Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Tasty Tuesday May 8, 2012: Where the buffalo roam

So, after last week's Diamond Pet Food recalls, including their Friday "as we go out the door" announcement of recall expansion, we aren't doing Taste of the Wild anymore. I'm not saying that we're dropping it forever, necessarily, but definitely for the foreseeable future.

What have we gone with, you ask? Blue Buffalo Wilderness.

I actually had to sing the first verse of "Home on the Range" to remember the line about the buffalo. I hope you appreciate me. Elka did not.


Why grain free, if Elka hasn't displayed any grain allergies?

Well, I do try to feed Elka kibble off of the Whole Dog Journal list. They recommend foods of a quality I can get behind, and there's always Dog Food Analysis to visit as backup. Blue Buffalo Wilderness, which I just looked up (oops), is listed as a 5 star kibble for the Chicken and Duck flavors, which I bought (whew). The Salmon is 6 stars; maybe I should've gone for that.

But anyway. Originally, we fed Elka Holistic Select Large and Giant Breed puppy, per breeder recommendation. A few months into that, she began to display what can be referred to as "knuckling over", also known as Carpal Flexural Deformity. Basically, it looked like her "wrists" were starting to bend backwards. Just the beginnings of it, but I'd never seen such a thing, and it kind of freaked me out. Went to the vet, where they had no idea, but since I'd already Internet researched it, I basically said "Okay, well, I'm going to switch her to an adult food and give her a vitamin for a little while." The tech thought about it and was like "Okay". She got x-rays to make sure her growth plates hadn't closed yet (they hadn't) and with the adult Holistic Select, she was fine. 



After awhile, though, I was learning more about dog food, and Holistic Select is only a 4 star food on Dog Food Analysis. We had a brief flirtation with Flint River Ranch (also 4 stars, depending on the flavor, but only the first bag agreed with her), and then California Natural, which has a grain free variety not listed or rated. She was awesome on grain free California Natural! Good skin, good coat, good poop. Then the store stopped carrying the grain free. I picked up the lamb and rice, figuring it would be similar, right? Wrong. Elka was ravenous on the lamb and rice. Hungry all the time. We blew through a bag in record time. I needed a different grain free food. The feed store didn't have Blue Buffalo at all, and I went to Tractor Supply, where there was Blue Buffalo, but not Wilderness. They did, however, have Taste of the Wild. Bingo!


I don't tend to buy a new bag of dog food until the old bag is gone, so, my new bag of Taste of the Wild, opened on Friday discovered at 11 pm to be suspect, was all of Elka's old food that I had, and I wasn't keeping it. So, she went foodless until Saturday morning, and then it was Blue Buffalo, cold turkey (Well, chicken). Her stomach was a bit upset yesterday, and her poop this morning was awesome (things you never thought you'd say) and then runny just now. I feel bad doing that to her, but it was that or maybe-Salmonella. She seems to like it a good deal. It also, apparently, still goes well with peanut butter.



Downsides to Blue Buffalo Wilderness: it costs more than Taste of the Wild, and for a smaller bag. I'll have to do some prowling online to find deals for it, now that I have two 5 pound bags of it, and thus some breathing room. One really nice thing I've noticed about buying premium kibbles is they don't really smell like dog food. They don't smell like people food, but they don't have that rank, grainy, dye-soaked Kibbles 'n' bits odor. Also, Elka's poops (when solid) are smaller, and more or less dissolve in water. It's kind of weird, but also neat, if such a thing could be considered neat.




26 comments:

  1. Woof! Woof! Yes we read many food were recalled. So be careful. For many years I've been in Orijen n great with my allergies and their food were never recalled. Happy Tasty Tuesday. Lots of Golden ALOHA n Woofs, Sugar

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    1. I've heard good things about Orijen. Nobody around here sells it, though, and I never took the lengths to get samples or whatever to see if Elka liked it. Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. We are sticking with Taste of the Wild. Our dogs do really well on that food and it took us some time to find one that works. It is puppy we are having a bit of problems with now. It seems like all three of our doggies get to just about 6 months and then the food no longer works for them. We are going back to his original puppy foods and then we will see after that. He may get Taste of the Wild sooner than the others...

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    1. I'll probably go back to it; I've liked it for years at this point. I'm just not comfortable with feeding it right now. Really, if it was a little more financially viable in my area, and I knew more about it, I'd do home cooked or something.

      TOTW is an "all life stages" food, for the most part. I think they've just started to talk about adding other formulas.

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  3. Poor Elka. It's a shame she had to switch so quickly, but better than the diarrhea Jasper, Lady and Daisy had I guess. We've gone the food gamut too. My favorite is now The Honest Kitchen, but it's a bit expensive so sometimes we do kibble in the morning and THK in the evening. We are now sticking with our Minnesota-based, home-grown company, NutriSource Grain Free. They have never had a recall or pet reported illness from their food.

    By the way, what is "knuckling over"? I have never heard of the term, but it sounds horrible!

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    1. I've heard good things about the Honest Kitchen, but never looked into them. Dog food is expensive! I made myself feel better by looking at the per-pound cost...only two something. That's like buying ground beef, without having to buy the rest of what make kibble "balanced"! I'm glad you have a local source you can trust!

      Oops, thanks for asking about knuckling over, I meant to link to something about it and didn't. Fixed that, then (well, added one link. I should add a second I've got open. So, "fixing" it!) I don't know all of the medicine behind it, but it looks like a hyperextension of the wrists at Elka's stage, and some dogs end up with severely bowed front legs.

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  4. BTW - I clearly haven't been here in a while. LOVE the smiling pic of Elka! Love the whole new blog look too!

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    1. Thanks! It's probably one of the best pictures I've managed to take of her ^^ I didn't change a lot, but just enough. I get in the habit, too often, of setting something up and leaving it that way forever.

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  5. I know we're going to have to do some research, too. We use TOTW, and I was hoping we'd be able to get by without having to switch, but that's looking unlikely now! *sigh* I hate finding new dog food!

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    1. I was told at Tractor Supply that the TOTW bags that have best-by dates after the April 7 2013 date are fine. They just didn't have any of those. And really, if my bag hadn't had the proper codes and dates for the recall, I wouldn't have switched. I hate finding new dog food as well. It's so expensive, and there's the inevitable upset stomach (Because of the cold switch), etc. etc.

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  6. Elka is looking good no matter what she's eating at the moment :-)

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  7. That petfood recall is scary stuff! I'm glad Elka is okay. I've never tried BB myself, but I've heard it's really good. The price has always turned me off, and I hate the commercials. They don't give the best of info in my own opinion.

    I started Kyuss on Orijin as a pup and he did great. No knuckling over thank-goodness as I only learned about it once he was past his growing stage. =]

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    1. I only learned about knuckling over because Elka was doing it. It does crop up as a question on Doberman Talk once in awhile, but I hadn't been a member just yet. Maybe that's when I found them, and though I hadn't joined yet, learned enough to make the food change? No idea.

      I don't have TV (opted for just Internet), so I haven't seen a BB commercial. I guess I should look it up! The price is definitely a turn off. We'll see how long I stick with it; Elka does seem to like it a great deal, but again, the bags are smaller, and they cost more.

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  8. We're in the process of going from Nature Balance to something... I need all the information I can get. Trying not to get hysterical about recalls that seem to go on and on. I had spent hours picking out a dog food most suitable for my guys and now I'm back to square one.

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    1. It is very discouraging! Good luck in your search.

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  9. So far Maggie & Duke's food isn't on the recall list. Natural Balance Potato & Duck is the only food that the picky picky princess will eat on a consistent basis. She's gained about 10 pounds and has finally been at a decent weight for over 6 months. She also has allergies, so it wouldn't be easy to find a new food that she'll eat.

    Luckily Duke will eat anything that isn't nailed down! Yesterday he scarfed a stale whole wheat pita pocket that our neighbors left out for the deer. It made a good frisbee, as I kept tossing it away from him as it got smaller. So glad the little chunk-a-punk doesn't seem to have allergies.

    Hope Elka does well on the new food!

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    1. I'm glad your food has been all right! I hear about picky dogs, and dogs with allergies, and am glad that I dodged that bullet (knock wood)

      Hey, found food is great food! Duke does sound like a little punk ;)

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  10. Interesting that you found the need to change to adult food when Elka started showing joint problems. Honey's breeder was very insistent that we feed her adult food and not puppy food. Her claim was that puppy food promoted fast growth which is not what you want if you're hoping to form strong joints.

    BTW, I posted a link on Facebook from Pawcurious about the recent vet recall. Apparently TOTW has not seen salmonella in the food. They added it to the recall as a precaution because some of it was made in the same factory as other brands that tested positive. Perhaps you won't have to make a permanent switch.

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    1. That's good to know about TOTW. Maybe I'll just go back after the shelves are stocked again.

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  11. Do you happen to know a good site for researching food specifically for dogs with sensitive digestive systems? We're on Natural Balance but I'm always up for researching a better food. It is difficult to find information on Limited Ingredient foods.
    Btw, I'm sure you came across it in your research, but knuckling over can also be a sign of Wobblers. Thankfully it doesn't seem to have been the case for Elka. Glad you were able to figure it out.

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    1. I don't know any research sites like that, off the top of my head. Whole Dog Journal likely has material on it, but it can be hard to find their info if you don't have a subscription. Luckily, the online article service my library system has access to includes Whole Dog Journal, for if I want to look things up.

      I didn't know it was a sign of Wobblers! Well that's scary. I'm very thankful that just changing the food was good enough for her.

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  12. The food recall is worrying. Right now our dogs are eating Orijen so we thin we are ok

    urban hounds

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    1. I hear a lot of people are on Orijen! Nobody around here sells it, or I would have tried it by now, I think. It IS worrying!

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  13. It's good to know about the Taste of the Wild recall. I had no idea. That's what I feed the cat from time to time. Don't know if the recall applies to that or not.

    My dog has been on a raw diet for years now after a bad grain allergy when she was a puppy. I found Dogster.com during my research, they have tons of great information on dog food and nutrition.

    BTW, Elka is a beautiful dog.

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  14. Dog food can be so scary! t's a shame you had to switch but I have lots of good things to say about the BBW. Just make sure she isn't one of those silly pups that picks out the "life bits"! It's not very nutritious without them!

    Good for you going grain-free. After my canine nutrition courses, I became convinced that our dog's bodies aren't really designed to process grain and wow! Did Koly and Fe's health ever improve. Fee in particular who has a lot of allergy issues and was eating a (disgusting-would-never-feed-that-crap-again)vet formula. He never got fully better until we switched to raw, but we used 5 or 6 grain-free kibbles on a rotation and it worked pretty well!

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