Help Needed! Should a puppy be on puppy formula dog food?

[sweetpeasmom2008]

As many of you know I have A EB puppy having problems with gaining weight and the poops, I have her on earthborn grain free and I am wondering if that could be the problem? I was looking into their puppy formula and they have brown rice in it and barley I believe and I was wondering if since she is a puppy she needed those carbs? she has soupy poop not even to soft serve yet and she has no worms or parasites so the only other thing is food. She has been eating three cups of food a day up tell today when I backed off some but my vet says she is underweight so I need something more than what she is getting! Should puppies be on a puppy food? Im not sure if the grain free is a all stages or just for adults im not sure I did write them and waiting for a reply. what do you think [MENTION=2291]cowsmom[/MENTION]

 

[kazzy220]

How old is she now??

I don't know enough about the Earthborne range to know if it's an all-stages food. I know the the Fromm 4* range is all-stages so you can feed from puppy to senior.

 

[JAKEISGREAT]

Like Karen (Kazzy220) I'm not certain Earthborne is an all stages food. Jake was switched to An All Stage Food at 11 weeks..(Fromm) and did fine until we realized chicken is his enemy! Lol...so about 8 months ago we switched to Earthborne. If I were you and my pup was having weight gain issues..I would feed the best puppy food I could..maybe she needs it. And remember..increasing the amount can create poo problems. With Jake, I could never increase over a cup at a time! Even 1/4 cup caused mushy

Let @Davidh ànd @desertskybulldogs advise you on the right puppy food..ànd @cowsmom knows it all! Good Luck..I'm sorry your sweet girl is having trouble..

 

[sweetpeasmom2008]

I am going to ask the vet tomorrow but I think we are going to try puppy food and see how it goes. I want to stay with earthborn if I can because it is a good food that I can buy local without having to order and it supports our local stores. I am so ready for the vet appointment tomorrow!

 

[Luvin My Bullie]

I feed my pup Earthborn puppy vantage and she seemed to not like it much at first, but now she gobbles it up. Her poo was really soft and now is firmed up. It seems to be great for her. She too has always been on the small side for bully pups, at her 9 week apt she weighed only 6 lbs and 5 oz. Shes gonna be petite. But looks very healthy, no ribs showing , nice round puppy belly lol. She goes back on the 4th for her next set of shots. I cant wait to see what she weighs now. I fed tyson fromm puppy and oh my, they love that stuff, but I too rather be able to get a local food. I say try the earthborn puppy.

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[ChrisRN]

I feed my pup Earthborn puppy vantage and she seemed to not like it much at first, but now she gobbles it up. Her poo was really soft and now is firmed up. It seems to be great for her. She too has always been on the small side for bully pups, at her 9 week apt she weighed only 6 lbs and 5 oz. Shes gonna be petite. But looks very healthy, no ribs showing , nice round puppy belly lol. She goes back on the 4th for her next set of shots. I cant wait to see what she weighs now. I fed tyson fromm puppy and oh my, they love that stuff, but I too rather be able to get a local food. I say try the earthborn puppy.

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Really? How can you talk about a "nice round puppy belly" and not share a photo! There is almost nothing cuter!

 

[Davidh]

We feed our pups FROMM Puppy Gold in the pink bag, and feed the 3 times a day until they are around 6 months of age then we go to 2 times a day.

 

[anatess]

All the Grain Free Earthborn options are all stages. Increasing carbs is not a good idea. Dogs can't process carbs as efficiently so yes, the dog will gain weight from carbs but it will be at the expense of overtaxing the digestive system (especially the pancreas). Animal protein is more digestible to dogs and they can gain weight with it.

When looking to have a dog gain weight, first make sure the dog doesn't have parasites or any other medical condition. Then increase his caloric intake (preferably keeping carbs low) and increase the amount of exercise to use the protein to build muscle. Puppy formula is good with this as it has the appropriate calories with balanced calcium/phosphorous content for a balanced growth. All stages low in carbs is good too, just increase the amount of food being fed to increase the calories. Carbs content is usually not listed on the bag. But a good indicator of low carbs kibble is if the food is high protein (high 20's to 30's). And remember when the food is high protein, the protein must come mostly from animal sources, so the ingredients listing must have a type of animal as the first ingredient.

Hope this helps.

P.S. I'm such a TMI kind of gal... sorry.