Looking for Good Senior Dog Food to Replace Weight Mgmt Food

[LindaC]

I have been feeding my 8 year old Chocolate Labrador Retriever Nutro Weight Management food for about 4 - 5 years now and really want to take him off of this food, one because I am tired of picking up all his stools, and let me tell you there are many, and second because he still seems hungry all the time.

Last weekend I purchased a bag of Nutro Max Large Breed food, not thinking that he should now be on senior dog food, but I already started weaning him off the weight management and I don't want to waste it either. So I will feed it to him but then I would like to put him on a good Senior food and I am looking for recommendations.

Before I put him on weight management food, I was feeding him California Natural and he seemed to do well on that food. Cocoa loves to eat and seems to do well on most foods.... However, he was putting on the lbs and was 13-14 lbs overweight when I took him to the vets for his yearly checkup. She told me to get his weight down, so I did. Even though Cocoa turned 8 years old at the end of December, he is a very active dog, people cannot believe he's as old as he is, he's always jumping around and is still very playful.

I want to see him on a healthy food that will not cause him to gain too much weight. I walk him everyday although this past winter has been hard due to all the snow we've had. I also like to supplement his food with 3-4 tablespoons of yogurt and 3-4 tablespoons of pumpkin, alternating days.

Any advice or suggestions on a good food is very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
Linda

[JessN]

I dont have a suggestion of a specfic dog food for your dog. But I have heard from my friend, who was having weight issue with her elderly dog, that alot of the senior or weight control labeled actually could increase your dog's weight. Alot of brands out there use high amount of grain to lower the calories count, but dog's digestive system is different and they end up gaining more weight. So I what I would recommand is that whatever you decide to get, try to get something with low grains. My dog (terrier) is about 2.5 years old and very active so she hasn't gotten to the point where I need to worry about her weight. Its tough to find anything healthy these days without going online and spending 5 dollar on shipping. I get my dog food from Shoprite, and I think Nutro Max is the best they got. Although recently they added this refrigerator in the pet food section, which sell fresh dog food called Freshpet Select. I haven't tried it yet but heard its suppose to be pretty healthy. Personally I cook most the time and only use dog food when I dont feel like it. hope this helps!

Jess

[Ryan]

Hi Linda. Personally, I've taken my dog off of commercial food, but prior to that my progression of brands were: Science Diet as a pup, then Eukanuba, then Nutro Ultra Weight Management, Canine Zone, Nutro Natural Senior, Nutro Ultra Senior, then finally J/D Prescription Diet which he was on until I switched him to fresh food. I know grain-free is the big thing right now but I never went that route on account of most of them contain tapioca or potato. Tapioca I read is actually slightly poisonous so I didn't feel comfortable feeding him food with that in it on a regular basis, and potato supposedly can irritate arthritis so I opted against foods with that as an ingredient. If you're looking for grain-free or low grain then none of the above would foot the bill, but if your ok with grains then of the list I'd say the Nutro Ultra Senior is your best bet as it only contains 2 of them and they're the ones with the least controversy surrounding them: whole brown rice (high content) and oatmeal (low content). The only reason I switched from the Nutro Ultra Senior to the J/D was on account of Gunther's arthritis which the J/D is specifically formulated to address. As for the weight management foods, I generally agree with Jess, although I have to say I had very good results with the Canine Zone. It's formulated based on the Zone Diet for humans created by Dr. Sears (I think that was his name). It's the only one Gunther ever lost any significant weight on and the stools were much more manageable than on the Nutro Weight Management and he wasn't hungry all the time. If you find your dog starts gaining weight again and you need to go back to a Weight Management food, you might consider giving that one a try.