Acana questions…

[DeekenDog]

How often should I rotate the food? Every bag?

I did every bag. There are some people who rotate every meal. Do whatever works for you.

[MollyWoppy]

I rotated every meal with the different types of Orijen right from when Mol was 6 months old. Thats just me though, I get bored with the same thing day in and day out so I presumed my dog would too. I'd just do whatever you feel like you want to do, and whatever your dog can handle. And, no, the fish one does not make your dog smell at all. In fact, I like the fish smell, it makes me happy that there is actually a decent amount of fish in the food for it to smell like that.

[Jacksons Mom]

I've fed them all, but usually skip out on Ranchlands, it's a bit pricier and he tends to do not do as well with lots of red meat, his poo gets softer than I like.

But we mainly rotate between Prairie, Grasslands and Pacifica. Right now he's on Pacifica and seems to love it! And he tends to not like fish flavored foods but for some reason, LOVES this one.

[PDXdogmom]

I've fed both my dogs Acana Wild Prairie and Acana Pacifica as part of a rotation with other brands.

For whatever reason, my dogs seemed to have better coats when eating the Pacifica formula - and I didn't detect any fishy aroma to their breath or skin at all.

When trying for the first time a new formula that you may include in a rotation, feed only that one formula for not less than 2 months the first time. You need that much time to see how your dog's weight, energy level, coat and skin do with the formula. Once you have 2 or 3 proven foods for your rotation, you can rotate after every bag or after every 2 bags. Some people don't mind having 2 different open bags of food at a time and rotate daily. Some dogs handle that fine. I've just found it more convenient to rotate after every 2 bags. One of my dogs transitions extremely well and the other needs a few days - that's why I just feed one formula at a time.

[DogLuver]

Yep I rotate between Acana (all 4 flavors) and Orijen (6-Fish, reg Adult, LBP, Regional Red probably once a year, it's so expensive).

For my dogs, they're totally different from the other. My Golden Retriever has an iron stomach and can switch daily with no problems, but my Great Dane pup gets runny stools on the day of the switch usually, so I only switch him when the 30lb bag is finished, then a new bag/different formula, he gets runny stools for 1 or 2 poops that day, and then back to normal, so switching him daily wouldn't work as well. Therefore, for convenience sake, I switch both dogs every 30lb bag.

About the fishy smell...the food most definitely has a fishy smell, so you'll probably want to put it in an air tight container to store it. But once the dog eats it, the dogs breath doesn't smell, nor does their skin/body odor of fish, so no worries ;).

And about Ranchlands, I feed my Golden Retriever Ranchlands, Grasslands, Pacifica, and Orijen reg Adult, Orijen 6fish with no problems. I like the Ranchlands formula, and my Golden does well on it, I cannot feed my Great Dane pup because the Calcium:Phosphorus levels are too high for a Giant Breed Pup...but he will get Ranchlands when he's old enough.