With Sammy and the fish, we are at the petstores, alot! We just stopped by for more fish food and we always stop by the dog section just to see what kind of sales are going on, and if there is something we are close to needing on sale. To my happy surprise, there is a new exciting dog food!!
We have Sammy on ScienceDiet Small Bites. When we got Sammy we had a free bag of ScienceDiet Small Bites Puppy from our vet, so of course we started him on it. He really seemed to like it. I decided to look up some information on it, as well as other brands of dogfood. I was really inclined to stick with it because it seemed great for him. Lots of the small dog dog foods just don't seem to have as much ingredients that seem important for active dogs. And Sammy may be in the small dog category but he is active. I think the difference is, there isn't just small dog, under 35 lbs or whatever it is. But there is a small dog, and then there is a toy dog dog food as well. So it seems much more specialized for his actual size. In the first month, we got Sammy set up at Doggie Daycare at the humane society here in Omaha. When we were talking to them, they explained that they used ScienceDiet and wanted to tell us about the pros of ScienceDiet.
That was pretty much all we needed! It's a bit more expensive, but it seemed like a good move for him. One month we ended up trying another food for a few reasons, but anyway it didn't work out well. He never seemed full. He was always looking for more food and began begging at the dinner table. We quickly got him back on ScienceDiet and within a week, he began another growth spurt! Since then we haven't even considered changing his food.
The reason I'm telling you all of this is we got soo excited when we saw that ScienceDiet has a new food!!! Healthy Mobility Small Bites! http://www.hillspet.com/products/sd-canine-adult-healthy-mobility-small-bites-dry.html
This is very important to us because he still limps alot after too much activity. We are running out of ideas of how to help him, so I was super excited. Unfortunately we have a nearly full bag of his regular food. So for now we grabbed a couple of cans of the wet food as a supplement to this dinner. We have done the dinner can supplement, just so he gets a treat and a little extra nutrition. It has come in a chicken or liver flavor, and this Healthy Mobility canned food comes in beef flavor!
We gave it to him for the first time last night, oh man he was excited! He pushed his little dinner bowl around the whole kitchen, dining room and living room making sure he got every last bite! We only give him about a tablespoon of canned food in his dry kibble, but apparently it made quite a tasty dish!
We just wanted to share our find in case anyone else uses ScienceDiet. We are hoping that it helps with his joints. We are disappointed there isn't a corgi on the Healthy Mobility Small Bites like there is on the regular Small Bites, but that is ok. We can get over it. Sammy is cuter anyway! haha.
(hmmm, I just wrote a long post and then it disappeared... sorry if this is a double post!)
ReplyDeleteI would be careful w/Science Diet.. Vets recommend it mostly because Hills gives them money and they usually have a partnership to sell their products at their clinic. Most vets are not trained in actual dog nutrition. The ingredients that Science Diet use are not very good/healthy for your dog. Corn, Wheat and by-products are the first 3 ingredients, when it should be whole meat, meat meal and maybe a potatoes/rice. Corgis should be on something closer suited for large breeds since they do need extra attention for their joints/hips/back. I'd check out dogfoodanalysis.com and search for Science Diet. Just want to give you a heads up!! :)
Our vet had the girls on SD and we switched to Iams, which now I read is just as bad. I decided if I'm going to spend good money on my babies then it is going to be good food. I am considering Blue Buffalo and have sent for their coupon. You might want to look into it too. =)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bluebuff.com/
thank you both for your cmoments and concerns. i know that sciencediet has had some issues before and a recall not terribly long ago, but their nutritional information seems completely different that it was before. i just double checked his bag of food and the first ingredient on the list is chicken. there is liver and meat flavoring which is not meat, but the chicken will provide good protien for him. there is corn and wheat, but it is whole grain corn and wheat which makes us feel better. seems like all dogfood has it (seems like an oxymoron) but at least the whole grains are a little better. there is also rice and a whole bunch of vitamins listed. we also supplement his dinner with a wet food that is higher in proteins and stuff each day. what really made us want to continue him on science diet was our talk with the humane society. they don't even sell dogfood and most of their helpers are volunteers, even vet volunteers. so far we have felt comfortable with what he is on, and he seems to really be flourishing since we brought him home. 9 times out of 10 he is the most energetic and fit corgi we meet! anyway, again thank you both for the advice, and we will most definately keep our eye on the ingerdients and all dog foods to try to keep him on the best we see fit!!
ReplyDeleteI think the most important thing is if he is at a good healthy weight & your vet is ok with then keep on! Sammy looks so fit, not too chubby like some some Corgis get. Our last Corgi, Libby, had back & weight problems so we are very concientious(sp?) about what & how much we feed Loki so we don't go down that path. He is also very active so that helps keep the weight down.:-) Loki has been eating Eukanuba Lamb & Rice kibbles because he has a tender tummy, so that's what our vet suggested.
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad that Sammy still limps though - poor little guy. Does your vet have any ideas? When Libby got older she had arthritis & some limping so our vet put her on some kind of doggie Glucosamine thing. They were little brown soft cubes and she thought they were her morning treats!
Keep cool!
Bri ~ I may have come off as food-snooty and I did not mean to be that way. You're right, if he is healthy and thriving, then that is the important thing.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for even insinuating that you were not doing the very best for Sammy. He has wonderful human-parents!
I hope I didn't come off as food-snooty either.. since I know it's almost a reflex of mine to be all, "Check your ingredients! ahh!" hehe. Just wanted to point it out in case you were unaware :)
ReplyDeleteThe main thing that jumped out at me was that he limps..which made me think he may not be getting enough protein. I know dog food is a personal thing and it's hard to find one that is right for your dog. So if you are happy w/it and you think Sammy is doing well on it, then that is all that matters! :)
you are both a-ok. i'm looking for ideas for him. the vet thought with proper exercise, he could build up the muscle and that would help with his limping. the canned food was suggested to us to add the little extra protein to help with muscle growth. with our first couple checkups, sammy's muscle mass was growing quite well. at an intial shock to the vet, which is why she was so hopeful that it would kinda take care of itself, bad terminology, but that he would continue to thrive and build up enough muscle to take care of him. she warned us to not let him jump excessively, ever. boy has he taken to that! he doesn't jump into cars even! he only jumps on and off our couch and chair. EXCEPT when he gets around other jumpy dogs, then it's monkey see, monkey do....or corgi see, corgi do. he is the dog version of those kids very subject to peer pressure. if he sees a dog at the dogpark, or on a walk, or family dogs jump up on a couch, person, in a bush..etc, he decided to do it, too. if he could just get over that, i think he would do much better since he has a natural attraction to big dogs and trying to do what they do. maybe he has a short dog complex a little bit. he's getting better about being more independant, and that is probably from getting to be an adult dog. we had him on and off of joint health treats to see if we notice a difference, and so far nothing is helping too much. he really only gets limpy after playing too hard, and he still isn't over that mentality to go as hard as he can go til he can't go anymore. he is getting better and better, as i said, but not quite there yet. one thing we noticed when we took him swimming is that he favors one side over the other, and he swam at a little bit of an angle. we hadn't noticed that, and i don't think our vet has noticed a difference between legs. we are going to be switching vets to one closer to us (hopefully cheaper, too) and we are going to bring it up next visit. we are hoping the swimming might be thearputic and maybe force him to build up some muscle on that side, and maybe that will help! we are keeping our fingers crossed.
ReplyDeletedog food is crazy, we have had such a hard time with it. seems like the new fad is organic food for dogs. we had a free bag from Petland when we got him, since that's what they had promoted. we didn't like how it reacted with his tummy. it seemed like after he ate, it took him a long time to digest, because if we went for a walk after or played after, sometimes he vomited and sometimes we could hear crazy gurgly noises in his tummy that rarely resulted in solid potties. we didn't stay with it long, since we have always assumed it was the food acting with his tummy. it's the same food he was on in the petstore, which might have led to his current problems, too, if he wasn't properly digesting the food he didn't get proper nutrition. we tried one other food, Beneful. we were snowed out of town and couldn't get home for an additional 4 days. we ran out of food and beneful seemed like the best choice the small town target had. he never seemed full. he was sniffing in corners, begging at the table, ate all his hidden "rainy day" treats, and ate it so fast it was like a vaccuum. so we didn't do that for long either. when we put him back on ScienceDiet at home he suddenly hit a growth spurt again. we thought that it was related. he was full of energy, growing, not begging for anything, and hiding treats for "rainy days" again. kelly, what do you have gibson on? we would be more that excited to look into other dogfoods, few are more expensive that ScienceDiet (at least here in our non-doggie concious city) so would could financially try anything.
too bad there isn't a perfect dog food!
oh and thank you both again for your comment! hopefully i didn't sound mean either. i just get all serious when it comes to sammy's health!
ReplyDeleteoh and on that website, they haven't updated the ScienceDiet info since 2006. they had some big recall and controversy in 2007. the food, seems like, has completely changed. i haven't looked too much into it, other than the stuff from pre-2007 and then our bag sitting here.
Bri - what vet are you changing to? I would totally recommend our vet if you need one. His practice has several locations around Omaha. We've been w/ him for 10 years and he is THE BEST! He helped us through so many problems as Libby got older and he got teary eyed when she died. He really "gets" the corgi personality too, knows their little quirks! Luckily, we haven't had to take Loki too much yet but he's always happy to go so I think that's a good sign. Let me know if you want any info:-) Anne
ReplyDeleteGibson eats Wellness Core.. it is the 6th food he's been on (Puppy Chow from the breeders, Science Diet Puppy from the vet, Canidae All Stages, Wellness Puppy, Wellness Super5Mix and now Core), but he's been on it since last October. I am really happy with it. He immediately looked healthier and had more energy. His nose was wetter and his eyes were brighter. It is more pricey, but since it's high protein, he eats less of it :)
ReplyDelete