I damage the digesting of the food? Plus I always thought quality food meaning they eat less= have less poop, so how come he can still poop so often?? I would expect he won’t be able to, even if he wants to! 🙂

Thanks

[Boxermom]

I use John Paul shampoo for pet. Didn’t even know he’s known for his human hair products when I bought it 🙂
It says on the bottle “tested on humans first” 🙂

[Boxermom]

Thanks for the comments, I guess the Pet Protector did sound a little too good to be true 🙂
So I can’t say I’m surprise about what InkedMarie said…

[Boxermom]

Has anyone ever heard of the Pet Protector?
It’s a metal disk you put on the dog’s collar… I wonder if it’s any good, because it’s not cheap…
Here is a link (you can also find it on google)-
http://petprotector.org/About.aspx

[Boxermom]

I guess some pets could be sensitive to some products… I have a friend who used Frontline (I think) once and it made his dog throw up several times so he switched…
I bought it because my dad is using it for years now and very pleased. My dog seems to be ok with it, but I’ll keep that in mind in case I see any change. Thanks!

[Boxermom]

I use Advantage and so far no problems…

[Boxermom]

About your second question- Now Fresh Large Breed Puppy get 5 stars rating-

/dog-food-reviews/now-dog-food/

[Boxermom]

I guess you should stay alert and notice if there’s any change for the worst in Natural Balance dog food. I hope everything will be OK :/
I really hope Champion petfood (which make Acana) won’t be sold like that…

[Boxermom]

Thanks! 🙂

[Boxermom]

I think it’s actual, because it doesn’t say min/ max, it just say:
Sodium 0.3%

Though in two of their grain free foods it’s 0.6% … So should I avoid those or this level is still OK?

[Boxermom]

He is actually still a puppy, but I see now that the sodium in his food (Acana puppy large) is 0.3%, and in the adult it’s 0.36%, so all good 🙂
Thank you very much for the info

[Boxermom]

Thank you,
Do you know what would be the best sodium level?

[Boxermom]

http://www.orijen.ca/dog-food/freeze-dried-dog-treats/

Orijen have grain free treats… But I think it’s expensive (never tried it though).

[Boxermom]

Thank you dogspot, I’ll have a look!

[Boxermom]

Well, turns out it’s Hi Tek and not High Tech 🙂
So I found them on google.
Thanks!!!

[Boxermom]

It’s nothing special, just little biscuits looks like a bone… I get them as a gift when I buy the dog food, but it comes in the shop’s bag and not the original treats bag (I guess so they could give smaller amount 🙂 ), so I just wondered what the ingredients are. The sell’s man said no salt, sugar, colorants or artificial flavor… But I wanted to check for myself to be sure…

[Boxermom]

I’m glad to hear that! Thanks!

[Boxermom]

Thank you very much for your comments Hound Dog Mom and Pattyvaughn!
My dog is not really begging, he never get food at the table so I guess he know it wouldn’t help 🙂 But what he do is going to his empty bowl and lick it every once in a while, which hardly never happened before. Plus he finishes the food super-fast. With the former food, it would stay in the bowl for a few hours before he’d eat it… And he almost never went to the empty bowl to lick it (if it would happen, I usually gave him some more food, because he would never eat his entire daily amount).

Your answers did calm my guilt though.. I think for now I won’t add vegetables because I want to wait and see if his stool firm up before making any changes (soft stool is why I changed the food to begin with). I’ll keep follow and see if he gets used to the smaller amount.

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