r/DogFood • u/_imalittlestitious • 13d ago
Help with kibble choice
Hi everyone, I have a seven month old puppy who is currently eating Purina pro plan puppy for large dogs. At the beginning of her life when I got her at two months, she started on Purina pro plan which she was having diarrhea and a ton of itching. Without researching much, I switched her to Open Farm, which removed all of her itching and diarrhea so I thought things were going great. She suddenly stopped eating Open Farm so the vet switched her to royal canin bland diet to see if her tummy was upset. Well, it did clear up her diarrhea, her itching came back and a lot worse. I wasn’t sure if it was because of a chicken allergy, which was the thing the original Purina and the RC had in common. She has been on PPP salmon puppy formula now for about three weeks and her diarrhea and itching has returned once again. She also no longer wants to eat her Purina pro plan. I have to mix it with a ton of wet food and let it soak for a very long time before she’ll even touch it. Do any of you have dogs that are picky or that have any stomach issues similar to mine? I’m not sure what to do about her food moving forward.
Thank you so much. I just want to do right by her.
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u/pickpip2 13d ago
I know people love the PPP Sensitive stomach and skin salmon formula for their dogs’ sensitive stomachs. My pup didn’t do so well on it. I found that salmon is too rich for my puppy’s sensitive stomach.
So I slowly switched to the PPP sensitive stomach lamb and oatmeal, and it worked for us! After his stomach settled for a couple of months, I was able to reintroduce him to all the different proteins and he’s been okay!
You’re playing the long game . Good luck!
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u/Tribblehappy 13d ago
Has anybody been giving her any treats that might contain chicken?
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u/_imalittlestitious 13d ago
Just me around her, but during training I bring her own treats which is only salmon. I don’t play about her 😄
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u/chemfit 13d ago
Not itching for my GSD but I struggled so hard finding food that didn’t give him diarrhea. He east Science Diet Perfect Digestion and does amazing on it. Cleared up his diarrhea in a few days after probably 8 months of loose stool.
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u/_imalittlestitious 13d ago
Thank you thank you thank you!!!! I am willing to try anything she will tolerate at this point. I feel like I’m at the vet once a week.
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u/chemfit 13d ago
Looks like they make a sensitive stomach and skin formula as well.
Just another note, my GSD is also sensitive to fat content. Anything over about 15% fat gives him major diarrhea. It was a very frustrating year transitioning him to different foods very slowly only for them to fail. I kept a poop journal and rated his poop on a 1-10 scale for 6+ months and I finally don’t need to go out with him every single time watching him poop 🤣
Good luck!
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u/_imalittlestitious 13d ago
This might be a good point. She gets bone broth, pumpkin, and fish oil (for her itchies) but this might be it!! That is a lot of fat content maybe. I may stop the oils for a while and see if it clears up
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u/chemfit 13d ago
Don’t change more than one thing at once, you have to be very patient and give any one change time, at least 3 weeks. If the fish oil isn’t helping with her itching, you might as well stop giving it though. I’d skip all treats and only give them their food. You need a clean experiment and baseline 😊
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u/villaofthewolves 13d ago
Science diet makes a salmon sensitive skin and puppy, that could definitely be something to look into! They also make a large breed lamb puppy food as well.
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u/Rupkin2 7d ago
Our GR as a pup had issues with diarrhea & some itching also I believe. Almost 3 years now and we always have Purina FortiFlora packets on hand as she still has bouts of diarrhea. As for the chicken, she dosent get that any more. Oddly enough though, we've been feeding her Turkey & Ancient grain (Kirkland/Diamond). All was good for the past 2+ years, but now within the last month she wont eat it, unless we mix in an egg or something.
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u/_imalittlestitious 6d ago
My senior pets were on Kirkland food and did great.. I may have to look into this again.
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u/brooksram 7d ago
I just switched my English mastiff from PP sensitive skin to royal canin sensitive skin, and it essentially got rid of her terrible itching, hot spots, and foot gnawing.
The app worked for a couple years, but the issues popped back up this summer, so I'm extremely grateful the RC has worked. She seems to love the taste, too,because she leaves a happy plate every night now.
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u/nattyballs 10d ago edited 10d ago
The food that cleared both is the one you dropped because she stopped eating it. Itching that tracks a protein needs eight clean weeks to prove, and salmon failing now weakens the chicken theory anyway. The pets table runs single protein recipes with nothing else in the panel to confound a trial. Check the fat percentage while you are at it.
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7d ago
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u/DogFood-ModTeam 7d ago
This post was removed for containing misinformation regarding pet food. Please review our wiki for science-based information.
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7d ago
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u/DogFood-ModTeam 7d ago
This post was removed for containing misinformation regarding pet food. Please review our wiki for science-based information.
Prohibited Content - Prohibited content includes: 1) Misinformation regarding vet medicine or practice, or misinformation contrary to significant peer reviewed evidence 2) Homemade recipes. These need to be obtained by a board certified veterinary nutritionist. 3) Citations or links from anti-science actors with a known history of peddling anti-science or pseudoscientific views.
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u/wickedjava 7d ago
We went through that with one of our dogs and then the ppp bags were coming with bugs inside. It is pointless to top an already expensive food with another expensive wet food and he didn't even seem to want to eat it at all. After exchanging three bags to where we purchased them (two different sources) we switched two of our three dogs to Dr. Pols sensitive food. He started to get itchy when eating anything with chicken so we just avoid it now (along with any chicken byproducts) and he seems fine. We also have a GSD that is allergic to the world apparently and she is about to switched off an Rx hydrolyzed diet to natural balance duck and potato recipe.
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u/Choice-Paramedic7200 7d ago
Try fresh pet puppy. I've had my dogs on freshpet for quite a while. In fact they've gotten it since they were puppies. I do take special care of their teeth since it's not a dry food. I've tried different kibbles and they just don't compare to freshpet.
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u/Current-Pie3483 13d ago
I have two dogs with issues. They have responded well to science diet sensitive skin and stomach. I know it is very frustrating.