Wellness Foods

Hi everyone,
I am new to this board. I have 2 Eskies and have been trying to find the best foods I can for them. One of them is a sensitive tummy 4.5 years old and he has been on I/D for almost 4 years. I finally decided enough was enough and switched him to Nature's Variety Prairie Salmon at the advice of a specialty dog food store. He did well with the transition but was pooping 5-7x a day. I also was starting to see a little rust color coming from his eyes and didn't want it to turn into tear staining. Last week I started the slow switch to Wellness Core Ocean. He seems to be doing fairly well with it so far. It is my first time with grain free so I am hoping it goes well. I was a little worried about the Glucosamine and Chondroitin in the formula though. I know it is great for dogs but I was curious if anyone has had a dog that can't tolerate or might be allergic to it?? Is anyone else feeding Core Ocean with good results?

I also just got another puppy (8mo) and he came to me from a breeder who was feeding Purina Pro Plan Salmon. Once he got here he completely refused his food- he hadn't eaten in 3 days- so I had a small sample bag of the Wellness Just for puppy and I tried to see if he would eat it. He did eat it so I ended up doing a hard switch to it (I know transitioning slowly is best but it wasn't an option for him.) So now he is on the Wellness Just for Puppy and I am not sure if it is working well for him. He does get really bad gas and gunk in his eyes in the morning. I started to add a TBS of plain lowfat yogurt for the two of them in hopes it might help their health as well. I am also a little worried that Wellness is now offered in Petco. I know access will be easier but I don't know how it will change the quality. I haven't seen Wellness Core Ocean in Petco yet, so I am assuming the quality of that will be ok...

Any advice on if I should change the puppy to a different food. He just got here last week and since then they have both been getting lots of treats too. (so I am trying not to give too many different things to them.)

Since my older guy has a sensitive stomach I can only give him bakery treats and/or very pure ingredient treats.

Thanks for any advice.

Hello,

Have you heard of Pinnacle? It is made by Breeder's Choice and they have two formulas that are labeled for sensitive stomach. Trout and Oatmeal is one and the other is Duck and Potato.

Also, Taste of the Wild is a good brand and they have a formula that is called Pacific Stream and is salmon based, if you want to stick with salmon. This is a grain free food.

Natura makes an organic food called Karma. It is pricey, but my dog had less gas on this food than ANY other. She got bored of it after a couple of months, though. I would feed it to her in a heart beat again, though! It is a good food, just doesn't have a lot of meat in it and seems to be grain heavy. Perhaps it is the way the food is processed, baked instead of extruded, it agreed with my dog very well.

Best of luck to you! :)

Congrats on your new Eskie and welcome to Pets.ca.
Wellness Core Ocean is a great quality food. My female samoyed loves it.
I would not worry about the amount of glucosamine & condroitin in the formula as it is a very tiny dosage compared to the suppliment form.
Your puppy is almost ready for adult food however given that she is a new arrival a slow transition to Wellness Puppy would be fine.
Concerning the gas you may be feeding a bit too much of the puppy formula OR it could be because of transitioning too fast. I'm not sure about the tear staining.
How many treats are we talking about? Sometimes too many treats can cause upset tummies, diarrhea, gas etc. perhaps even tear staining even if they are homebaked. Just a thought...
Some dogs donot tolerate a grainfree diet and some dogs do extremely well. Good luck.