Opinion about low carb/grain/gluten diets

[MyTrixie143]

I agree with everyone else. You have to find what works for you and your dog best.

I personally don't like to feed my furkids dog food that is high in protein which pretty much all grain free foods are. Yorkies are known for having liver problems so why make it any harder on them than necessary.

I've tried several different brands of food and different formulas on my gang. Right now they are on Blue Buffalo the fish and sweet potato formula. It seems to agree with them best and they really love it. It's even helped my maltese with her tear stains. They've been on it for over a year now and we've never had any problems. However the chicken and rice one I noticed they were chewing their feet, a sign of allergies so that formula didn't work for us. They would also get runny stools when they had chicken.

Have you tried Life's Abundance? It is a great food as well. If mine liked it better and it wasn't so expensive for as much as I need I probably would have kept them on it. This is a good food for helping the tear stains as well.

Good luck with your search!!

[LuvTaycieGirl]

Originally Posted by Britster

I think I may add Natural Balance to the rotation. Orijen is a no-go now that they changed their formula and upped their prices (still a great food, IMO, just not working for Jackson anymore). I'm keeping him on Acana because he's always done well on that... but now I have no other food to rotate with and he really loved the NB samples we received and after a few days on it, poop was good. He wasn't on it long enough to judge coat, smell, eyes, etc. I'd be adding canned food to up the meat for him. But Jackson is like Taycie -- he LOVES to crunch his kibble and won't eat small kibble I've used NB cans for a while now (in conjunction w/ other brands, too).

I feel that Jackson needs more protein because he's so active. I can't see myself feeding a food with lower than 22% protein for long period of time. We walk 1.5-3.5 miles per day, do LOTS of fetch outdoors, swimming ALOT in the summer, agility, soon-to-be dock diving, dog parks a few times a week, dads big fenced in yard twice a week running constantly, etc, etc. I do think more active dogs require more protein.

I always felt Taycie needed more protein as well as she is SUPER active... We walk alot, at least 2 miles a day, sometimes more. She also goes to work with me, I am a nanny full time, When the weather is nice we spend alot of time outside and she spends hours playing with their boarder collie. Basically if its nice outside we are out. Not to mention she spends the majority of her days chasing and playing with the kids and she can run and chase a soccer ball for hours..

Problem with her, is her stomach just gives her fits... I do increase her amounts of food the days she is super active and I also will add the 95% Wellness in her kong as a treat as she loves that. But I still have to be careful with how much too, just a little to much food will give her extra, extra, soft mushy poop which usually leads to "butt baths".

All and all, it is working the best for her. Her legs are solid! When she sits on my lap I can't believe how much muscle is on that tiny little thing She is where I have had to let my reading of food, protein, etc go out the window. I got to the point where I would rather her be comfortable. It is just to hard for me to listen to her stomach grumble, have horrid diaherra and watch her throw up and eat grass.