shamrockmommy:It was NV Lamb formula. And I'm wondering if it's not the montmorillite clay that stained Darby's beard so terribly... ??
Honestly, the mont. clay would be way down on my list of suspects ... I'm a big fan of the stuff. :)
It assists the digestive tract in getting rid of toxins so if anything I'd say it's helpful.
We have also tried Nat. Balance Potato/Duck and that also caused tear and beard staining. I also generally feed the accompanying canned along with dry,
Looking at both the NV Prairie Lamb Meal & Oatmeal Medley (that's the formula you fed, isn't it?) and the NB Potato & Duck, I see that both (like many kibbles) contain flaxseed. Any chance that your two guys don't tolerate flaxseed well?
The canned formulas tend to have a few different ingredients, compared to the kibble, so you're juggling a lot of ingredients, and trying to eliminate what's causing the trouble becomes more difficult. For example, many canned foods use as gelling agent some seaweed protein, usually carrageenan (derived from a red algae). It is not unheard of for an animal to be intolerant of the stuff ...
Going to try the HK Thrive soon, as soon as it arrives :) And I'll let you know how that works. I may just have to do lots of variety and see how that works for them.
Either that - or, if you're trying to eliminate the cause of the tear staining, you could also try cutting down on the range of ingredients you feed ... for example: you could systematically eliminate all foods that contain flaxseed for a month. That would tell you whether flaxseed is the (or one) cause of tear staining. You could do the same with all canned foods that contain carrageenan or any other type of seaweed.
The HK Thrive would be an ideal formula to do this with, because it actually does not contain flaxseed (unlike the other HK formulas).
I do like the results of sojos, but I don't like all that grain- it's 2 parts grain to 1 part meat, and it just seems excessive to me, although they do love it and look otherwise ok.
The thing that puzzles me about Sojos : they recommend amounts and types of meat to feed with their grain mix ... but no organ meats! No liver - no heart - nothing! I find that extraordinary, to put it mildly. How on earth is the food going to be balanced for such minerals as copper and zinc, for example? And Vit B might be a bit short as well.
Thanks for listening to all of my rambling! I just want them to look and feel great :) which I think any fur-mom wants...
Absolutely - it's our mission in life! :)
Britta and the fussy toy poodles
