diarrhea help needed PLEASE!

[katbengus]

hi! i have a 7 month old cavalier/poodle mix (about 5 lbs...he's tiny!) and we have had a constant battle with diarrhea. the breeder had him on eukanuba which produced good poops but we all know is not the greatest food.

So once he was settled, we slowly transitioned to ORIJEN puppy, which proved to be too rich and he had constant loose "pudding poos". Next (and currently) we tried ACANA Prairie for a few months with gives him constant explosive diarrhea!

To frustrate things more, his diarrhea clears up immediately with a bland diet of boiled rice and chicken...
also, he has tested neg for parasites/etc...

i feel like i have 2 options:
1-switch food again to something even less rich than the acana...Natures Variety Prairie/Chicken soup for the puppy lovers soul/wellness/merrick????
2-try frozen raw (Natures Variety patties/etc) but i fear the raw may be hard lifestyle-wise (we have some travel coming up in our future)...

sometimes i think maybe my pup has a "mcdonald's" stomach and i'm trying to give him "filet mignon!"

thanks for reading and any help would be appreciated!

[jdatwood]

2-try frozen raw (Natures Variety patties/etc) but i fear the raw may be hard lifestyle-wise (we have some travel coming up in our future)...

We've done 12 day road trips with 5 large-giant breeds feeding raw and never had a single issue. The only time it can be a real challenge we've found is if you're doing back country backpacking trips although with a dog that small it wouldn't be a problem to pack in some frozen meat for him

[luvMyBRT]

How much were you feeding when your puppy was eating Orijen and Acana? Both are great foods, but very rich. A very common problem is over feeding, which causes soft stools and diarrhea.

I'm with Jon. I've gone camping with my two dogs while feeding raw. Get a cooler, fill with frozen meat, feed meat as it thaws. Easy as that.

Good luck, and I hope you find something that works for your puppy!

[whiteleo]

I agree with Sara on this one, over feeding kibble is a common issue with loose stool, Acana is one of my most favorite kibbles and less protein than Orijen, never go by the guidelines on the bags as this is way too much food.

[KittyKat]

I agree with Sara on this one, over feeding kibble is a common issue with loose stool, Acana is one of my most favorite kibbles and less protein than Orijen, never go by the guidelines on the bags as this is way too much food.

Indeed. I think I fed my dog about 1/2 -3/4 of what was recommended on the bag.

[katbengus]

wow! you guys are QUICK! thanks so much for taking the time to post!

re: how much i feed...i only give him less than 1/2 of a cup per day, broken up into 2 feedings....do you all really think that it could be too much still? he seems SO HUNGRY and gobbles it up in seconds....

also, please weigh in on an alternative to the acana kibble...the ones i'm considering are listed in the first post.

lastly, regarding the raw...do you/have you used the natures variety brand frozen raw, specifically? do you recommend it?

and one more for good luck: if i wanted to supplement the NV raw with kibble, could i do the ACANA kibble, or would i stay within NV brand of products...either the Prairie or the Instict???

and another...when feeding the bland diet we get hard, dark, tiny poops and with the acana (if its hard-ish) we get A LOT of poop...like LOTS AND LOTS of it....i'm talking 10x more poop...any idea why???

so many questions and so many thank yous to you all for your expertise!

[Mokapi]

wow! you guys are QUICK! thanks so much for taking the time to post!

re: how much i feed...i only give him less than 1/2 of a cup per day, broken up into 2 feedings....do you all really think that it could be too much still? he seems SO HUNGRY and gobbles it up in seconds....

also, please weigh in on an alternative to the acana kibble...the ones i'm considering are listed in the first post.

lastly, regarding the raw...do you/have you used the natures variety brand frozen raw, specifically? do you recommend it?

and one more for good luck: if i wanted to supplement the NV raw with kibble, could i do the ACANA kibble, or would i stay within NV brand of products...either the Prairie or the Instict???

and another...when feeding the bland diet we get hard, dark, tiny poops and with the acana (if its hard-ish) we get A LOT of poop...like LOTS AND LOTS of it....i'm talking 10x more poop...any idea why???

so many questions and so many thank yous to you all for your expertise!

I was always under the impression that dogs always wanted extra kibble because it wasn't truly filling them up in the way their bodies needed. Similar thing with the x10 more poop...I always read that dogs poop more with kibble because essentially their bodies get rid of everything that can't be used, which sort of proves that there's not a whole lot of truly useful/needed stuff in that kibble. The bland diet (do you mean the chicken and rice? That's what I took it to mean so my apologies if you didn't) probably produced significantly less poop because it was all things that your dog's body actually needed and could use.

When I switched Chip from Eukanuba to TOTW, the amount of poop there even changed drastically despite it still being kibble. It wasn't a small amount necessarily, just smaller.

[meggels]

Of those kibbles you listed, I would go with NV prairie. Small kibble, least amount of stuff in it to give him possible diarrhea. Or Wellness, but I prefer NV over Wellness personally.

Merrick and Chicken Soup are good but their kibble formulas tend to have more ingredients and I would just stick with something simpler.

[Caty M]

I do PMR.. so whole parts of raw animals, not the frozen patties. I have fed a couple of the raw patties before to try new kinds of meat.. moose, rabbit etc.. but they do contain what is probably too much bone and still contain ingredients that aren't needed (veggies). It's not too hard to travel as you can just go to a butcher or supermarket in any city and find chicken.. or if you are backpacking put it in a cooler, frozen.

Supplementing raw with kibble isn't recommended as they can cause stomach upset.

My dog always acts starving too and is fed raw.. if anyone knows why I would love to hear! I think he could eat 10x the amount I feed him happily. He is a healthy weight.

[baggie]

wow! you guys are QUICK! thanks so much for taking the time to post!

re: how much i feed...i only give him less than 1/2 of a cup per day, broken up into 2 feedings....do you all really think that it could be too much still? he seems SO HUNGRY and gobbles it up in seconds....

also, please weigh in on an alternative to the acana kibble...the ones i'm considering are listed in the first post.

lastly, regarding the raw...do you/have you used the natures variety brand frozen raw, specifically? do you recommend it?

and one more for good luck: if i wanted to supplement the NV raw with kibble, could i do the ACANA kibble, or would i stay within NV brand of products...either the Prairie or the Instict???

and another...when feeding the bland diet we get hard, dark, tiny poops and with the acana (if its hard-ish) we get A LOT of poop...like LOTS AND LOTS of it....i'm talking 10x more poop...any idea why???

so many questions and so many thank yous to you all for your expertise!

Could be. We have an 18 lb rescue that most closely resembles a schnoodle.

We are on a current rotation of EVO and give a 1/2 cup a day w/ probably 3-4 oz. of wet mixed in a day. Any more than this and she gets the runs. With the Acana Prairie before,we used closer to 2/3rds a cup w/ same amount of wet.

As many have said here before, never go by what your dog wants, go by what their body tells you.