[Jennyfur]

My 15-week-old Chinook currently eats California Natural Chicken Meal and Rice dry puppy food. I am about to transition her to adult food and am unsure which adult brand to select. I've listed below the options that I would feel comfortable feeding my pup. Which of the following would you recommend?

1. California Natural Chicken Meal and Rice dry adult food
   
2. EVO dry dog food
   
3. EVO Red Meat dry dog food
   
4. Innova dry dog food

Tana is currently doing well on the California Natural food, and I like that it is gentle on the digestive tract and suitable for dogs with sensitive skin. OTOH, I like the foods that more closely resemble the raw diet (EVO).

Advice and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[Ayanla]

I would always recommend that you feed what you feel comfortable feeding. It looks like you've read the ingredients and are of a similar mind with me and others that more meat and less grain is the way to go. Everything I say from here is personal experience and opinion, since you seem to already be researching on your own.

Evo is a great food, but it isn't the gentlest on the stomach, and I think that can be said about pretty much any meat rich, non limited ingredient, food. Foods with a variety of protein sources seem to be tougher for a sensitive stomach dog. Both of my pups eat Evo red meat small bites. They do fantastic. They're teeth are beautiful, coats shiny and super soft, poops consistent and small. With that said, Odo seems to be very sensitive to fluctuations in water intake on this food. All it takes is drinking a little less water and Odo is pooping little pea size rocks the next time he goes. Part of that may just be because he is a fussy eater/drinker. Kira does not seem to have the same issue, but she would eat and/or drink until she burst wide open if we didn't practice portion control. Odo has gone a whole day without eating, and has skipped water two or three offerings in a row. I've just taken to giving him treats with a higher moisture content like Wellness Well Bites on those days when he's not drinking as much water. I considered adding water to his kibble, but I'd hate to start that habit when I think crunching the kibble is important for tooth health.

I can also say the switch to Evo was tough for both of them. Odo came to me eating Eukanuba. I made a two week gradual switch to Evo with him. I got Kira one week into that switch (she was 8 weeks old) and just fed her the same mix of Eukanuba and Evo. Unfortunately I don't know what food she was eating at her "breeder" since I only got to talk to the guy that was taking her to the pound, so I think she got hit with two brand new dry foods all at once. Odo alternated between loose poop and really dry poop for about two weeks after I made the final switch, then it all balanced out. Kira, though, had loose poop and a large volume of poop for a few weeks and she had two bouts of vomiting during that time that we never determined the source of. That could be because we hadn't yet caught on to the fact that she will eat until there's no more food regardless of how much is in the bowl, so we were way overfeeding or it could be because she was only eight weeks old and had been fed three different dry foods including one that was incredibly rich.

So anyway, that is a really long winded way of me saying that any of the foods you listed are decent foods. If he's got a sensitive stomach or allergies, though, I'd definitely stick with a food that has only one or two protein sources and not go with a food like Evo red meat that has four different ones. There are some other L.I.D. foods out there besides California Naturals.

[Jennyfur]

Very interesting and helpful--thank you! I wouldn't go to the EVO red meat, I don't think, both because of the stomach issues you mention and also because the protein and calcium percentages are higher than I think my dogs should have (esp. my large breed puppy). I've been doing more research and see that EVO red meat has 42% protein.

The Innova dry dog food (red meat) has 24% protein and incorporates fruit, veggies and probiotics. But maybe I should try the Innova dry without the red meat component. :hmm:

Originally Posted by Ayanla

So anyway, that is a really long winded way of me saying that any of the foods you listed are decent foods. If he's got a sensitive stomach or allergies, though, I'd definitely stick with a food that has only one or two protein sources and not go with a food like Evo red meat that has four different ones. There are some other L.I.D. foods out there besides California Naturals.

So, um, what sorts of other L.I.D. foods would you recommend?

Oh, BTW, I wanted to mention that I am a HUGE DS9 fan!

[Ayanla]

I haven't really looked into L.I.D. all that much, so hopefully some of the other owners of sensitive tummy dogs will chime in with their experiences. I do know that Wellness has an allergy line that is one protein source and one carbohydrate source (ground rice). It's their "Simple Food Solutions" line. It's also no meat by-products, no dairy, no corn, no soy, no wheat, no artificial colors or preservatives.

On the Star Trek front, I'm currently having an entire back piece tattoo done in a Star Trek theme. I have Voyager (picked because I like the ship design better than the Defiant, and Voyager did take off from DS9 and is appropriate to the time frame) across my lower back and DS9 higher up. It'll eventually be a full piece including the wormhole and Bajor.

Here's a pic of my lower back just after we finished up the last bit, and of DS9 just after it was finished. Now we have to do the in between work to join them together and we have to cover up the smaller less detailed DS9 I had done previously (visible top left corner in the DS9 shot).

[Jennyfur]

Thanks for the food information--and the tattoos are amazing! Seriously incredible!