Switching to Nutro

ngraham · Post by **ngraham** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:09 pm

OK guys... I guess I am going to go with the majority because I am about at my wits end. Ever since we've had Koda, he has done nothing but scratch and chew... usually all in the same places. He is still loosing fur balls/shedding. Initially both the vet and I figured feas... and altho we didn't see fleas because of Koda's thick coat, we did see the "flea dirt". So he got his first bath, and then 2 days later after there was oil in his coat, started being treated with Frontline. Which he has gotten treated with every 30 days since then. At first, the bath and the Frontline seemed to help quite a bit. But as I posted awhile back, Koda is really shedding quite a bit and the amount of hairballs from Koda that I have to clean up, keep increasing. He is itching and scratching something awful again and I have had it. Koda does go in to get neutered on Friday morning and was going to talk to Doc about the itching/chewing/shedding then. I had decided to switch his dog food over since that's the only thing I haven't done to relieve the symptoms, but if I was going to play switch-a-roo, needed to do it before I got a chance to talk to Doc since I was going to buy Nutro when I bought dog food this time, so I had enough left of the Purina One to wean him the right way. I didn't want to buy another bag of Purina One if that's what's causing the problem.

So instead of the Purina One Large Breed Puppy Formula, I bought Nutro Large Breed Puppy Formula. I couldn't believe the difference in the look of both dog food. Looking at the Purina One is almost like looking at pure filler compared to looking at the Nutro and Koda sure does prefer it... so does Sam for that matter. LOL Obviously I don't have any problem with having to buy the Nutro other than the fact that we have to go into town which is about 40 miles one way to one town and about 30 miles the other way to a different town to get dog food since I live in the boonies and the closest town doesn't have "premium" dogs foods. So we will just have to make sure to buy food before we are close to running out. And the price between the Purina One and the Nutro at Petsmart wasn't all that much either... just $5.00 for 40 pounds. I guess the thing that bothers me is, I know chows have problems with allergies, but Koda is still a pup. Is it normal for chows to have allergy problems so early on? Alot of you feed your chows Nutro, did it really help with allergies or should I have looked for something different?

Post by **Auddymay** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:22 pm

Lily was a scratchy girl from day one- initially we suspected fleas too, until I read about skin allergies here! I switched to Nature's Recipe, which helped alot, but she eats Pip's older dog food too (Beneful). She still scratches a little, and I think that is why...

NR is a bit more too, but I get discounts from the 'club' cards Petsmart and Petco give out. I am lucky to live just a couple miles from all the shopping malls in town, so I can shop around. I should switch Pip as well, that way at least they'll both be eating the same brand, just with combinations of puppy and old dog formulas!

Mandy · Post by **Mandy** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:23 pm

both my chewie and cay are on nutro and I have had no itchy scratchy problems at all. They seem to love it and even more so when I mix in a meat treat like cooked chicken or something like that!

I'm glad you moved to Nutro and I wouldn't be surprised if you noticed a difference in a couple weeks.

Hugs

kiwani · Post by **kiwani** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:40 pm

Re: "Is it normal for chows to have allergy problems so early on?"

---

I'd say that their immune system takes a big punch with all the chemicals in the puppy vaccinations. It isn't unusual for them to itch a lot then. Corn diets are hard on them too, but your vet wanted him on Purina.

You also have to look at the ingredients of the treats you are giving.

.

TigerTiger · Post by **TigerTiger** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 6:20 pm

If just allergy to food, should try the one with fish and potato as ingrediance. Does not really matter which brand. My friend's chow was on vet's recommend very expensive brand name, but then she switch to other brand which works the same. For our Tiger, he needs to be on life long allergy vaccination injection, so it does not matter what he eat. Hope this help.

Kisses to Koda from Tiger.......

Elaina · Post by **Elaina** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 6:28 pm

We began noticing severe scratching with Max-A-Million and Mahayana last summer. I thought it could be fleas but I couldn't find any fleas or flea dirt. We decided to take them to the vet to determine what could be done, when as a last ditch effort we guessed that it maybe diet. We then began reading the ingrediants on the dry dog food packages, I decided we would switch to Nuco. Two weeks after the switch, there was no iching or scratching.

Try the Nuco. It worked for us and saved a vet bill. Of course we spent the money on toys!

ngraham · Post by **ngraham** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 7:33 pm

I appreciate the response.

Like I said, I decided to go with Nutro since the majority of everyone on the board feeds their babies Nutro and have great resullts with it. Kiwani is right, our vet did want Kodie on Purina brand (or another reputable brand of dog food) unless we started seeing allergy problems. His way of thinking was there was no sense in buying "premium" dog foods if I didn't have to. He'd been weaned on Purina One Lamb and Rice Puppy Formula initially, so stuck with that until just recently when I switched to Purina One Chicken and Rice for Large Breed Puppies since Koda was going to be pretty large as an adult. Hummmm.... which now makes me think. He had pretty well quit itching until I switched over to the Chicken and Rice, so now I am wondering if it wasn't the chicken? Anyway the Nutro for Large Breed Puppies is Lamb and Rice, and Koda does prefer it over the Purina One, and after looking at the 2 foods side by side, if he does well on the Nutro, that's what he is staying on. I am still amazed at just how much the Purina One just looked like fillers. As far as snacks goes... the more Koda started itching, the more the snacks stopped after I took a look at the ingredients. For the last 2 weeks all his snacks have been are one or 2 piggy ears a week and chicken jerky... both of which he loves. I bought Nutro dog bones and some kind of all natural peanut butter bones for him yesterday. So hopefully after we get him weaned on solely the Nutro, this itching will subside. Thank goodness for the knowledge that is based on the boards here. And just as a side note: Koda always goes just about everywhere I go on the weekends. That's his socialization time and the boy loves riding in the car. So of course he went with us to my older daughters to eat and spend Super Bowl Sunday/Family day with us and went into Petsmart with us. The first time I took him in there for Christmas pictures, Koda was terrified. I ended up having to put him in the cart. I am so proud of him, yesterday at Petsmart was a totally different story. No cart this time... he loved walking around and checking out the other people and their dogs and "spots" where other dogs had been. LOL He still won't let people come up and pet him, but he will go up and smell their hands and has quit running to get away when someone tries to pet him. He did so much better this time. The boy has come along way.

Jeff&Peks · Post by **Jeff&Peks** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 7:34 pm

I must have posted this at least 5000 times in the past 8 years but when we first adopted Pekoe I knew nothing about dog food or diet so we bought a bag of Iams that she seem to like after about 2 weeks she developed such severe skin problems she was ripping her hair out and bleeding everywhere so off to the Vet we went and every time it was a shot of cortisone with a bottle of pills that didn't help at all, one day I ran into a guy coming out of a store that had 2 chows he told me to add some oil to her food so I tried that, didn't help at all, I think that's when I found this websit and switched Pekoe to Nutro natural choice, it was like night and day after a few days all skin problems stopped and to this day 8 years later we have never had another skin problem again except for a few minor hot spots. I doubt your Chow is allergic to anything except like most chows its the wheat and corn fillers the cheaper foods use.

Don't expect your Vet to tell you any different or that it might be his diet, Allergy test, Cortisone shots and medications bring in alot more then an $8.00 bag of Nutro plus if it turns out to be the food there goes a steady $300 a visit patent.

ngraham · Post by **ngraham** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:02 pm

My vet did tell me what I had already learned here, that alot chows do suffer with food allergy problems, but that they don't see it in 100% of the chows he's seen. At the time, I did agree, why buy the premium foods if Koda wasn't showing allergy problems and was doing good? But whether it is the food allergy to the fillers, or the chicken, or like Kiwani suggested the multiple vaccinations from 3 weeks ago messing with his immune system, or a combination of 2 or 3, I don't know. The vaccinations I can do nothing about but give him some B-complex which is what I was going to do after his surgery Friday to help boost his immune system. He is not getting anymore chicken until he has quit itching and then we will try it again, and the Purina One is gone, period. Never again. I think sometimes we amaze our vets because we are not as dumb or uneducated as some of them would like to think. I had already made my mind up to switch Koda's food, I just wanted to talk to him to see what he recommended we switch to. If had had recommended allergy shots I would have told him thanks, but no thanks. Not until I see how he does being off the fillers. I may not tell him that I have switched Koda's food just too see what he recommends food wise and to see if he says anything about allergy shots. That might be a good test to see if he is the vet I think he is.

Post by **kingalls** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:41 pm

I had registered Shiloh for an obedience class very early on when we first were adopted by her. She hid under the deck and I went to the class without her. It was at that class that the instructor mentioned something about testing the food - drop it in water and if it swells up twice it's size, don't give it to your dog or it might get bloat. I posted that here and thanks to many people such as Lou and Jeff, we immediately made a change to a higher quality food (Nutro). A friend gave me a bag of Royal Canine but we stayed with Nutro - both dry and canned food. Neither Shiloh or Mr. N have had any problems with itching or other food allergy symptons. I never wanted to see if it might happen with a lesser quality of food.
I think that you will definitely see a differnce with Nutro.

Karen

Victory · Post by **Victory** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 7:57 am

Two things I want to mention here, many, many dogs are allergic to chicken and other commercially raised poultry. Commercially raised poultry are fed a lot of hormones, antibiotics and an additive that increases production of triptophan. It's not just Chows, my friends have a GSD/australian shepard cross who is also allergic to poultry. Also the amount of corn and wheat in most food is just not good for them; I think I mentioned before that corn is too full of sugar these days to be healthy for a predator, and wheat causes allergies intoo many people and pets. (I wonder if the genetic manipulations that have been done to wheat have caused this to be more of a problem it's not like wheat is a new grain, like corn.)

The second thing is don't be surprised if your chow chow eats a bit less of the nutro or other premium food. Darkwind and Firesong eat between 3-4 cups each of purina one in a day, (when Mom's money is tight) but only 1-1/2 to 2 cups each of any nutro or california natural food, they maintain the same body weight although I see better muscle tone and shinier coats on the premium foods.

kiwani · Post by **kiwani** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:20 am

I forgot to mention, I recently read that Purina changed their formula and added a new yellow dye which some have complained about.

Elaina · Post by **Elaina** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:13 am

Victory,

I thought it was just me...but we had to cut down on the amount of Nuco we give our Chows. Before we made the switch, we generally fed them 1-1/2 cups of kibble at 2 meals per day. After the switch (and a lot of wasted kibble) they eat an average of 1 cup of kibble at 2 meals per day. Our chows are healthier, with great muscle tone (I really thought it was the two long walks a day) and shiny, thicker fur.

As I learned in college (back in the dinosaur age), garbage in....garbage out!

CenTexChows · Post by **CenTexChows** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:05 pm

You'll be happy you did... and so will Koda.

I feed my two 3cups once a day. At times I'll mix it with chicken or canned food. Really good stuff. I was turn on to the Nutro brand by this board, too.

Debbie · Post by **Debbie** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:50 pm

Elaina,

Is Nuco the same as Nutro or something else?

As you all probably know I am working dilegently to find a reason for Bones' itchiness and at one point in this process switched from Nutro to California Natural on my vet's recommendation. since it made no difference after 3 months I switched back to Nutros.

I have called my vet and left a message about the possibility of staph (bacteria) and will start Bones on B complex tomorrow as Kiwani suggested. I couldn't remember if my vet had checked for staph and if not, I think it is important before we go to blood work as Bones is not in favor of vet visits even though she give out Salmon treats and talks very nicely to him... he says talk to the paw

Elaina · Post by **Elaina** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:49 pm

Ahhh Debbie!! I guess I need spellcheck really bad. Sorry, everyone, I really meant Nutro.

ngraham · Post by **ngraham** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 5:59 pm

So far both Koda and Sam are really enjoying the Nutro. I haven't really paid any attention to how much Koda eats. He self-feeds all day long. I haven't noticed a big difference in the itching yet, but it has only been 2 days since he started on the Nutro and it is also being mixed with what little bit of Purina One we have left for weaning purposes. There's probably 3 days, maybe a little more of the Purina One left and then it will be straight Nutro from here on out. I did also pick up some canned Nutro thinking that maybe that would help a little also. So Koda is getting one half can of Nutro in the morning and the rest of the day the Nutro kibble. I halfway tempted to postpone his neutering until we get this under control in case it is his immune system because of the vaccinations 3 weeks ago causing the itching reaction. Still have a couple of days to think about it.

Victory · Post by **Victory** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 3:14 pm

Debbie wrote:Elaina,

I have called my vet and left a message about the possibility of staph (bacteria) and will start Bones on B complex tomorrow as Kiwani suggested. I couldn't remember if my vet had checked for staph and if not, I think it is important before we go to blood work as Bones is not in favor of vet visits even though she give out Salmon treats and talks very nicely to him... he says talk to the paw

The staph infections I saw in Darkwind and Firesong were little leisions on their skin, sort of dry and flaky but looked like they'd been oozing at one time.