Finding The Right Dog Food - Taste Of The Wild High Prairie Puppy

Caution: Shit talking below. ;) No, seriously I'm talking about poop.

Anyone who has a puppy/dog knows that there are an overabundance of different dog food brands. But what brand should you buy? Everyone has their own opinion on which food is "the best" for your pet. To be quite honest, I had no idea what I wanted to feed Finn. All I knew is we had to get him something. And it couldn't be outrageously priced.

Finn's food history
When we first adopted our furry little friend, the lady we rescued him from said he was eating Purina Puppy Chow. Now, I was positive I didn't want to feed him this. Because, well... no offense Purina or anyone who likes Purina, but there's no denying that there are much better foods to feed a 10 week old puppy. So, we went to the pet store and decided on Iams Puppy. It was more expensive, therefore, we "thought" it was a good food. Since the switch from Purina Puppy to Iams Puppy, Finn's poop had either been rock solid or explosive diarrhea. That poor pup very rarely had a normal poop and his butt looked raw every time he took a shit. At first, I associated it with switching his food so abruptly and him just being a puppy. Once the bag of Iams Puppy was getting low and Finn's poor butt had suffered enough. I finally decided it was time to do some research. I really wanted to get him a grain free food. It's just better for them. You don't see wild dogs munching on grain and corn. Why should a domestic dog? The issue is, our cat is fed grain free food because of his sensitive stomach and it is EXTREMELY expensive. Grain Free dog food is even more expensive! So, I was somewhat concerned we were going to go broke feeding our pets. With bags ranging from $40.00 - $75.00!  After a lot of research and a lot of comparing prices and ingredients I decided to order Taste of The Wild High Prairie Puppy and give it a go.

On Chewy.com, we ordered a 30 - lb bag for $43.79. Its almost the exact same price as what we were paying for the 30lb bag of Iams BUT the ingredients are 1000 times better than Iam's. With real meat and no grain or corn fillers I thought this would be a great choice and hopefully fix Finn's butt issues. The only thing that I can see that isn't "perfect" is the use of meat meals instead of just meat. But overall, I rate these ingredients very  high.

When switching him over I planned on the process taking about 2 weeks of gradually increasing the TOTW and decreasing the Iam's. Poor Finn. My poor pup had explosive diarrhea for a good week. He never had any accidents, it wasn't 'that' bad, but when he had to go he REALLY had to go. So after 2 solid weeks of my pup having terrible poops and even worse gas I was about to pull the plug and go back on the food search. I read on the Taste of The Wild website that giving your dog a little plain non fat yogurt may help so I did and it did help a little but I also wasn't about to feed my dog yogurt of the rest of his life. He was out of Iam's at this point and only had TOTW left. So I reluctantly fed him the food, dreading his next poop. As I'm sure he was too. But, to my surprise. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't solid but it wasn't anywhere near his terrible diarrhea which had become normal. So that night, I again fed him TOTW. His poop got even better. Its now been 3 weeks and I can safely say Finn's poops are so good he could win an award! I have a happy puppy with amazing poops and he doesn't nearly have to go as often! We are both happy and so is his little bum.

Looking back I probably should have slowed down the process and waited for his poop to get better before continuing to add more TOTW and less Iams. But, I associated the diarrhea with TOTW not Iam's when really, the Iam's was the problem all along!  But hey you live and you learn! If you're looking to try a grain free food but don't want to spend more on your dog's food than you do for your own I would recommend trying Taste Of The Wild. I'm sure there are "better" foods out there, but we have to be conscious of how much we spend.

Tucker The Cat's TOTW experience
*I recently switched my cat from Solid Gold to Taste Of The Wild and I'm happy with this as well. He loved Solid Gold but they recently changed their ingredients AND the price! The ingredients didn't matter as much to me as the cost. It still has good ingredients. But the price pretty much stayed the same, ranging from $35.00-$37.00 a bag. But the amount went from 15lbs to 12lbs per bag! Three pounds of cat food goes a long way so...I wasn't happy about that. The Taste Of The Wild cat food that we got him is only $25.00 for 15lbs! It hasn't made him sick (which most foods do) and its $10.00 cheaper. We'll be continuing to buy TOTW for both the dog and the cat.

Is there a better food you would recommend for dogs or cats that is roughly the same price? Let know!!!