Innova...how many dogs can not tolerate

 Ena the Chinese Crested puppy was just switched to Innova ALS. She seems fine, with it, so far. We'll see how her skin and coat look, in a few weeks.

Emma, the PRT, would never be able to eat it, but she can't eat anything, so she doesn't count

Cherokee and Jaz both do fine on it (though I don't feed it because it's too low in protein and too high in carbs for my tastes), but my other sister's dog, Cowboy, supposedly couldn't handle it. Loose stools, even after being on it for almost two weeks. I still have a sneaking suspicion he was overfed, so... Who knows.

I find many of these foods to be way overated, I have not had luck with any of the Natura foods or most of the holistic foods in general, dry hair and skin, hotspots, stool issues, palatability issues etc.

abbysdad

I find many of these foods to be way overated, I have not had luck with any of the Natura foods or most of the holistic foods in general, dry hair and skin, hotspots, stool issues, palatability issues etc.

 I wouldn't go so far as to say holistic foods are over-rated....I've had exceptional results with my other dogs when they were eating Naturapet EVO and California natural puppy lamb/rice of which they ate for years, and still do off and on, but we've decided homecooking for them is cheaper and even healthier cause they're small.

Rivers is the first retriever breed we've ever had, but believe me he looks and feels, even with the dry hair, 100% better on the Innova/Naturapet foods then he did when he came to us eating Pedigree. He had massive ear and skin infections that cleared up pretty quickly after switching him to holistic foods.

I will never feed a non-holistic food again, period....my late big girl taught me that. She was an Alaskan Malamute/Dalmatian mix that we raised on Nature's Recipe 75% of the time, and Purina One 25% of the time...she ate these foods for more then 11yrs, always had super oily skin, on/off ear infections, eye gunk, etc

I finally started doing research after she had a thorough physical/blood work which disclosed that she was hypo-thyroid....we left her diet the same to give a chance for the pills to make a difference. They did in regards to her not being so tired.

But she always carried around extra weight, even from the time she was 3yrs old, and this girl exercised a LOT, we're talking 5 mile walks, 2-3 mile runs daily along with fishing, boating, etc and she ate very little for her 85#, perhaps maybe 3 cups a day for a very active dog. Vet told us to start only feeding her 2 cups a day....she began literally acting like she was starving, even with veggies for snacks.

We tried several other store bought foods, as the individual specialty/holistic pet foods stores were VERY few and far between then, we're talking around 8-10yrs+ ago....Only one non-holistic food made somewhat of a difference and that was Nature's Choice, she seemed to have increased energy and her eyes were brighter.

She ate that for over 6mnths until the store stopped carrying it, in which I then put her on Avoderm/Pinnacle by Breeder's Choice....DRASTIC improvement, specially on their chicken/rice Avoderm formula.

She could eat 3 cups a day, feel full and started loosing weight, her eyes cleared up, the slimyness of her coat was replaced by healthy feeling hair....overall she took on a fantastic feeling of *health*, she looked better at 13yrs then she did at 3yrs.

I felt so HORRIBLE, and still do, that I took the cheap route and didn't want to have to pay for her food to be shipped...I had read about, even before she became hypo-thyroid, holistic foods but never *truly* believed they were so much better. I do now.

Lexie lived to be 16yrs old, living her last 3-4 yrs on Avoderm and Innova Senior foods with excellent results.

I will never feed my dogs anything of lessor quality again.

 BTW - here's a new pic of Rivers at 1yr

 Innova, when we tried it, was a little rich for Crusher's tummy, but he's a tough case.  Onyx with her Iron Gut was fine on it.  Coats and skin were as good as they ever were on any kibble, though I must say, feeding raw, they look 200% better than on any kibble we tried.  Onyx' coat has oily tendancies, so  I think it would be hard to make hers dry out.  The one and only hotspot we have dealt with was from a wet collar so no food issues in that area.  I did find they had some body odour with EP, but only with one of the regular formulas.  They did fine on the holistic.  No noticable smellyness with Innova though.

Both of my dogs do very well on Innova.  They do even better on the reduced fat version.  In fact, they do so well on it that I'm contemplating doing something I never thought I'd do--stop rotating and sticking with one food.

But . . . I'm a firm believer in the saying that "no one food is right for all dogs".  So if yours isn't doing well on Innova, I'd try something else.

My dog did okay on Innova, except she was extremely itchy.  I personally think it was the barley so high up on the ingredient list.  Her poops were somewhat soft and she definitely was not overfed (she's not much of an eater at all).   I switched to TOTW and she's not itchy at all and her poops are firmer, so I'm happy with it.  We won't be going back to Innova, I do think ingredient wise it's an awesome food though.

I always have fancied Innova.  The ingredients look wonderful. The company is awesome.  But my dogs do terrible on it.  Itchy/scratchy bichons. And then the bichons would get stool so hard they'd scream when they poo'd.  My minpin lost coat (dull, dry) and he always had diarrhea from it.  Just doesn't work for us.

Can I be honest and say the best ever his coat EVER looked in 12 years of feeding all kinds of foods was ProPlan! :)

They all eat sojo's now though. For the moment.

 There's a good bit of dairy in all the Natura products, which is fine, but it can be problematic for some dogs.  Have you tried Pinnacle?  I've heard so many good things about it for retriever-type dogs.

This is if you are positive you have eliminated the possibility that you are overfeeding.  Natura way overestimates the amount of food you'll need to feed.  I'm not sure why - it surely loses them customers, as people get bad results following their guidelines and abandon the food forever.

Failing that, you might try one of the grain frees to see whether it might be the grain.  He's old enough now that a food like Taste of the Wild or Core won't be a huge switch.  Just remember to switch slowly and go for the low estimate of the feeding guidelines, unless you know how many kcals he requires.  Then you can weigh the food the first time and there will be no guesswork.
 

When my Jacks were on Innova for several years, they were fine on it. Brookcove is correct about the feeding. My monitoring their stools, for my dogs it was 'half' the recommended servings cited by the Innova bag. Now they have been on the prey model and I realized something, when I computed their suggested serving to be fed, it worked out to be the same serving I was feeding them with Innova! However, since the weather has warmed I have had to increase their serving due to more activity outdoors.

I can tell you that he's definitely not getting TOO much Innova during feedings, as he's skin and rails, moderately active and only eating 2 cups a day.

Started him on Canidae last night, we'll see how that goes.

try adding some salmon body oil to his diet. Will probably fix the coat/skin issue rapidly.

 Ena is eating MORE than the bag recommends for a performance dog. She's a puppy, though, so I don't know if that counts, or not. She eats 3/4 cup a day, and she weighs in at an astonishing 5.9 lbs. She also gets 1/2 container of Danactive yogurt, and treats. Her stools look very nice.

Also, if your dog's stool is greasy in appearance, you may want to double check for parasites, especially roundworm, which can also cause dry coat.  I find that my Aussie type dogs do ok on Innova, but my hound prefers lower fat, lower carbs.