Hi all, Our chocolate lab Byron is now almost 14 months old. He is still currently on Orijen Large Breed Puppy food. He looks incredibly well, nice shiney coat and a good weight. Everyone comments, and I think it is down to being on the good quality kibble. However, over the last few months his stools are quite often soft and light in colour, and sometimes runny. Usually it is fine in the morning, he then might have a softer stool during the day and recently has had a couple really runny stools, but normally goes back to normal the following day. We feed him twice a day. Normally around 7.30am in the morning, and then again about 5.30pm. We have cut out most treats and use the Orijen kibble for training but this hasn't made a difference. We were feeding him about 350 grams a day, but we have dropped this down to 300 grams to see if that helped, which did seem to improve the stools slightly, but now we are back to before. So my thoughts now are maybe we should be switching him onto adult food, and also maybe we should try a the fish based Orijen to see if that makes any difference?
I`m sorry you have this problem, its so frustrating ! Byron is definitely ready to tackle Junior or Adult foods now , so yes , I`d give it a try . Change over gradually if you can, mixing the two foods for a week or so , good luck !
How is his body shape? It might be that he's still getting too much food? How much does he weigh? According to the puppy food feeding guide, a 30kg dog would be on 290g a day - of course, all dogs are different, and this is only a base line, but often Labradors need significantly less than the bags say. They seem to be masters of eking every last calorie out of their food!
Ah, scratch the above link, it was for the regular puppy food. Here's the feeding guide for the Large Breed puppy food: http://www.orijenpetfoods.co.uk/dog-food/dry-dog-food/puppy-large/ This says 320g for a 30kg dog, so for most Labs, 300g would still be quite a lot. As I say, there are exceptions, for example @Kelsey&Axel's boy is fed more than the recommended amount because he apparently has the same metabolism as my husband (who can eat anything and stay skinny, the git), but unless he's looking underweight, I'd first try reducing the amount by a quarter or so.
Thank you for the responses. He is slim for a lab, but not too skinny. He weighs about 28kg now. We were following this feeding guide for the food http://www.orijenpetfoods.co.uk/dog-food/dry-dog-food/puppy-large/#panel12210695914 which states it should be 360g for a 20kg growing puppy, then drop it down to 320g when they are getting to 30kg. We are now on 300g a day. I thought maybe the fish Orijen as the reviews seem to show this is better for dogs with more sensitive stomachs.
I think it's worth dropping it down to see. My boy, Shadow, was sensitive to the amount of food he had when he was a puppy. He would get the squits if he was over-fed. He was actually skinny a lot of the time and I struggled to get weight on him. I would get him to a good condition and then he'd have a growth spurt and look like an abuse case again. But giving him more food was no good for his stomach. If he's a good build, then maybe try introducing a third meal again; it might simply be that he can't cope with the volume of food split over only two meals. I'm no nutritionist, but I'd have thought if he were intolerant to the ingredients, he'd be suffering from runny poo all the time, not just later on in the day.
thanks for the advice @snowbunny I think dropping the amount and maybe trying 3 meals a day is a good idea, we will give that a try!
We got on great with the Orijen when we used it with Lilly but she was probably 2 or 3 when she had it. I remember another member trying it and it causing runny poo though so like we always say, it doesn't suit all of them. Hope you manage to get things settled down.
I tried it but it upset Doug terribly whatever I tried it's a nice food and their treats are great but it just didn't do my old boy any good.
