[lovetamarav]

I have a 17 week old Lab mix. She was on the Eukanuba Pure Puppy Growth food from 7-14 weeks of age before having issues with diarrhea and vomiting. At the advice of our vet we are switching her to a grain free diet. At her recommendation we went with Earthborn Holistics Primitive Naturals. After one 1 day of mixing that with the food we had been giving her (Hills Prescription Low Residue Puppy) her stools are already more firm.

When reading different threads about grain free I saw that many people seem to rotate different foods. What are the benefits of this? How do you go about rotating without causing GI upset? I saw that Earthborn Holistic has several grain-free options so I would probably prefer to rotate within the same brand if we were to do this. Although we had also considered doing the Wellness CORE Puppy before deciding on Earthborn, so maybe we could rotate with that as well?

Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

[georgiapeach]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your new puppy!

Earthborn - good choice of food! You can rotate within the same brand, or you can have different brands in your rotation. Rotation is done b/c many dogs develop a sensitivity to a given protein over time (the reason why so many dogs are now sensitive to chicken, IMO; many dog foods contain it). Rotation with different proteins keeps the sensitivity from developing. You don't have to do it every bag - maybe every 2-3 bags. Buy the new kibble before the old one runs out and start mixing it in over a 1-2 week period, to avoid tummy upset. Wellness Core is good, as is Acana grain free, if you want to consider those in your rotation, as well.

I'm impressed that your vet told you to go grain free! Most vets try to sell you the c#@@p in their offices (Science Diet, Royal Canin, Hills, Purina) and have you feed it forever. Your vet sells Hills, but seems to only have you giving it until the puppy's tummy settles down, which is good.

 

[lovetamarav]

Thank you, Beth! We are certainly enjoying the adventure of having a puppy. We had an old Beagle for many years before getting our pup and it's quite the change.

I actually work at a vet clinic and thankfully most of our doctors are supportive of diets outside of the "regular" vet brands. We have a lot of clients who feed raw, and many who do grain-free non-prescription diets. We do of course also sell Hills, Royal Canin, etc. but definitely don't push it like some clinics do. We have one doctor who has several of her dogs on grain-free diets with good results and she has been helping us with our pup's diet issues.