Question about my dog and her food

[mollygirl1975]

Hi I am new here and have a question. I have a 9 month old pitbull that we rescued when she was 5 months old. She was dumped in our neighborhood and we took her in. When we rescued her, she was so skinny that her ribs were very visible. She is healthy now thankfully. When we first rescued her, we were feeding her a commercial brand of dog food that you can get at any grocery store, but it caused her to have some tummy issues, so we switched her to Blue Buffalo. We increased the new food over a two week period like the bag suggested. We feed her the large breed puppy formula. We also switched our other dog to Blue Buffalo too, and we feed him the small breed adult formula since he is a 3 year old chihuahua/dachshund mix. Up until about a week ago, my pitbull had no issues with eating. All of a sudden she started refusing to eat, and we couldn't figure out what was going on. When she would eat, she was only eating about a quarter of her normal amount. Other than refusing to eat, there was nothing else out of the ordinary with her. She has been a very active and happy girl. We've never had a puppy before so all of this is very new to us. Our other dog was already an adult when we adopted him.

Tonight we decided to see if she would eat some of my other dog's food. She did eat some of it, which I thought was unusual since his is Blue Buffalo too and they eat the same flavor. Like I said the only difference is hers is large breed puppy and his is small breed adult. I looked on the website and the only difference I see in the adult formula and puppy formula is DHA and L-carnitine is added to the puppy formula. I googled both of those things to see if either of them had a flavor to them, and I saw that DHA can leave a bad aftertaste. She has been eating this same food for the last three months. Can a dog all of a sudden just stop liking their food like that? I ended up filling up her bowl with my other dog's food so she could finally have a full tummy after having very little to eat over this last week. She devoured the entire bowl of food.

I am also wondering if it is safe to go ahead and switch her to the adult formula even though she is 9 months old? I certainly don't want to get another flavor of the puppy formula to find out she doesn't like it either.

Kimmy

 

[*blackrose]

It's defintely okay to switch her to adult food - I've actually always switched my dogs to adult food when they were around 6 months.

I always struggled with Chloe and getting her to eat her food (she'd go a day or two without eating anything) until I put her on Taste of the Wild. She loves that stuff.

 

[Saeleofu]

My dogs have all ADORED Taste of the Wild. Gavroche will eat anything, but Logan can be picky.

As far as appetite, Logan's appetite has changed drastically since he was a puppy, so maybe growth has something to do with it. He used to gobble up 2 1/2 cups twice a day and act like he was still starving. Now he east 1 1/2 cups twice a day, maybe a little more, and he takes his time eating.

The other thing is that it could be an underlying health issue.

Definitely fine to switch to an adult formula. Generally, the earlier the better for a large breed dog.

 

[mollygirl1975]

Blackrose ~ I have never heard of Taste of the Wild. Is it comparable to Blue Buffalo as far as quality?

Saeleofu ~ when we rescued Molly, she was so skinny that her ribs were very visible and when she would eat, she would practically inhale it. She could eat 2 1/2 cups of food in less than 2 minutes. She could finish her 2 1/2 cups of food before my other dog could finish his 3/4 cups of food. That is how fast she was eating. She just stopped inhaling her food about a month ago, and now takes her sweet time eating.

She is eating just fine this morning. I gave her the food I normally feed Wiggles, and she has eaten most of it.

Something really funny happened this morning with her eating. Normally we feed her in her crate, but we are trying to see how the dogs will do with both of them eating in the kitchen now that Molly is finally housebroken and we don't have to have her wait in her crate for 15 minutes after eating to take her outside. The way Wiggles eats is he will grab a mouthful of food, take it to another area of the house away from his bowl, drop the food and eat it one piece at a time. My husband saw Molly do that this morning which is just so funny that she is picking up his habits. I told him it reminds me of our two kids. The younger one is always imitating what the older one does and wants to be just like him.

Thanks for all of the advice. I really appreciate it. I am glad I found this website. This looks like a great place with lots of friendly people. I look forward to getting to know everyone here.

Kimmy

 

[*blackrose]

Blackrose ~ I have never heard of Taste of the Wild. Is it comparable to Blue Buffalo as far as quality?

Not only comparable (I think it is even better, actually), it is cheaper as well. TOTW is a grain free food, with a wide variety of formulas. I buy mine at Tractor Supply. Here, it is about $42 for a 30 pound bag of food, which lasts my dogs quite awhile. In comparison, I'd be spending $47 for a 30 pound bag of regular Blue Buffalo dog food - if I wanted grain free, I'd be spending around $55/25lb. It's also an ALS food, so you don't have to worry about puppy/adult, small/large, etc.

 

[thehoundgirl]

Actually, I actually don't think it's All life stages any more. They have regular TOTW and a Puppy formula now. It's a really good food though!
http://www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com/

 

[Saeleofu]

Most of the TOTW is still ALS it's just the one formula that they split up.