large breed dog food

[kellikans]

Hi everyone.

I have a 20 month old Great Pyrenees who has become extremely picky with her food lately.  we can't find anything that she wants to eat.  we have tried Blue Buffalo/Blue Wilderness and all of their large breed variants, Wellness Large Breed, and she's now currently on Simply Nourish and turns her nose up at it.  she was on Blue Buffalo Freedom for a while and was fine with it, but I think the kibble size changed and she stopped wanting to eat it.  and this is a puppy who used to scarf her food down.  

and I'm not sure if she got spoiled by us cooking food for her for a few days when she was having a lot of stomach upset.  and we were also feeding our oldest pup pretty much anything we could (wet dog food, ground turkey/beef and rice) just to get her to eat before she passed away.  this puppy is extremely smart and I don't know if she thinks that if she holds out long enough, we'll start doing the same for her.

we have a hard time trying to find large breed adult food.  I don't necessarily care if it's grain-free or not, although I would prefer it.  I think she dislikes the large kibble size that large breed foods are.  

does she HAVE to be on a large breed formula?  is getting something that says its appropriate for all breeds okay?  I know she requires some extra stuff for her joints and muscles, but I'm at a loss.  any suggestions?

[kellikans]

oh, and she'll eat my senior's Blue Buffalo food just fine.

[kellikans]

yeah, she's only about 100 pounds and probably won't get much bigger than that.

[Deleted]

I don't think a large-breed food is necessary. I would recommend Taste of the Wild (grain-free) Wetlands Roasted Fowl formula. It has a smoked smell, which is really inviting to dogs, so maybe your dog would enjoy that. My dog went crazy for it, but she's not really that picky over all. Like your dog, my dog wasn't a fan of Blue Wilderness.

Wellness Core, Fromm, Orijen, Canidae, Nature's Domain are all high-quality dog foods.

[shortcake2675]

We feed our old Pyrs TOTW Pacific Stream. Lexi was 14 months old when I got her and she grew another bit taller and longer plus bulked up another 10 lbs by 2-2.5. So she may still grow some, but not dramatically. I'd try another food.

[katietornado]

THe only difference between "large breed" and "regular" foods is that the large breed foods have added glucosamine/chondroitin. However, the amounts are minimal, and you pay a huge premium for it. Since the effects of glucosamine and chondroitin are far from proven, it would stand to reason that paying a ton of money extra for them to be in your dog's food is unnecessary.

We have a picky dog. The best advice we ever got was that a dog with access to food is not going to starve. She will eat what you feed her. Eventually. Put the food down in the morning for a half hour. Then pick up whatever she hasn't eaten. Repeat at night. Repeat until she starts eating. Trust me...she'll eat.

[kellikans]

Jan 30, 2015 21:54:45 GMT -5 katietornado said:

THe only difference between "large breed" and "regular" foods is that the large breed foods have added glucosamine/chondroitin. However, the amounts are minimal, and you pay a huge premium for it. Since the effects of glucosamine and chondroitin are far from proven, it would stand to reason that paying a ton of money extra for them to be in your dog's food is unnecessary.

We have a picky dog. The best advice we ever got was that a dog with access to food is not going to starve. She will eat what you feed her. Eventually. Put the food down in the morning for a half hour. Then pick up whatever she hasn't eaten. Repeat at night. Repeat until she starts eating. Trust me...she'll eat.

We did this the other day. I put her food down and she didn't touch it. After a little bit I put it up. That night she scarfed her food down because she was so hungry.

We had my other two on TOTW forever before switching them to a senior formula. It was a great food, so maybe we'll try it with Ezri. Thanks for all the insight!

[grover]

Our vet had wanted us to do a large breed formula, but we had some stomach issues with two different kinds. We are now on Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream and he loves it.

[mmp]

Acana is a great food, made by the peeps that make Orijen. I wouldn't do Orijen unless I had a working/ high performance dog.
No recalls that I know of, either.
Fromm is good, as well.
Honest Kitchen, but it might get pricey with a larger dog.

[cmeon]

It absolutely doesn't need to be "large breed" food, and at 20mo, you don't need to worry much about true calcium and calcium:phosphorus ratios, like you do with quickly growing giant breed puppies. You have tons of good foods to choose from. FWIW, though, Taste of the Wild (TOTW) is a Diamond company food. I know it's definitely good on paper, but, DIAMOND. Ugh. I will never trust them.

We do kibble "toppers" fairly frequently, though- as long as you stay mindful of the calories and keep the additions safe, there's zero harm in it. Everyone eats plain old kibble, at least half the time- maybe a little less drool, but, certainly no fuss. Definitely a good idea to keep dishes down for a limited time only- meals should be over very quickly.

[kellikans]

So we got Evo Turkey and Chicken small bites. We'll try it and see how she likes it.

[lavender444]

We have a very large GSD who is super picky. He's about 85 lbs, thin and ribby. I've tried waiting him out on foods, but he can hunger strike longer than I'm comfortable letting him. He is not at all food motivated, and has no weight he can stand to lose, so around day 3-4 I cave. He really liked Fromm for a while. We got like 8 bags in before he started turning this nose up at it. He's currently eating Nutrisource well.

The biggest thing that has stopped him from being so picky was getting another adult dog. We adopted a mini-Aussie, and the GSD will eat half of his meals with before he walks away and lets the mini-Aussie finish it off. (The mini-Aussie does not need extra food so it's a pain for me, since I have to watch him closely to pick up the bowl before the other dog gets to it.) We got a puppy over the summer, and it turned out this was a huge motivator for Charlie to eat. For some reason he hates puppies. To keep the puppy from eating his food, he will actually eat it all. Lol Once this puppy grows, I suspect he'll stop caring about his meals again. We may have to start fostering puppies to keep it going.

[shortcake2675]

I buy TOTW in Nevada, which I was told comes from a western production facility, I think in California. I don't have many other options locally and I am over having to buy dog food online. So far, we've not been affected by any of the recalls. I don't disagree that Diamond is well, Diamond, but we do what we can and what we can afford.

[spa]

Feb 7, 2015 10:52:23 GMT -5 lavender444 said:

We have a very large GSD who is super picky. He's about 85 lbs, thin and ribby. I've tried waiting him out on foods, but he can hunger strike longer than I'm comfortable letting him. He is not at all food motivated, and has no weight he can stand to lose, so around day 3-4 I cave. He really liked Fromm for a while. We got like 8 bags in before he started turning this nose up at it. He's currently eating Nutrisource well.

The biggest thing that has stopped him from being so picky was getting another adult dog. We adopted a mini-Aussie, and the GSD will eat half of his meals with before he walks away and lets the mini-Aussie finish it off. (The mini-Aussie does not need extra food so it's a pain for me, since I have to watch him closely to pick up the bowl before the other dog gets to it.) We got a puppy over the summer, and it turned out this was a huge motivator for Charlie to eat. For some reason he hates puppies. To keep the puppy from eating his food, he will actually eat it all. Lol Once this puppy grows, I suspect he'll stop caring about his meals again. We may have to start fostering puppies to keep it going.

This is the story of our house. Our GSD was starving herself in the pound and only really would eat around our blue heeler. The heeler went to live with my parents, and our GSD stopped really eating again. Now we have to do a mix of wet food, raw food and taste of the wild. She loves meat and nothing but meat. 

Taste of the Wild is the only luck I have had with kibble for her.

[cmeon]

Well, EVO is a Natura food- used to be excellent, then it was sold to P&G and now, Mars. It was subject to several recalls under P&G, and Mars doesn't have a good track record, either- just be really careful.

Diamond is so deliberately obtuse about TOTW. So many people who wouldn't feel comfortable using Diamond foods (because goodness, many were affected by their very serious recalls over the years) use it because they don't know. I'm not about to say that people shouldn't feed what they feel comfortable with, I know it can be very expensive, very stressful finding new foods. Just want to make sure it's clear- TOTW is owned by Diamond, not just processed by Diamond, they are Diamond. And Diamond has a terrible record. Keep your eyes open.

[kellikans]

I'm signed up with dogfoodrecall.com. Are there other websites that send out alerts?

[cmeon]

www.dogfoodadvisor.com/ is a good place to subscribe, she's good about recall alerts for even the more obscure brands.

www.dogfoodproject.com/ stays on top of recalls, too- and you'll also find out about company sales, lawsuits, and other food related info- on their list.