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HELP with Puppy food... need advice please!!

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mdkel

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Hey everyone, greetings from Portugal ;)

Sorry if this thread is in the wrong part of the forum, but I'm new here.

So, I have a new mutt, 6 and a half month now, been with me for 3 month or so. I have been feeding him Acana Puppy and Junior dry food. Everything was fine to about 2/3 weeks ago, he started to not eating his kibble completely everyday, and this week he stopped eating at all. I took him to the vet, everything was fine with his blood ( gallblader a bit high, but nothing more), as he made a very yellow diahrreia the vet gave me some pills for the pupp, and some royal canin low fat wet food to add to the acana food so he would eat but with less fat (half acana, half royal canin) .

He is eating well for now, but the wet food will have stop in 2 or 3 days, and I dont thik he is going to eat his dry acana food only (he still rejects the acana if it's only dry).

So my question is, what do you advice? keep him on acana? (I'm afraid acana was not that good for him as he doesnt want it, and he had this little problem), change to another food like taste of the wild (lower fat)? or Naturea (almost the same as acana)??

I really need advice from someone who really understands about dog food...


Thanks in advance
 
Greetings from England @mdkel and welcome :)

He defiantly sounds like he doesn't like his old food! My labs been on the same site for years so I won't be much help I'm afraid but you will find lots of great advice from our other members!
 
Hi, Welcome.
Well I would suggest that you stay on the Acana, it is a lovely food.
At 6 months of age or thereabouts some dogs require less food, their fast growth has finished and their requirements can be reduced. This could be your chaps way of saying that he does not want so much food.
What breed is he, how many feeds are you giving him each day?
I would suggest that you feed him less, only offer him his food for about 10 minutes and what he has not eaten, take it away and offer it at his next feed time, 10 minutes only again. He will learn to eat what he is given when it is offered. You could try softening his kibble with a little warm water for a few minutes before offering it to him it to him.
Stop any treats as this could be filling him up too much. Just try to keep him a little bit hungry, so that he is always looking for his next feed.
He will have started teething at about 16 weeks, maybe he is having a problem with this.
Are you able to get a little minced meat to sprinkle over his food or mix in. (much better than Royal canin).

Do let us know how you get on with him and what you decide to do and what is working for you. We always look forward to updates.:)
 
Thanks for the replays.

He's a mixed breed puppy from a local shelter. he's now 16,65kg and 53cm tall (shoulder to front feet). By the Acana bag he should be eating around 300grm pr day (with the wet food he eats that very well), he's very energetic and playfull, walks 2 or 3 times a day (45min to 1hour each), and get's 2 hours (at least) on the weekend that he can run free on a nearby forest (he comes when called), plus a few playdates with his friends whenever we can.

I'm feeding twice a day, 150gr in the morning and 150gr in the evening. Almost no treats (only when training him, or walking him). and absolutely no people food. I offer the food for about 30 min, as the pup never did eat the whole thing in a single time, he eats, goes for a walk around the house, eats again, plays a little, eats again and so on.

I do think Acana is great, but couldn't the little guy associate his tummy aches with the dry kibble?? I say this because he now eats the dry food mixed with the wet one on a single take :)D) but if I offer only dry food he turns his nose away lol thats why I was asking about changing to other dry kibble... (I'll try that warm water advice soon).

As for teething, he already has all of his adult teeth :D big ones too haha

PS: minced meat??? I have to use the translator for that :D
 
I have to confess I am a little soft when it comes to feeding. If adding some wet food to the dry makes it more palatable for him, I would do that. You could probably find a wet food that is better than Royal Canin though and i would personally use a ratio of much more dry and less wet than 50/50 - I would use just enough to coat the dry.

I realise you are not in the UK but have a look at www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk

It is an independent dog food comparison website which scores all types of foods (dry, raw, wet) on a scale of 0 to 5. You can set filters for your dog's weight, age etc and choose to view only the foods scoring, say, 4 and above. You might see something you can obtain in Portugal that would suit.
 
Welcome to the forum, you have lots of great advice already :)
 
good morning guys,

Thanks for all the advices.

Regarding dry food and wet food, my vet says to no mix the too, ony when needed. what do you say? I'm considering changing to Naturea dry food (Portuguese food similar to Acana, wast first made in the UK :) ) , but adding some wet food if the little guy turns his nose around...

Another question, how can I make a slow transition of dry foods, if this little bastard picks only the dry kibble he wants?? haha

Thanks again for all the patience and advice.
 
Start with a samll bit of wet with more dry, and gradually increase the amount of wet I guess. Possibly mix it well, too, so over time the difference is less noticeable ;)
 
Ive searched a bit more, and found out about butternut dog food and it caught my eye :D do they ship to portugal?

I'm really struggling with this changing food thing. My little guy is always itchy and sometimes chewing paws too. I've read in the Akela 80:20 site , that those are signs of not digesting his current food very well.
 
It really depends what you prefer to feed. I personally don't see the problem with mixing a little wet. Some vets seem to think the food will be digested at different rates but I don't understand why that would be an issue - if you, for example, sit down to a meal of meat, potatoes and two veg, you will digest it at different rates with no harm and I promise you a dog's digestive system is a lot stronger than ours! And I don't know about vets in Portugal but in the UK they have very, very little nutrition training. However if you prefer to feed only dry then you may have to experiment with foods until you find one he likes and that you are happy feeding, gradually changing over about 10% at a time over a number of meals. But of course you risk him not liking the new one too. If he is itchy, I suggest grain free. Butternut has a great reputation but I don't know whether they deliver to you or not.
 
Thanks for the advice.

Vet's here, at least in my town, don't even know about most grain free foods, only acana, and they never used it. they usually advice Royal canin or Specific , and say those are awsome.

I only prefer a good dry, wet or mix food that my pup would eat well, and that won't give him problems. He had a little dhiarreia problem this week, and his gallblader was a little off, adding the itchiness and chewing paws to this and to him not wanting acana anymore, I'm guessing is something to do with the dry kibble, should I only changee to a similar one? (Naturea, orijen, taste of the wild) or to a lower protein one with grains? (I've read somewhere tthat some dogs dont do well with this High protein, grain free premium dry foods...

Any advice on good dry foods (or wet) to feed my pup? taste of the wild has less fat and less protein, but no condritin and such. I'm getting really really confused haha
 
It's a confusing market! These are all good foods though so it might just be a question of seeing what he does well on. Some dogs do find a high protein a bit rich, others thrive on it. Some dogs thrive on Chappie which, on paper, is about as bad as it gets - yet they do incredibly well on it. So sadly it isn't an exact science. If it was me, I'm honestly not sure I would change from Acana. I would mix a little good quality wet to encourage him to eat it, monitor the itching in case it wasn't food related, and have his gallbladder retested in a month in case it was something different that caused the elevation. If I was going to change I would likely try Orijen but like you said, it is high in protein.
 
well, that was very very helpful. thanks a lot. I still have about 4kg of acana, I'm going to test it with a little of wet Naturea, and a little of warm water and see from there.

He had his anus glands a bit swollen too, but that was from the dyarreiha apparently.

Any more advices will be awsome...


thanks a lot. you guys ae great
 
Butternut box are on our directory @mdkel - why don’t you ask them if they ship to the EU?
 
Violet Turner said:
stick with what your heart tells you
Click to expand...


My heart tells meto give him as much treats as he can eat, also bones, pounds of cheese, sticks, dirt, bread, etc etc.... hahaha just kidding, I'm having a bit of problem solving this, I want the little guy to grow up healthy and happy, if I could (or if it made a difference) , I would try dry kibble my self to see what's best :D :D
 
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