Switching Food

[justkeepswimming]

Hi everyone,

I have had our 18 week old Brittany Spaniel, Copper for about 9 weeks. The rescue that we got him from had been feeding him Royal Canin. We (and our vet) wanted to switch him to a higher rated food, and opted for Blue Buffalo puppy. We switched over gradually without any problems while we were mixing the two, even when we were down to about 1tbs of RC to every cup of BB. Copper has been fully on the Blue Buffalo for about a week now, and it isn't going very well. He used to eat his food very quickly, and now he picks at it all day. (We feed him twice a day). His bowel movements are also a bit looser than they used to be. He has plenty of energy, is drinking a normal amount of water, and gobbles down any treats we give him (we are training, so he gets several tiny training treats a day). The food is the only change we have had.

This is our first puppy, so I am not sure if the change in eating habits is normal, or if there is an issue with the Blue Buffalo food. Should I get a small bag of the Royal Canin and continue to mix it? Switch to something else entirely? Add some other tasty treat to his food to entice him? Stop being such a helicopter pet parent and be glad he isn't choking down his food?

TIA for your help!

[ahsweetlee]

Has he been fixed? My Aussie never was crazy over her food, after she was fixed she gobbled it down. Just a thought.

[mortomo]

We had put our puppy on Blue Buffalo puppy right after we got him and he had the same poop issue your puppy seems to have with the BB (we slowly introduced it with the food he was fed prior to us). He's also a picky eater. We have since started him on Fromm and he's doing really well and seems to really like it. He liked the Blue Buffalo too, though (he also liked The Honest Kitchen, but then just stopped eating it after a month). We are doing 1/2 BB and 1/2 Fromm to use up the BB and he's doing well with it.

Fromm has a puppy formula that has grain and also has several flavors of the grain-free that are good for all life stages. We had started him with the puppy formula and he seemed to get tired of it and would just pick out the BB, so we recently started mixing the BB with the Fromm Surf and Turf grain free and he actually shakes with excitement when he sees me filling his dish. I figured if he stops eating the Surf and Turf, there are about 6 other flavors I can alternate.

[justkeepswimming]

Thanks for the replies! He has not been fixed, our vet won't do it until 6 months, so we have a little while to go.

We may try to switch, I have heard good things about Fromm, I am glad to hear it is working for you! I am nervous about doing too much switching, but I am also pretty sure I worry too much!