Well, the feeding Alice wars continue
. Apparently not only is she picky, she has a sensative tummy too. Here's a background and I'll try to keep it as brief as possible while still giving the necessary details
:
Started her on Verus puppy when I got her (chicken based with whole grains) - doesn't like it at ALL.
Started Orijen puppy (chicken based grain-free) she ate if for a while, then stopped, but she had alot of gas on it so I think it upset her tummy and that could be why she stopped eating it- poops were good though.
Started raw - my mistake - I did beef first(pre-made NV)- she LOVED it but got pretty wicked poops. Cleared that up with chicken/rice/pumpkin.
Went to Nature's Variety chicken Prairie (slowly with the rice and chicken mixture) - she was pooping like 5 x a day and they were big and mushy.
Went back to chicken/rice/pumpkin for a few days - poop was great - small, firm, 1 or 2x a day and not smelly at all.
Started adding a tiny amount of NV canned lamb Instinct (grain free), she was good so I added more and more of the canned and less chicken/rice - kept doing fine just like on the chicken and rice but smaller poop.
Tried a bit or NV raw lamb yesterday morning - poop still fine.
Picked up a bag of Nature's Variety Instinct Chicken - gave aprox. 1/4 cup last night mixed with the canned NV Lamb - well, this morning she has just a very small amount of "drippy" poop - so I only gave the chicken/rice/pumpkin this AM with like a half tsp. of the canned lamb.
Ugh, I realize that's alot of different things, but other than the boiled chicken and over cooked rice and canned NV Lamb, she's had a problem so I had to try something else. I really would like to do 1/2 pre-made raw and 1/2 kibble with a bit of canned mixed in. I know she can have lamb and she's fine with plain real chicken (I only know about the cooked so far, haven't tried chicken pre-made raw yet).
I know alot of you have sensative tummy babies - how did you go about finding what worked for them? She handles cooked white rice fine, but other than that grains really bulk up her stool significantly, but the grain free kibbles I've tried give her runny stool or lots of gas.
My next thought for kibble is either NV LID (they didn't have it in the store so that's why I grabbed the regular Instinct) or Nature's Logic (I have a sample and the only grain in it is millet to bind the kibble and it's suposably the easiest digested for dogs). My other thought was to go with Natural Balance, but that honestly would be a last resort. I could just stick with the raw and canned lamb since both are "complete and balanced", but I was hoping to do 1/2 kibble to cut cost down since I have 4 other mouths to feed lol.
Oh - stool clear of parasites and every thing else is perfectly fine with her. I've never had a dog with a tummy like this, so this is a real experimentation for me. The vet is obvioulsy no help here - he'd just tell me to give her some SD garbage.
Any tips, similar experiences, ideas?