How do I know if I've picked the right food?

[Deleted]

I just adopted a 2 year old corgi/terrier mix. She's in good health, but is 5-6lbs underweight.

The vet has advised me to keep her on the same food and same flavor. This is what I feed her, but a friend of mine just told me that I should probably be feeding her something better. Petsmart told me that I shouldn't go from shelter food to the really good, rich food as she may have serious digestion problems, but rather to slowly level up. Was that wrong?

I thought that being grain/corn free was a good enough start, but I guess not?

www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4245430&lmdn=Health+Benefits

Is this food ok for now or do I need to slowly get her on a better quality food? Thanks for the help!

[bullygirl979]

Which vet told you that? Your vet or the shelter vet?

You never want to switch a food cold turkey because yes, they could get digestion issues. If you do switch, do it gradually. Start off with the majority of the old food with a little of the new food mixed in. Every day go a little higher on the new food and a little lower on the old food until you switch completely.

In terms of the food you are feeing the dog now, I don't have any experience with it. I included a linky for an article on how to choose a good food. Also you may want to check out DogFoodAdvisor.com where they will rate each food so you can see where your current food stands.

tailsofsuccessny.com/web_media/ChoosingQualityPetFood.pdf

[caz1221]

I'm not familiar with the food you linked, but most of the Nature's Recipe formulas get 3 stars on www.dogfoodanalysis.com. However, I don't see the grain-free formula on there, so it may be better quality. Usually it is advised to look for a food that is rated 4-6 stars, so you can probably do better.

When we adopted our second dog, he was on a poor quality food (Hill's z/d). We kept him on it for about a week just so he didn't have to deal with a new home and a new food all at once, but then we started gradually switching him to what our first dog eats (Wellness Core, which is a 6 star food on DFA). We switched over the course of about 2 weeks, each day adding more of the Core and less of the Hill's. He didn't have any tummy troubles and does much better on the Core (probably because it's grain-free and much higher quality). As PP said, don't switch cold turkey, but I think it's totally fine to switch to a better food gradually.