Dog Cannot Eat Fancy Brands?

[encouraging_angels]

I tried Innova Evo with almost shocking consiquences on my Labrador mix, she became extremely hyper, and aggressiVE while on a tiny bit of this food. She almost ate a dog for dinner and 2elderly couples-She lost control of everything including her lovely and wouldn't hurt a fly nature--She was so badly behaved that i consider euthanise her-she normal very well behaved sweety. I immediately stop the food, and put her back on her normal "junk food such as Proplan" it took 2days for her to be back to normal. I ran into the elderly couple 2weeks later and she was best buddies with them, like she was with most people. I presume that amount of protein made her go crazy.

I recently trieed Artemis Adult- and although reaction was better she still had weirdness-started to bark at people, which is out of character for her. So again not the food for her.

When on the other premium senior diets such as Science Diet, Advance, Proplan etc she starts to eat rocks, however with the other formular she perfectly normal.

What would cause these strange behaviours?

NEVER mention it to the vet as the problems resolved after the food was stopped.

Edited June 3, 2010 by encouraging_angels

[persephone]

What did your vet say after this behaviour?

[Erny]

Hey Encouraging .....

Is there a reason why you need to make your font so big and bold? I feel as though it is screaming at me, but perhaps you have good reason for it?

Regards the food - I guess it would be a matter of carefully and thoroughly investigating the labels to determine what is in one yet not in the other. Diet can and does affect behaviour, but not so often does it do it to that extreme extent, in my experience.

[becks]

I had the same thing happen when my giant was on pedigree dry foods, soon as she was back to the previous diet, she was fine again. In her case she became dog aggressive on Pedigree.

[matilda1]

did you make the diet change gradually?

A diet change can be very traumatic for dogs.

That being said I have no doubt that some fillers and ingerdients can react with dogs just the same as foods can with children and their behaviour.

[Red Fox]

Could the diet have simply been too high in protein? Innova and Artemis are both grain free foods as far as I'm aware (though I'm not sure if they are also high protein??)

Or it could even be a reaction to a certain ingredient or protein source.

Have you tried a more natural diet such as BARF? What are you feeding now?

Might be worthwhile bringing it up with your vet to see what they suggest.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

I've got no behaviour problems with my dog on nutro natural choice - which according to the dogfood project or dogfood analysis sites - is pretty crap.

I wouldn't feed innova evo - because in Australia - it's exclusively sold by a company that supports puppy mills.

http://www.bowhouse.com.au/g/30468/dogs-dry-food.html

Glad a change of diet sorted your dog. It does make me wonder if the dog is some how restricted in activity by lack of nutrients in the so called crap dog food, ie the ones full of stuff like corn meal. Ie it's now not got enough energy to be bothered being aggressive. My dog frequently got the runs on food like this. I changed food and no more runny poo.

It is important to follow the recommended serving size on the pack - which usually means weighing your dog and the food. You can also reduce the amount of food by 1/3 if the dog is desexed. And more if the dog doesn't get a lot of walking or has other sources of food like treats or bones.

And changing the food over too quickly can cause stomach upsets, and the pain of that might cause aggression. Plenty of animals and humans lash out when they're in pain.

There might also be something in the food that your dog is allergic to. This would probably need the help of a vet to diagnose. Some dogs do seem to be allergic to meat protein and there would be a lot more of this in the premium brand dog food than the cheap brands.