Changed his food now he hardly has hard poos????

Chevy16 · 11-03-2009, 09:50 AM

My pup is almost 4 months old. When we first got him we had him on royal canin and he had some diarrhea at first and then once use to it his poos became hard. i had decided to change him to orijen bc it was a better food then royal canin after i did my research and i only want the best for my lil guy.
Chevy has been on orijen for maybe a month now and ive been noticing that his poos are diarrhea or soft. he was having hard poos but now im noticing more soft than hard.

Is this bc of the food ? is hes body just not taking to it. he will eat it , its not like he doesnt like it.

When we frist got him we gave him some peanut butter and he loved it but i notice to much gave him diarrhea . so we bought him lil treats that were peanut butter flavor.(the same day we got the orijen) so im thinking maybe the treats are giving him the diarrhea? We ran out of the lil ones so since hes gettng bigger i got him bigger peanut putter treats and hes had diarrhea. so now im also wondering if it could be the treats?

ANy tips would be great. Thanks!

brecken · 11-03-2009, 09:56 AM

are you transitioning the pup to the new food by mixing both the foods together to ween him off the old to the new bc that would be the reason if you are transitioning. but if you are transitioning the loose stools is normal bc you going to a whole different kind of formula. dont worry it will go solid i promise this just happens alot when switching puppys to new food. my puppy did it even when i was transitioning

Kathyy · 11-03-2009, 10:01 AM

Could it be too much food? Orijen has more calories per cup then RC. I don't know which foods you used to tell you for certain. RC Medium Puppy has 416 and Orijen Puppy has 480 per cup. That little difference plus the treats may be too much food, too many calories for right now. To see just feed a bit less. Break the cookies up into bits, really he doesn't care how big it its.

One reason the RC is lower quality is all the grains with all their fiber that is good at making stool firm. Orijen doesn't have as much so if you over feed even a little the stool is apt to be loose. The RC has 4.3% fiber and Orijen has 3% fiber. Max is raw fed and if I give him 20% too much food for a couple days his stool gets loose. Not much fiber in bone/meat/organ!

brecken · 11-03-2009, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kathyy

Could it be too much food? Orijen has more calories per cup then RC. I don't know which foods you used to tell you for certain. RC Medium Puppy has 416 and Orijen Puppy has 480 per cup. That little difference plus the treats may be too much food, too many calories for right now. To see just feed a bit less. Break the cookies up into bits, really he doesn't care how big it its.

One reason the RC is lower quality is all the grains with all their fiber that is good at making stool firm. Orijen doesn't have as much so if you over feed even a little the stool is apt to be loose. The RC has 4.3% fiber and Orijen has 3% fiber. Max is raw fed and if I give him 20% too much food for a couple days his stool gets loose. Not much fiber in bone/meat/organ!

that could also be true to because orijen is a really rich high protein food kind of like evo. whatever you were feeding b4 you basically want to cut it in half maybe more bc you dont have to feed as much of it to them

Chevy16 · 11-03-2009, 11:47 AM

Thanks guys that does sound right.. i will cut back his food and see how that turns out. and i will break the treats into lil ones... im going to try him on a different kind of treat just to see maybe its the peanut butter and the to much food all together that is messing him up.

Thanks so much

Labsnothers · 11-03-2009, 01:29 PM

Match his food level to his ribs. You should be feeding a puppy chow now. Switching to an adult chow for the
larger breeds at 4 months, slows growth and helps develop sturdier joints.

Your dog definitely should be narrower at the waist than the hips and chest. You
should be able to easily feel the ribs, but not see them. Each dog is different.
Standard recommendations are a good place to start, but each dog must have its
food and exercise adjusted to its individual needs. Here is a link to a good
illustrated guide, http://www.longliveyourdog.com/twoplus/RateYourDog.aspx

Michiyo-Fir · 11-03-2009, 03:03 PM

You could be feeding too much. Most people have a tendency to feed too much Orijen, the bag guidelines indicate too much as well.

Maybe just cut out the treats for now and see if that was the problem.

dieterherzog · 11-03-2009, 03:40 PM

What's in the treats? You said peanut butter flavor but what is it made of?

SandyPuppy · 11-04-2009, 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brecken

are you transitioning the pup to the new food by mixing both the foods together to ween him off the old to the new bc that would be the reason if you are transitioning. but if you are transitioning the loose stools is normal bc you going to a whole different kind of formula. dont worry it will go solid i promise this just happens alot when switching puppys to new food. my puppy did it even when i was transitioning

Their dog has been on the food for a month already.

Chevy16 · 11-04-2009, 07:12 AM

Chevy is a boxer so he is lean and muscular. hes is by far over weight or underweight our vet says that hes a good size.

The peanutbutter treats are good i looked at the ingredients last night and there is nothing bad in them lots of vegies and peanut butter is first ingredient.

Quote:

Match his food level to his ribs. You should be feeding a puppy chow now. Switching to an adult chow for the
larger breeds at 4 months, slows growth and helps develop sturdier joints.

He is one the large breed puppy food with orijen they say a dog 3-9mnths should be getting from 31/2-43/4 of food we are feeing him 3 1/2 a day one meal in morning and one at night. i am going to cut back a lil on his food and we arent going to feed him those treats see if that makes a different.

He weighs over 21 lbs. i dont have a scale in my house(i need to get one so i can weigh him) he had a vet apt 2 weeks ago and he weighed 21lbs then. i know he has gotten a lil taller since then. His age is exactly 17 weeks and 1 day . Does he weight and age seem good ..?

Kathyy · 11-04-2009, 10:41 AM

His age and weight don't matter. His condition does. Even pups need to be leaner rather than plumper. I don't like to see hip or back bone bumps but do like to see a ripple of ribs when my short haired dog moves. He will grow as he is meant to grow, you are just feeding so he gets what he needs. It sounds like he is growing properly and that bit of extra food is just getting wasted in soft poop.

I fed Max the minimum EVO for his weight back when it first came out. I fed through 2 whole bags and he never stopped with the soft poops. Never gained weight, was just pooping it out. I was overfeeding. He needed less than that amount of food as an adult house dog even though it seemed the tiniest amount of food already. Maybe even your active athletic pup needs less than the amount on the bag like my then 5 year old medium sized adult?

I don't doubt that the treats are good food, they are just ADDED food he doesn't need. If one is 100 calories take away a bit less than 1/4 cup of kibble per treat fed as the large breed Orijen is 450 calories a cup.

bully · 11-04-2009, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chevy16

He is one the large breed puppy food with orijen they say a dog 3-9mnths should be getting from 31/2-43/4 of food we are feeing him 3 1/2 a day one meal in morning and one at night. i am going to cut back a lil on his food and we arent going to feed him those treats see if that makes a different.

He weighs over 21 lbs. i dont have a scale in my house(i need to get one so i can weigh him) he had a vet apt 2 weeks ago and he weighed 21lbs then. i know he has gotten a lil taller since then. His age is exactly 17 weeks and 1 day . Does he weight and age seem good ..?

You are feeding too much in my opinion. My bullmastiff at 5 months and 55 lbs was eating 4 cups per day. (would probably need 6 cups of Science Diet

) You should try to feed closer to 2.5 cups to 3 per day.

Also, try to find some dried liver. beef, or chicken treats. Much better than the peanut butter stuff and limit the treat intake to a max of 10% of total daily food intake.

Chevy16 · 11-04-2009, 12:16 PM

Quote:

You are feeding too much in my opinion. My bullmastiff at 5 months and 55 lbs was eating 4 cups per day. (would probably need 6 cups of Science Diet ) You should try to feed closer to 2.5 cups to 3 per day.

That makes sense now that i think of it bc before we put him on orijen. he was getting two cups a day with royal canin. so we will put him down to 2.5 cups a day. Just seems like thats not alot of food. but if your mastiff is getting 4 cups at 55lbs and 5mth then my chevy does not need as much as i was giving him

What are good training treats bc we use the treats to train him?

Thank you for the tips

dieterherzog · 11-04-2009, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chevy16

What are good training treats bc we use the treats to train him?

Tiny string cheese pieces, dehydrated chicken liver pieces and little apple cubes with a little bit of lemon squeezed over it are what I always use. EVO also makes grain free biscuits.