Canidae All life stages good or bad?

[Anna_C]

I have a 2 year old GSP and a 1 year old Doberman. GSP is currently on Go Grain Free High Endurance and is doing poorly on it. He has frequent stool issues, (used to be on now large breed puppy). The doberman is on wellness super 5 mix large breed puppy and has quite a bit of gas and shedding. I looked into multiple foods and it seems my pointer doesn't do well on the higher protein foods. I have reserched canidae and it has very mixed reviews. Does anyone have any input as to how their dog is doing on it?

[luckypenny]

We used to feed it to our dogs. They didn't do poorly on it but I found it expensive for the mediocre quality and their stools were always cowpie-ish. Are you sure it's the higher protein in the foods that your Pointer doesn't do well with? Perhaps it's another ingredient that's doesn't agree with him? We have yet to have a puppy/dog in our home that didn't do amazingly well on Orijen. Some took longer than others to adjust but overall, we've always noticed great improvement within a month, max.

We've also had good results with Innova but Orijen is still my first pick.

[Anna_C]

I have recently switched him to the grain free formula and it's been about 6 months and I haven't seen any improvement and the go grain free is supposed to be a very good food. To be honest I am not sure what seems to upset his stomach. He used to be on now which is very similar to go except the higher protein and he used to do okay on it so I figured it might be the protein content. I am getting frustrated with the food search and I don't want to keep putting him through the loose stools and gas.

[luckypenny]

Although we've never fed Go Grain Free, it does look like an excellent food .

My only concern about the Canidae is the price/quality ratio. I think it's similar to Kirkland Chicken/Rice/Vegetable formula which is only 1/2 the cost if not less.

Could your dogs be having any other medical issues that may be causing the digestive upsets and the shedding? Have both your dogs been de-wormed? Administered a topical anti-parasiticide recently? There's a possibility it may be something other than the food that's causing their issues.

[cell]

I asked about it once at a health food pet store and they said they stopped carrying it due to it being involved on the food recall of 07. Might want to try Orijen as others recommended.

[Anna_C]

They have both had their stool checked recently and are both on revolution, haven't seen a change in energy or anything that would suggest a health issue. For him it was the change of food which sparked the issues. I go by the www.dogfoodanalysis.com website and it gives the canidae pretty good reviews. I guess if he doesn't do well on it I will try the orijen or innova. Thank you for your input!

[luckypenny]

You can also try adding probiotics (we use Natural Factors, available at health food stores) to help maintain healthy intestinal flora...and squash and/or pumpkin to their meals to help firm things up a bit.

Good luck in finding the right food for your pups .

[Anna_C]

Thanks, I will! I tried the fish oil but that caused some problems for the pointer as well. Hopefully we'll find something he'll be happy with.

[kandy]

I have tried the Canidae All life Stages - and my dogs didn't do well on it. I found that their coats became dull and coarser feeling, they all pooped more and all had more gas, plus the 2 newfs both got nasty ears. Needless to say, I don't feed that brand anymore.

[CreatingHealth]

I know this may sound strange, but I stopped feeding dry food to my dogs several years ago. Since virtually all dry food is baked, it contains no enzymes and many of the other nutrients and amino acids are damaged during the extruding/baking process. I talk with hundreds of people each month about their dog's health/diet, so have many examples of dogs whose health improved dramatically from simply switching from dry food to a "whole food" (real food) diet.

The first food I recommend is called Only Natural Pet EasyRaw. It's dehydrated food that you simply rehydrate and serve. The reviews speak for the healing qualities and the yum factor (link below). Here are the ingredients:

Sweet Potatoes, USDA Turkey, Whole Egg, Broccoli, Celery, Apples, Flax Meal, Pecans, Tricalcium Phosphate, Pumpkin, Cranberries, Basil, Dried Alfalfa, Ginger Root, Dried Kelp, Zinc Sulfate, Vitamin E Acetate, Vitamin D2.

None of the ingredients are baked, so it's much more bio-available and digestible than any dry food could ever hope to be. I have not met one dog that didn't love this food, and every dog's health improved on this food, as well - be it for skin issues, digestive disorders or allergies.

The other food I feed my dogs is Sojos Europa Grain Free dog food mix. Also dehydrated, this one you add your own protein to. My dogs love this, and all my friends and co-workers feed this, to the delight of their dogs. Highly recommended for dogs with cancer. Very healing.

http://creatinghealthfordogsandcats.com/product_reviews


http://search.onlynaturalpet.com/sea...ype=Dehydrated