Pin-pointing food allergies

My moms puppy, Bentley, has some food allergies that we can't quite figure out. I guessed, along with the same guesses as you guys, that a toss up between chicken and grains. He's been eating Innova Prime Red Meat for the longest time now and really loves it. Before he was on the fish TOTW, and a couple times the red meat puppy one as well. Before that, he was on the chicken and turkey puppy Innova. He never seemed thrilled about the TOTW like he does the Innova. My issues is, stores here are slowly stopping carying his Innova Prime Red Meat, so we need to get him some something else, and or stock up on it before it goes out completely.

I would love to start my experiment by switching him to the regular Innova Red Meat, but only one store caries it now, and it's only in the 15 and 30 pound bags. That's not cost effective for me, as I use a $10 off any bag coupon and a $4 off $20 purchase every into shopping. So I always buy the small bags and an extra goody or two for 5 bucks Considering I also have two very large dogs, I get lots of stuff for free lol In addition to the cost and coupons, I don't want to have 15 pound bag of food for a 6 pound dog. Usually he eats a cup a day, and some times it even takes him two days to eat a cup. 15 pounds would last much longer than the 6 weeks it should be opened for.

So anyway, I was thinking of trying to reintroduce the grains first, as I believe his symptoms were more consistent with a chicken allergy. Because I can't get a decent sized bag of the regular red meat formula (unless you think I should suck it up and do a 15 pound bag?), I was thinking of trying their Herring and Salmon one on him for a couple bags (should last about 4-5 weeks, maybe a bit longer). This has no chicken (obviously) but does have grains (which I'm not opposed to as long is doesn't bother him). For the record, there is also an Innova Prime version of this.

My next step would be to try him on the Innova Prime Chicken and Turkey. Turkey is The first ingredient, followed by chicken MEAL. So, there is more chicken than turkey. This would have no grains, but have the chicken.

If I were to get the 15 pound bag of the Innova Red Meat (w/ grains) I would have him on that, and then when it was gone put him on the Innova Prime chicken.

I hope this all makes sence LOL I'm open to any other ideas, or any changes in my plan of action. Shoot your ideas at me! I'll take anything into consideration.

And for fun, here's the little brat himself

 

AWWW he's very cute I think your plan sounds good

 

could try slowly mixing it in adding a bigger % every day or 2 till he eats only that

 

AWWW he's very cute I think your plan sounds good

I thought it did, too, but I'm still uncertain if there is a better way LOL

could try slowly mixing it in adding a bigger % every day or 2 till he eats only that

I will do that, obviously. He doesn't transition well, so it has to be done over a week and a half or more. I've always had to do this. He came to us on puppy chow (nasty!) and it took the longest time to get him off it and on to Innova. Poor dude ha diarrhea for like a month while he was being switched over.

 

Ok, so I went to Petsmart and came out with 2 bags of the herring and salmon. I'll slowly move him over to this food, introducing him to the grains as slowly as possible. I did investigate the price of the Red Meat Prime in the larger bag, but it really just isn't very cost effective in my case. At least not at the moment, since I also had to buy some other things. Perhaps some day, I'll make a dog food only run and see what can work out.

Anywho, I'll keep you guys updated on his this works out. I'd love for him to be able to eat the Innova Adult food like my two do, but I doubt that will ever happen... Lol

 

What we do is open the bag and put it in an air-tight container for our dogs. You could do that if you end up having to buy a larger bag than he will eat within 6 weeks and the food should still be good.

 

I did think about buying him a larger bag and storing it in a good brand of gallon freezer bags. If I can figure out a way to make the 12 (not 15 lol) pound bags of his Innova Prime Red Meat cost effective, I may do that.

 

Thought I'd update this on how its going.

Due to the voluntary recall on Innova, I never fed him any of his new Salmon and Herring stuff. I took it back and bought two bags of Wellness Lamb and Oatmeal. About half way through the first bag, he developed a little spot on his back (behind his left shoulder blade) that he constantly scratches. There's some hairloss there, and it's a little red and rough from his bothering it all the time.

I've still got the other bag, but I don't know if I'll feed it to him in any length or not, seeing as its all we've got he can eat. I bought the big dogs Pro Plan and Ideal Balance with coupons to hold them over. They can eat anything and not care, but I got them the best I could under the circumstances. And I can't really say I "bought" it, because it was really pocket change for the whole lot (8x 4 pound bags of ideal balance and 4x 6 pound bags of Pro Plan and probably 20 or so cans of wet Pro Plan for about 6 bucks) LOL Anyways, I've not got anything Bentley can eat. Putting him on something that is lower quality than he's used to would be bad news lol

I think I'll try one of the Wellness foods with chicken and no grains. He's been on the white fish Core, but his breath smelled nasty and he didn't seem to like it much.

 

Have you tried Acana? They have a couple LID formulas, duck and Bartlett pear and chicken and potatoe.

 

It's not available locally, though I can get it when school starts back up at some grimy lps that doesn't take very good care of their livestock. So.... I'd rather not LOL Wellness makes some foods using potatoes, but I'd really rather see sweet potatoes. Actually, I'd just rather Innova figure themselves out at this point XD

 

Ok, another update.

Given Bentleys poor reaction to the introduction of grains, I'm going to try him on the original recipe of Wellness Core, unless I find another Wellness food that is similar in price and doesn't use chicken. I'd still like to see how he does on chicken, though.

Anyway, assuming the original is what I go with, I'll be getting 5 bags and 20 cans of Pro Plan wet food (for the big dogs) for about $5

 

my 2 cents When we had cats I was getting the wellness brand cat food and we had extremely healthy very active cats. I think they make very good food. The one with salmon was the favorite and they had very shiny, healthy coats. Though for a dog, I'm thinking non fish meat may go over better.

 

my 2 cents When we had cats I was getting the wellness brand cat food and we had extremely healthy very active cats. I think they make very good food. The one with salmon was the favorite and they had very shiny, healthy coats. Though for a dog, I'm thinking non fish meat may go over better.

He's been on the ocean fish Core before. He didn't like it much, and it made his breath stink like rotting fish though lol But he did good on it. They are a good brand, and I know a lot of people that use it.