Disappointed with Wellness Core food
 

I used to go back and forth between Canidae All Life Stages and Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul. A couple months ago I decided to try Wellness Core because it's grain free and had great reviews. Well, he just finished his second bag (we get the smallest bags), and he is just not himself. He seems to be sleeping all the time and not as playful as he used to be. :thumbdown Even if we bribe him with some fresh veggies or fruit (which he LOVES), he just doesn't get as excited as he used to. The vet says he's fine and that it must be his food. I'm really disappointed with the food. I've considered switching him to a raw diet, but it just seems a little out of the question as we travel frequently (sometimes with Ferdinand, sometimes we leave him with our friend). I think traveling with a raw diet would be incredibly difficult.

So, the search continues for a new food..... [sigh]. I'm considering the Canidae grain free food, but our normal feed store doesn't carry it and they instead recommend the Taste of the Wild, who apparently makes Canidae as well? Then I found out they are the distributors for the entire state of Arizona for Taste of the Wild, so of course they would recommend it! :rolleyes:

Jackson's done very well on Innova. He was eating regular Wellness for a few weeks and began getting
TERRIBLE eye goopy boogers, they were gross. I don't know if the food was 100% to blame, but once I
changed to Innova - no more eye boogers. He's now eating regular adult Innova and Taste of the Wild
and doing wonderfully on both. He prefers TOTW, and will go over and eat/nibble on it a lot more than
the Innova, which I usually mix with wet food for him.

Gee it can be hard to find a food can't it? I'm using Royal Canine, but it's not that high rated, and I switched to Blue Wilderness, and Joey got the goopy eyes, I mean the eyes were so bad that he would wake up with brown liquid crud, and his face was wet all day. I went back to RC, and everythings fine again, but I've been tempted to try Wellness, since I've read so many good things about it. Now I don't know since you say you experience goopy eyes as well. I'm beginning to think he's allergic to high quality food! :D

Hope you find something that works for you!

Hope he is better soon, I was just reading on wellness this week , well I will have to find something else. They r both on RC now
bar@ulater!!!!!
manina,miley:aimeeyorkmax:animal36

Yep - Jackson's were like never before, just gross and wet, like you describe. He will still get little eye boogies
in the morning but not bad, they're really easy to clean out. On the Wellness, it was baaaddd. And it's a shame
because he loved the food, the taste of it. I'm not trying to diss Wellness in any way because I think it's a great food.
Every dog is different. :D

Core is 34% protein. Maybe he can't tolerate the higher protein?

Did you have bloodwork done before his neuter? Were his liver values normal?

I recently switched louis from nature's recipe to innova puppy and he loves it :).

That's what worries me about most of the grain free foods - most have really high protein. It seems like Core is on the lower end of the protein spectrum with the grain free foods. Innova is even higher.

He did have bloodword done before his neuter and all values were normal. Maybe I just need to take him on 2-3 walks every day to burn off that extra protein, lol.

I wouldn't rule it out. Each food is different for every dog. I still think it's a good food, it just doesn't work for my little guy.

I just recently switched Uni to Wellness Super mix 5 small breed. She loves it. She didn't get any more goopy eye boogers. Actually it stayed the same, just mostly white ones from sleeping, and a little wetness throughout the day. Poop still the same, itchiness still the same, but she eats it better, no more bribing or begging (on my part). We love it!

I should clarify myself that it's Innova Evo that I was referring to in the above post.

I hadn't ever really looked at Innova - I think I might give one of the Innova small bites a whirl, as they have a reasonable protein level since he doesn't seem to be tolerating the higher protein. I'll search around the site for the general consensus on Innova - DogFoodAnalysis.com gives it a 5-star rating. :thumbup:

Also, thank you everyone for your input/insight! :-)

Innova Evo is really high in fat, too. I've know dogs to pack on the pounds with that one. We had a Maltese on another forum develop high cholesterol from Evo.

I've been feeding my 3 wellness super 5 mix and they are doing fine. I also feed them the wellness chicken and the turkey in the morning mixed with their dry and no problems what so ever. I really think it just depends on your yorkie. No two are alike.

I just commented on another person's thread about food.

Izzy can't tolerate high fat/protein due to her pancreatitis but Cosmo is our new puppy (almost 6 months old). He is on 1 raw NV medallion per day but also gets kibble. He can't tolerate high protein either as he was on the NV Instinct as he was drinking tons of water and peeing way too much..which was a problem with potty training so our vet told us to switch to a low protein food to see if that worked. Well I did a lot of searching on food and wanted to go with Orijen but that is way too high in protein.

We then found out that Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream was always rated high in all the food journals if you were to feed a holistic kibble. It's great and Cosmo loves it. It has Omega 3 and 6 in it which is fantastic. Protein is low and so is fat.

You could also try the NV Instinct New Zealand Venison Meal and Millet Medley which is a freeze dried raw with no corn, wheat, soy. It only has 25% protein and 14% fat.

I switch out between the two of them..one bag TOTW Pacific Stream then one bag NV Instinct to mix it up for him.

Same here with Max and Wellness Small Breed.
We are back to Innova Small Bites (green bag w/ Yorkie on it).
He loved the Wellness...his eyes did not. They are much better again.

I bought some Innova small bites for him yesterday, and so far he loves it! I tried to mix 25% of the Innova with the Wellness to start switching him over, but he just picks out the Innova and leaves the Wellness, lol. So I have to be careful and watch him with it so he doesn't get sick.

He also started drinking a TON of water, and I didn't notice it as much until I started reading the replies and that some of your pups increased their water intake too. So I'm pretty convinced it's the protein that doesn't agree with him in the Wellness. I'll stick to lower protein in the future. Thanks everyone for all your input!

this is one of the reasons why I took my dogs off from totw, they gained a ton of weight. Tucker gained almost 3 pounds in 6 weeks. My sheltie, who is now on a special diet to loose the wieght gained an unhealthy amount and I was feeding them the recommended amount on the bag. After they were on it for awhile they started pooping all the time, sometimes it was runny and they were going 7 times a day, they had terrible gas issues and thier coats all got dry and wiry. I havent tried a grain free/high protein food again. Im not sayint its a bad food, just didnt work for my dogs.
good luck finding something that works for your dog!!

Interesting..which TOTW were you feeding? I have Cosmo on the Pacific Stream and it's low in protein and fat.

I tried all 3 flavors, they wouldnt eat the pacific stream, they liked the fowl one the best so that is the one that I bought the most for them I did rotate with the bison one once in awhile for variety but it wasnt that often.

Interesting. Jackson's been eating TOTW (Bison flavored one) for a week now with no issues as of yet.
I'll have to see if any arise because he really seems to like this food a lot. I'm still mixing with his Innova though.

Acana
 

We switched all three of our girls to Acana grain Free (they were on Wellness Core previously).

They seem to be really thriving on Acana--it is made by the same company that makes Orijen, but it has lower protien. We are really happy with it and noticed a different in their coats immediately!

Champion Petfoods | ACANA | Products - Puppy Small Breed

Everyonce in a while they get a tablespoon of Wellness Soft food mixed in with their dry food as a treat.

This is a great food but it is not sold here in Ohio..I checked into it. I love the Orijen brand but too high in protein but this would have worked out great. It's not worth it to have it shipped because of shipping costs.

So Ferdinand has been eating the Innova small bites for a week now and his energy level is back up to what it was before, if not better. He also stopped drinking excessive water (he was drinking about twice as much as normal while he was eating the Wellness Core). I'm really happy with the Small Bites, and since the kibble is smaller he can eat it much easier than any other food hehas tried.

Thanks everyone for helping me find this great food! It makes me happy that he is back to his playful self.

OK! It all makes sense now. We recently added a new furbaby. I wanted to switch Maddie to a food that was all stages so that I could feed them both the same thing. I switched to TOTW. Maddie recently went to the vet and weighed 11.3 lbs! THe baby, Cooper, began looking healthy and filling out.