Poop rant!

[Redhawk]

This is a kibble poop rant...

I was home feeding 2 cups a day of home cooked food and my pup was trying to eat everything outside... dirt, dead grass, stones, etc.

Since it is my first time home feeding I got worried I was missing some elusive important ingredient and so I switched to kibble (holistic select). Well, here she is eating 4 cups a day of that, I swear she is getting skinnier and pooping large poops 3-4 times a day!!!! When I was home feeding her she was pooping once a day. She has even pooped inside 2 now because she is pooping constantly, she has not pooped inside **EVER** in the 2 weeks I had her.

The eating things has gotten slightly better, because of me redirecting 24/7 I think. I think i will give her another 2 weeks on the kibble, then change back to home feeding and see if the eating dirt changes again. I can't believe how much filler must be in that kibble stuff for it all to basically come out the other end everyday. Plus I have to worry about bloat because she's eating more volume and it expands more.

------END RANT------

PS Are there any home feeders (home cooked food) out there that I can discuss ingredients with?

[BlackPuppy]

Yeah, some kibbles are terrible. I've heard some people's dogs having great poops with Chicken Soup Dog Food. The more expensive kibbles have less filler.

Also, I think all my puppies tend to eat a lot of the yard materials when they are young.

Maybe post your typical home cooked meals for people to review. Before the invention of dog food, dogs would just eat table scraps. Are you within the My Pet Carnivore distribution route? You might supplement with some of the their whole ground animal foods. My puppy's breeder used to give all the puppies extra tripe just to fill their stomachs.

I can't afford a correct raw diet for my dogs, but I do supplement with the MPC stuff.

My Pet Carnivore | Raw dog, cat, and pet food including: tripe, beef, bones, chicken, duck, rabbit, turkey

[doggiedad]

you might have to switch kibbles a
few times before you find on e that
works for your dog. when you switch
from home cooked to kibble did you
do it gradually??

what are you feeding for home cooked???

[WVGSD]

Holistic Select is not cheap poor quality food. It should not be full of fillers either. It is available at my local feed store and I used to feed it when it was called Eagle Pack.

I currently use Chicken Soup kibble varieties for my 8 non-GSD dogs. They only have one or two small BMs per day and they are barely larger than what my former house cats used to put in their litterbox. The dogs range in weight from 35 to 55 pounds each.

My adult male German Shepherd eats a blend of Natural Balance Rice and Salmon (Limited Ingredient Diet) and Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach kibbles. His stool is now firm and much smaller than it used to be. He has SIBO, so his BMs get watched very closely.

You indicate that your dog is a "pup" and, if so, she is growing. Is it possible that she is just going through the transition from home cooked to kibble and, at the same time she is growing and eating more? If this is ture, the change in the volume of her stool might be understandable.

[Redhawk]

I don't think there is a solution to the issue, I was just commenting on how different the poop is with kibble. Holistic select is a decent-ish food, I don't think it has much more filler than other kibble, but compared to actual food it has a lot.

She pooped 4 poops yesterday and while they were all firm and 'nice-looking' (as much as poop can be good looking) they were about a foot long each I would say. Also she had stomach ache last night due to the volume, I believe. I imagine her colon must be constantly filled, I don't think it's natural.

Anyway I'm going back to home feeding bar the dirt eating gets worse. Perhaps I will substitute with kibble in case their is some magical ingredient they create in test tubes that dogs need that doesn't come from actual food. Pffft.

My vet told me home feeding was bad because she wouldn't be getting enough minerals and vitamins. I wanted to ask, "Um, where do you think minerals and vitamins come from, you spoon head? Did you honestly go to school? Why didn't you learn anything there, were you that dumb before you got there, or did they make you that dumb at the actual vet school?????!!??"

Actually I asked her what vitamin or mineral she was concerned about my dog not getting and she answered by dodging the question and answered "well, you have to get the phosphorous-calcium ration right."

I just hate it when people just believe what others have told them rather than using their own mind and experience and experiments to figure things out. My kibble experiment has ended.

[WVGSD]

One option might be to consider home cooked for one of her meals and high quality kibble for the other. By doing this, you might not have to worry about vitamins and minerals as much and you would also be giving your pup the home cooked meal that you enjoy making. Just a thought . . . .