We have a 7 month old APBT male, and two other APBT mixes, one 2 years and one 5 years. They've been fed Canidae ALS for about a year now, before they were fed Nutro Ultra. My Canidae supplier went out of business about a month or two months ago, and it's way to expensive to have it shipped. So, we went back to the Nutro. Two older ones doing fine as always, but my younger one (who's only been fed Canidae his whole life) is having serious problems. He can hardly get down two bites, before he's vomiting it back up again. The vomit is very fowl-smelling, and he doesn't chew things up around the house anymore, so he's not eating anything he's not supposed to. Of course the vet wants me to switch him to Science Diet, but I wouldn't feed that if my life depended on it. I also tried Innova when he first started having problems, but he just would NOT eat it. I'm talking he went almost 4 days without eating he hated it so much. The place I was getting the Innova from is over 2 hours away, with the way gas is, I couldn't afford it even if he did eat it. He's been on the Nutro for almost a month now, and we switched over slowly, so it's not that he's not used to it yet.
Anybody else have these problems with Nutro Ultra? Should I consider starting all of them on a Raw prey-model diet? Any suggestions/ideas?
(Nutro is as good as it gets in my town, people here think Ol' Roy is the "bomb", so I don't have anymore options.)
Update:"Love": Yeah, he'll eat a few treats every now and then, and every few days he'll be so hungry he'll eat a bowl. He has passed a normal poo, he does so about once every 2-3 days. Any other time he goes, it's watery. It gets so bad, I let him eat some boiled chicken and rice, just to get some food in his system.
"Dreamer": I'm very interested in a raw diet, and have been for a while. Would you mind e-mailing me some ideas of what you feed your dogs?
Update 3:"Deb C": No, my vet wants me to switch to Science Diet Dry dog food. All of my dogs at one point in time have had to eat the prescription I/D, including the one I'm having problems with now. The ingredients in the Dry Food by Science Diet, are almost tit for tat the ones found in almost every food in Wal-Mart
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www.k9cuisine.com ships for free if your order is over $50. They sell Canidae there.
I had been feeding Nutro for years without incident. The past month or so I had issues with my one dog losing weight quickly - even though she ate normally, and the other acted sick (like he was going to vomit). I was going to make an appointment Monday (3 weeks ago now) after work as she acted fine - other than the weight loss. Sunday night I let her out and she came back in and laid down. Monday morning I found her dead - and the vet suspected it was renal failure. Now whether or not it was just coincidence or not, I don't know, but I checked out comments on Nutro and found other dogs were having similar reactions to Nutro.
I changed the dog food (to Canidae) - I mixed it for a few days, then dumped the rest of the Nutro. They had a few bouts of soft stools, but no diarrhea - nothing major, and now they have firm stools. The place where I get Canidae said that all her product was new - she had sent the old formula back, and any problems that people were having with Canidae was due to the change in formula like you would get with any change in dog food. She did say they could have done a better job in telling people about the switch, but the new formula has more protein. So far - my dogs are doing well on it and their coats are glossy.
So - I don't have any confidence in Nutro anymore. For years my dogs did well on it - with no issues - til recently, and I found out that Nutro was bought out by the people that own Pedigree. Pedigree recently had a problem with salmonella so I am wondering if that could be the issue with Nutro (if any of it came from the same plants).
Here is a place that offers free shipping on orders over $50.00 and they carry Canidae - I did a test checkout and free shipping came up on the Canidae.
http://www.k9cuisine.com/m-32-canidae-pet-food.asp...
If you have a Petco nearby, they sell more quality food than PetSmart. Petco has Wellness, my dogs are on Wellness Core, it's better than Canidae. Some Petcos don't carry Wellness Core. Remember, if your dog doesn't eat a new bag food that you bought, you can always return it and get your money back, even if it's half used.
There should be some pet stores have raw food diets, just ask. Good luck with your dog! Hope he gets better soon and these answers from all of us help you out!
Do you have a farm supply store near you? A lot of them (and sometimes sports stores) will carry Nutri Source. That is much better than Ol Roy or SD. It isn't super. But much better than others and might be easy to find for you. I'm sketchy about Nutro....try checking out their consumer reports sometime. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/nutro.html
And with the new Canidae formulas and production sights http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200808... I no longer feed my dogs canidae either.
Do any of your local pet stores carry Eagle Pack? I have 4 dogs - a Cairn terrier (3yrs), 2 Australian Shepherds (2 yrs), and an Irish Setter (7 months). They all eat Eagle Pack with no problems. It is hard to find one dog food that different breeds and aged dogs can all eat. Try Eagle Pack - it is natural and made in the United States. There are different bases - chicken, seafood, etc. My vet recommended Eagle Pack to me when my terrier had a reaction to her old dog food.
I would feed my dog garbage before giving it Ol' Roy.
Good luck! In order for the dog to eat until you find the dog food you want, have you thought of giving him rice, scrambled eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, or cooked ground turkey? These are all things your dog could eat that are good for him.
Have you tried Flint River Ranch? Shipping directly from the company via UPS is INCLUDED in the price. Very high quality human-grade food ingedients - no byproducts or imported ingredients except free range lamb from New Zealand.
For more information visit the company website:
http://www.frrco.com/120820
There is trouble with nutro food s u need to find another great brand to use . some food websites do offer free shipping . here is the complaints about nutro ,your dog if sick can die quit the nutro for all of them !
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/nutro.html
here is a web site that reviews foods
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/in...
Well, I'm the last person on earth that's gonna talk you out of prey model raw. In my opinion it's the best of the best. If you want help with that you can e-mail me or IM me. All but one of my pets is on completely raw diets. (I have one old man who insists on being a pain in my butt...but we're working on it.)
But, if you're wanting to stay on dry you may want to consider a different meat protein. Without knowing your choices to pick from and your current formula I don't really have an answer for you on that.
When was the last time he ate a decent meal without throwing up, or starving himself? Sounds to me like he needs to move some food through his system in a normal way very badly. It sounds to me like he needs a bit more extensive vet visit. Sounds like your area is pretty isolated, but throwing up fowl smelling vomit after eating a few bites of dog food doesn't sound to me like he simply "doesn't like it".
Right now, he needs to eat, and pass a poo. Is he willing to eat anything??? Treats???
The three foods that you mentioned feeding your dogs Canaidae, Nutro and Innova are all quite rich in protein. Your vet was probably referring to Hill Science Diet Prescription food for sensitive stomachs called I/D. It is a fine food and is formulated for dogs that need bland but balanced diet.All Science Diet Percriptions come as a canned formula as well as dry.I'm not sure why you would not feed Hills if you life depended on it. However your dog cannot live with vomiting every day of his life or refusing to eat either. The quality of Hills is certainly MILES above Wal*Mart Ol' Roy!!! I promise you that spending $40+ on a bag of food doesn't automatically make it a good food. If you do nothing else, please,please,please skip the Raw diet.
Also consider this: everyone touts the "Organic and/or Natural" products out there for pets and human consumption. Horse dung is "Natural" and "Organic" are you going to feed it to your dog? Of course not. Your dog needs to eat something and keep it down. At this point any food that he agrees to eat and it stays down is better than whats in his belly now.