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Per my vet's recommendation, I'm switching my dog from Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul brand dog food to Natural Balance Lamb & Rice. Since putting my dog on CSDLS a few weeks ago, he's had numerous digestion issues that haven't gone away in time. I'm sad to switch him since I bought a 35 pound bag of the stuff, and he LOVES to eat it. It's a very good brand of dog food, but I think he's allergic to something in it. He scratches and scratches, and gnaws on the pads of his paws. I'm trying a food with only certain ingredients in hopes I can pinpoint what my dog is allergic to.
Anyone use Natural Balance and have any suggestions on which blend works best? I've read reviews, and will stay away from the Duck blend.
That does sound like allergies, if he is gnawing his paws.
We have Beau, 10 months old, on the NB Sweet Potato and Fish.
I think it is good food.
We've always, with our other dogs, done lamb and rice, but Beau may have inherited an allergy or whatever you want to call it from his dad. He just doesn't seem to digest lamb very well.
My only concern with the NB we give him is the low fat content. (13%)
We had been supplementing with Barking At the Moon, but it, though very good food, was too rich (20% fat) for him. He has always been a bit, um, loose, but he was doing cow pies, and isn't now that we took him off it.
We are in the middle of trying to figure out an alternative for another supplement, something with rice.
What I would like to do is feed him two foods. That is what I have always done in the past, because if for any reason your supply of one runs out, you always have the other. Some of the more "special" foods are not so easy to obtain.
Anyone use Natural Balance and have any suggestions on which blend works best? I've read reviews, and will stay away from the Duck blend.
Our one dog with allergies responds well to Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Venison. We have tried a few varieties of Evo, Canidae, and Orijen, but he seems to stomach the NB Sweet Potato and Venison the best of all. We always make the food switch-over very gradual over the course of a few weeks.
we use natural balance with our two chihuahuas and we use the duck and potatoe forumula and have not had any problems with it and yes food changes should be very gradual as to not upset the digestive system .
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
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My dog didn't do well on Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul either, possibly because of the milk in it. Yeah, he handles cheese really well, but perhaps milk is a whole other thing for him. I don't know.
Artie is grain intolerant and so we went through a lot of trial and error. He does well on Wellness Core, but now he's on Taste of the Wild (bison and venison flavor). I also toss in a little bit of Natural Balance and EVO (chicken/bison/sweet potato), just for variety.
My best suggestion to you, until you find what works best for your little guy, is to buy the smallest (5 pound?) bags so that you're not left with a huge quantity of stuff that he doesn't like or doesn't respond to well. I know it's more expensive to buy in the smaller quantities, but in the long run, you'll be saving money.
Good luck!
Oh, also, you can e-mail the manufacturers and ask that they send you sample packs of the various kinds and flavors. The only problem with that is that they take a while to get to you, and the sample packs are tiny, so you won't really know if your guy can tolerate it well. I did that with Artie, just because he's so finicky and didn't want to risk him not even going near whatever 5-pound bag I brought home that day.
Thank you everyone for you input. I ended up calling the company I ordered CSDLS from, and they offered to ship a bag of Natural Balance if I returned the unused CSDLS, free of charge! The smallest bag they have is 15 pounds, but if it doesn't work out, I can always return that, too. I'm glad this process isn't going to be too expensive...I don't have a ton of extra money these days. My dog eats lamb training treats, so I think he does OK with lamb. If the lamb and rice mix doesn't work, I'm going to try the venison and sweet potato.
Natural Balance is not the greatest food. It's filled with fillers and preservatives, which will not make itching go away. While the 1st ingredient in NB is a meat product, the 2nd in most of their formulas is brown rice, a filler and probably what makes up the bulk of the food. Dogs are obligate carnivores; they do not need grains or vegetables to live. Also, NB recelntly admitted to using ethoxyquin as a preservative in their food. It's just simply not worth the cost. I would highly recommend switching to a grainless, higher quality food, such as Wellness Core, TOTW, Evo, Acana, Orijen, Merrick, etc.
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MAK802
Natural Balance is not the greatest food. It's filled with fillers and preservatives, which will not make itching go away. While the 1st ingredient in NB is a meat product, the 2nd in most of their formulas is brown rice, a filler and probably what makes up the bulk of the food. Dogs are obligate carnivores; they do not need grains or vegetables to live. Also, NB recelntly admitted to using ethoxyquin as a preservative in their food. It's just simply not worth the cost. I would highly recommend switching to a grainless, higher quality food, such as Wellness Core, TOTW, Evo, Acana, Orijen, Merrick, etc.
Right on. I just checked the bag of Natural Balance from which I throw in a couple of pieces in his TOTW bowl... and it's Natural Balance LIMITED INGREDIENTS DIET. It only has like four things in it, and none of that is fillers or preservatives. You're right on with that -- the less, the best is my motto when it comes to dog food, meaning the fewer ingredients the better, especially those nasty grains.
The first ingredient is sweet potatoes. While it's not a bad thing, meat should make up the bulk of the ingredients. Also, the protein content is extremely low, at only 20%, which would make most people say it's insufficient for a dog. Most foods are 26%, and grainless 32% and up. And true grainless foods don't have potatoes. Have you looked at Orijen and Acana? They are wonderful and made by a very trusted company, Champion Pet Foods. But it's not readily available in many areas yet.
And about venison...I spoke to reps from some of the companies that use venison, and many dog food companies are going to be doing away with venison because apparently we have a shortage of it and they don't want to contribute to that. I don't see how there is a shortage of deer, since you can drive down any highway in the Northeast and see hundreds of them dead on the side of the road, but that is the rumor. So you might be switching again if they do away with the venison.
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