Change of food and its effects

[ailsa]

For the first few months we had Archie, we fed him Burns chicken and brown rice. His poos (yes, a thread like this inevitably has to be about poo!) were pretty runny 90% of the time, and I wondered whether it might be too rich for him, so a while back we started to swap him over to Fish4Dogs. He seems to love it, and three things happened instantly:

1. His poo improved dramatically.

2. He went from pooing twice a day to five or six!

3. He started scrounging food as if we were starving him.

We introduced the Fish4Dogs extremely slowly. Even now we're nearly at the end of a 12kg bag and still haven't completely phased out the Burns. But every time we increase the fish, the poo rate increases exponentially. In the end, having got as far as three-quarters fish, quarter Burns, I went back to half Fish4Dogs, half Burns, and this seems to have lessened the 'end product' a bit.

So I suppose my questions are:

Is there any reason why we can't continue to feed half and half if it suits him, as it appears to? (Now that the excessive dumping is a bit more under control!)

And...

Why would this make him scrounge more? He's always had a healthy interest in any food that he can't have - but he's never been as bad as this. I'm pretty sure we're feeding him enough, as his weight hasn't changed since we started introducing the Fish4Dogs, so it's a bit puzzling.

[mtbbuxton]

I know chicken is often recommended as a mild source of protein, but Mayo can't tolerate it and it makes him really loose. Have you tried the Burns brown rice and fish? Mayo has absolutely thrived on this and only poos twice a day despite being on three meals. It could just be the chicken that Archie can't tolerate.
Good luck
Moira x

[vickyb]

Have you wormed her recently? Gracie has fish4dogs, it was the only thing to firm her up too but she poos less on it than anything else we tried and has much less wind. She was really scrounging for food the last couple of weeks so I wormed her and sure enough, she'd got them and now she's stopped scrounging. There weren't any other signs, not lost weight or condition and the other 2 don't seem to have them.
Vicky

[jackie]

I wouldn’t mix 2 different foods on a permanent basis.

All pet foods are formulated to supply a balanced amount of nutrients in a ration of a certain size, based on the body weight of the dog. When mixing different foods, instead of getting "the best of both", your dog will not be eating enough of either one to get the full benefit of a particular nutritional system designed and researched by the petfood manufacturer.

[ailsa]

Thank you very much everyone. Archie was wormed about 10 days ago, and was fine, so that wouldn't seem to be the problem with the scrounging. Just one of those mysteries, perhaps!

Jackie - I hadn't thought about the nutritional balance of the food being off kilter when it's mixed, so I'll be abandoning that idea! Really useful to know, so thank you.

I think I'll try swapping him over to Burns fish and rice, as Moira suggests, and see how we go from there.

Thanks everyone!

[vickyb]

I wonder if it's anything to do with the fat levels/type in the foods that makes him scrounge more on fish4dogs. Fat is the thing that makes us feel satisfied for longer as it's the part of the food that takes longest to digest.
It could also be that despite making his poo firm he's not able to digest it properly hence lots of poo and as it's going through too quickly, he's hungry. The Burns fish and rice sounds a good move. Hope he's better on it. It took us 5 months of trial and error to get Gracies tummy settled and even fish4dogs took a while for her to adjust to it. Sometimes I long for a dog I could feed anything to, as all 3 have different food due to various issues.
Vicky

[ailsa]

Sept 16, 2008 3:11:58 GMT -5 vickyb said:

Sometimes I long for a dog I could feed anything to

I know what you mean! My mum's miniature schnauzer has cast iron guts, and my mum just can't understand the issues we've had with Archie's food!

[spencekelliem]

Burns food is designed to reduce the amount of "waste" the dog produces. I currently have ellie on Burns Chicken and Rice but it doesnt seem to suit her too well.

Think i will try her on the Fish and rice and see if that makes any difference.

It seems that the Fish4Dogs suits a number of the hounds - where would i find it?

Thanks

[Aoj]

My three are all on Fish4dogs and it's interesting what you're saying about Archie being hungry all the time. Brodie is exactly the same...although he is a bit of a gut bucket anyway! I've started splitting their meals into three, and sometimes four, smaller meals a day and this does seem to help. It's better for Georgie anyway as she has pancreatitis and smaller meals suit her better.

I haven't noticed any reduction in the amount of poo but it is definitely firmer - and far less smelly!

Dec 7, 2008 19:50:53 GMT -5 spencekelliem said:

Burns food is designed to reduce the amount of "waste" the dog produces. I currently have ellie on Burns Chicken and Rice but it doesnt seem to suit her too well.

Think i will try her on the Fish and rice and see if that makes any difference.

It seems that the Fish4Dogs suits a number of the hounds - where would i find it?

Thanks

I buy it direct from the manufacturers. It's not the cheapest of foods but I've not found it cheaper anywhere else.

www.fish4dogs.com/