#wellness core

[chibimonkeyhouse]

Apollo seems to be having tummy troubles on his current diet. He gets sick a lot and that worries me. I’m going to try out some new foods tomorrow.

The top scoring brands that are accessible to me (physically in stores and financially) are Wellness Core and Nature’s Variety Instinct. The kitties have been on Authority wet food and Simply Nourish dry food for nearly two years and while Luna is doing well on it, Apollo has been having upset tummies increasingly lately. With a recent clean bill of health from the vet, I have to believe that it’s his food.

We go shopping tomorrow - wish us luck.

[selkies-song]

Chewy.com be like

"here we'll refund you for this food you left a bad review on but we'll also belittle the situation you wrote about by somehow mistaking 'it gave my male cat a potentially life-threatening UTI and has cost me $300+ in vet bills so far' for 'it gave my cat smelly poop'"

I mean...yay refund? but if you can't be bothered to read the actual review, maybe you shouldn't make up shit in your response? A simple "we're sorry you had this experience, here is a refund of the purchase" would have been fine

Went from just being annoyed at the wellness core brand to now being annoyed at chewy, too. :p

[caseytheschnarlzer]

Casey the fussy eater

Casey, like most toy breeds, can be a fussy eater at times. Being our first Miniature Schnauzer after having owned many greedy Labradors, a fussy eater was something very new and peculiar to us. We were used to putting down bowls of very average food and seeing a greedy Labrador wolf down his or her meal as if he or she hadn’t eaten in days. I wouldn’t say she is so fussy that she’ll refuse to eat but she’s not one to go crazy over food. She takes ages to finish her food and it is not unusual for her to leave quite a bit of kibble left in her bowl. Researching on the various dog foods in the market was an arduous task. We actually narrowed down our choices to Wellness Core or Taste of the Wild. I knew Origen was the best but way more than I could ever afford so that was out. Currently, we are mixing one spoon of Wellness Core puppy with one spoon of Eagle Pro kibble. The Eagle Pro kibble was something we bought because the breeder had the puppies on that. We’re about to finish the Eagle pro kibble and are halfway through the Wellness Core 4lb pack. I was keen on Taste of the Wild since it’s a little more affordable and it had very good reviews but after we tried out a small sample pack, we realised she wasn’t crazy over it. We went down to a pet store yesterday to check out the dry food they had. I was planning on trying out Acana if they had it in stock but after a long chat with the store owner and the groomer who had a Miniature Schnauzer, we ended up buying a pack of Blackwood Salmon Meal & Potato Grain-Free Recipe. The long chat was indeed informative and amusing due to the store owner’s candidness in pointing out what was good and bad for different dogs. Although not the most tactful, I did value his honesty and could tell that he really did love dogs. I learnt that Miniature Schnauzers can have a lot of skin problems and it’s best to avoid food containining chicken. Fish based food is usually better for them. I was planning on getting Acana but he told me Acana would be more suitable for her when she was at least a year old as the kibble was harder for her to chew. He suggested Blackwood because the kibble size was smaller and she would have an easier time chewing them. I also got a container of milk powder. They were having a 20% off sale so I only paid $53 for both items. Have yet to open the Blackwood kibble as we intend to finish the Wellness Core first.

I do have to say that Casey loves the puppy milk. Just one spoon of the powder mixed with some water, then throw in the kibble and suddenly, the food tastes amazing to her. She actually attacked the food with such gusto! It’s a first. Note that we did not change the kibble and the milk was poured over the Wellness Core and Eagle Pro kibble. Although there were still a few kibble left in her bowl, it’s good to see her enjoying her food and actually eating the food immediately after I put the bowl in. Usually, she’ll have a few kibble every now and then and it takes her a few hours to finish an entire bowl. I would not say that feeding a two month old puppy milk is really necessary as most dogs do fine with just kibble but the additional nutrients like calcium and protein would probably be beneficial to a growing puppy.

[javijasper-blog]

Dog Food Advisor

Have you seen the little link on the left side for dog food advising?

This website rates ALL dog foods down to a T.

I hope everyone gets a chance to understand what goes into their dog foods a bit better. Javi and Jasper are both on Orijen, so I'm a little biased :)

My personal favorites:

DOGS WITH LAZY OWNERS: Taste of the Wild

DOGS WITH ACTIVE OWNERS: Orijen Regional Red or Acana

DOGS WITH NORMAL OWNERS (who only go on regular walks and nothing more): Look for any brand with at least 30% Crude Protein

LARGE BREED DOGS: Must have at least 750 mg of glucosamine/chondroitin sulfate

SMALL BREED DOGS: Must have enough Omega 3's/6's

SKIN/ALLERGY DOGS: Orijen Six Fish or Wellness Core Ocean

DOGS WHO NEED A DIET: Any low protein senior formula 

DOGS WHO REALLLLYYYYYY NEED A DIET!: Natural Balance Fat Dog (Read the feeding guidelines to the weight you WANT not the weight they are at)