Oh Nico...

SO ever since Nico has been on solid food, he has been on Natural Balance sweet potato and venison formula. He had a lot of stomach issues as a puppy and really a lot of issues, period. His dam was severely emaciated and malnourished when she gave birth to him and his littermates and was not able to nurse them, so they had to be bottle/tube fed. Additionally, he managed to get into something else as a wee pup that made him rather ill. Fast forward to when I took him home, NB had their most recent recall. Of COURSE, this was after he had just finished a bag of his food and of COURSE his flavor was one of the ones recalled. We had to a cold turkey switch and I tried to switch him to Earthborn, the grain free bison flavor. His poops were icky and firmed up for like a SECOND, but then went back to gross. We finally ended up switching him back to the NB venison and dosing him with metrodinazole. Now he has good poops, but I REALLY REALLY don't like NB. I don't like the fact they are packaged by Diamond, I don't like the fact that meat isn't their primary ingredient and I think, based on the second reason, that it is extremely overpriced. ( And I even get a 30% discount vs my normal 20% at work.)

Right now, I have elected to test the waters a little bit and bought a bag of the NB sweet potato and fish to try to rule out a meat protein sensitivity. Beyond the meat source, both flavors are pretty much identical. If this phase works out, I might try him on either a different flavor of NB to again test the meat part out or I might try him out on a different brand of food with similar ingredients and protein/fat/etc levels. If at all possible, I would prefer to switch him off of NB, but if that is what ends up working best for him, I will continue to use it, but like I said, that brand is not my preferred choice.

Thoughts?

Tell him to put on his big boy pants on and eat/digest well what you give him, you're not a chef?

Seriously though, I hope you can figure it all out and switch him to a more preferred food!

Have you tried a fish based food? My friend's dog can only eat fish based dog food or it gets the runs. She used to feed TOTW Pacific stream and now feeds Earthborn coastal catch. Her sister-in-law is sticking with TOTW pacific stream as her dog has had severe allergies ever since moving to this state, and now all the allergies are gone. I know it's a diamond product. I'm just wondering if fish may help. My 2 girls are on Earthborn coastal catch to prevent ear infections.

I have yet to meet a Malinois who hasn't had some form of sensitive stomach issues.

Finding a moderate kibble and sticking to it seems to help my guys.

We loved blue buffalo but the cost was too much. We feed pulsar now and I have very happy dogs.

I'd stick to grain free if possible. Mine do best with chicken protein foods but I never do fish because I hate the smell.

It also seems with time and age they stabilize and get stronger stomachs.

Yep! My two both had pudding poops as puppies no matter what I did. TOTW worked pretty well for Riley as he matured, and then I switched to Orijen, and then finally to raw. Raw has been the best out of everything for their poops!

I had a foster pup that had swallowed a sock and had part of his gut removed. They send him home with gastro food which meant pudding dispenser. I asked our vet and she said RAW so started him on that, problem solved. No idea if the new owners kept it up but he did awesome on it here.

If you can get ahold of a bag of canine caviar, do it. I have yet to meet a dog on it with sloppy poops!

Raw is always a good option for a dog with allergies... you can easily eliminate what's upsetting his system, and up the bone content to get poops super firm.

Nature's Variety Instinct Duck/Turkey & the LIDs work really well for sensitive Gonzo! There's a Venison & Lamb raw boost formula too. My dogs love the freeze-dried raw chunks, and there's actually tons of them. I think it's about the same cost as NB but much higher quality. I hate that their LIDs are mostly sweet potato.

Until you find out they are allergic to meat. :lol-sign:

Sloan gets the runs with too much meat. I can't win. lol