I am always searching for the best dog and cat food in the world. So I have switched dog foods many times, without the bowel problems. I don't switch foods everyweek because something is on sale. They have been on their current food for awhile now. I also mix soft with the dry food for my dogs and cats. As long as you slowly add the new food over a period of a few weeks you should be find. We humans don't eat the same food everyday, so why should our pets. As long as the switching is done properly, our beloved pets will be fine. I try to keep feeding time for my pets fresh and inviting. So far I have not had a problem. Thanks.

Starting in 1967 with our very first dog, followed a few years later by our very first cat, we began regularly and relentlessly switching foods--we tried to avoid feeding the same brand/formula two bags in a row. This was partly because my parents believed that variety, variety, variety was an important part of a healthy diet, and partly because too many people my parents knew had pets would only eat one brand of food, and they had real problems if the favored brand just wasn't available for a week or three.

There was never a problem with this, until seventeen years ago I acquired a kitten who had, shall we say, digestive issues. For her, and therefore for the other cats while I had her, there was a very limited set of foods that didn't cause her to vomit and have diarrhea on a regular basis. It wasn't switching as such; she just had lots of food intolerances, and could only eat what didn't offend those intolerances.

She died this past winter, and my surviving cat, no spring chicken herself at twelve, is quite able to tolerate easily whatever changes I choose to make, though I'm not being nearly as aggressive about it as I used to be. At least, not for her. For my dog, she gets, every day, one bowl of Honest Kitchen, one meal of home-cooked, with the meat, veg, and starch rotated every batch, and one meal of a high-quality kibble, rotated every bag. She's doing fantastic on this.

My current vet approves. My previous vet, I just smiled and nodded politely when she expressed her views on nutrition.

By feeding a pet the exact same food for every meal of their life we are ensuring that they lose some of the digestive enzymes and probiotics needed to properly digest anything else. Bodies are very efficient, if they don't need it, they stop making it. The solution, if you want to change foods and you have an older dog who has been eating the same thing for years, swing by the local health food store, pick up a bottle of digestive enzymes and a bottle of probiotics to make the switch easier. We are also beginning to learn that having the stomach and intestines populated with a variety of flora is good for over all health. I think this is one benefit of raw feeding, when you're switching proteins every meal, you're training the body to maintain a healthy balance of flora.

Why don't vets offer practical advise to make the switch easier rather than discouraging clients from switching to a better food? Would human doctors tell their patients not to eat healthier because they might get some indigestion from a sudden increase in vegetable consumption?

I feel so lazy the way I feed my dogs raw. But I have checked and it seems to be a healthy diet.

Rotate generally hearts, gizzards, some liver, from different animals. Add eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese. Raw bones once a week. Only takes a few more minutes than pouring from a bag.

With all the recalls, I will keep making their meals. It is a lot of work but they are old. We have 2 pups just came home, Now they are going to eat what thier Pet Doctor, says, no more spoiling.................LOL

I have to tell the truth, Anton and Tosha (2 pups) are very spoiled already. But they will eat what their Doctor said,

My dog is on a constantly revolving kibble type with intermittent raw and wet--and some treats. I think variation in food is part of what makes like interesting. But then he is a fairly bomb-proof mix breed who hasn't been sick a day in his life (if you don't count that ringworm episode).

I'm sorry, but I am really getting tired of some vets getting on blogs or writing for big dog companies telling us that the way it's been for the last 50 years is the way it needs to be.

Vets don't make a lot of money off of healthy, non over- vaccinated, non over-medicated (steroids), non auto-immune suppressed animals. Before the invention of the corn based kibble still so prevalent today, our dogs ate what we ate, off the farm table.

If you feed your animal the same food for years on end, you're asking for an allergy eruption of one kind or another.

Most vets and I stress, most not all, do NOT like holistic, raw or better quality foods for dogs because feeding that way cuts down on allergy, illness or gastric incident visits to the vet.

Today's dogs are dying prematurely from cancer, diabetes and other issues related to eating an inferior diet better left to a farm animal.

So my question is, whose interest are they really serving? This as I find an ad on this page for Science Diet, one of the worst foods on the market and in almost every vet clinic in the country. Ugh!

EmilyPK, my dog, who is doing extremely well on her extremely varied diet, is one of those effete, useless, purebred toy breeds, so you might want to rethink whether it's the virtue of being Mixed that is making your dog do well.

IMO, cats are much more difficult to switch to a new food than dogs are. So speaking for cats only, I still believe a variety of foods is best suited for reasons such as making sure they have a complete nutritional diet; in case you run across a contaminated batch (maybe this should be the first reason); to keep them actively engaged in their food and not become bored with it; etc.

However, everyone's definition of "variety" is of course different. If you feed one brand with 3 different flavors, verses feeding three or more brands with 3-4 flavors each is a big difference. I see time and time again on other blogs/forums people switching foods, and flavors, all the time and then wondering why the poor kitty has digestive problems. I know we as humans eat a lot of variety, but cats are not humans and cannot "stomach" so many changes constantly. I'll be interested in seeing the next topic posted regarding how and why to switch!

The brand of food I feed my dogs actually encourages people to 'rotate' different flavors and wet/dry/raw. I buy them a new flavor every month or so when the last bag has been used up, and I never have had any problems.

A reality check for RealityCheck: Except for my recently-deceased girl of seventeen years, I've never had a cat that I adopted as a kitten have trouble with regular food switches. No, they're not humans, or dogs, and their digestive systems need a bit more respect--but if they are raised with variety, they thrive on it.

People who let kitty get too comfortable with just one food are all too likely to find themselves with a problem when the day comes that that food is unavailable, temporarily or permanently.

Eilis, didn't I state "I believe in a variety of food is best suited"? Didn't I say "IMO" (in my opinion)? Sure, starting kittens out on a variety of food will have them endure more food changes. What about people that adopt a mature kitty? Why the big huff??

I will state again, and looking at all the tremendous problems posted about kitty's digestive abilities, if you feed 5-6 different foods vs. 15-20 different foods is a big difference. Followed by IMO. Get it?

Eilis, of course a purebred dog can enjoy robust good health and I would never say otherwise, but hybrid vigor is something of a tonic when you look over large groups of animals including pedigrees en masse (including those with a high rate of congenital conditions). Although I would note that I said he was mix breed *and* bomb proof and made no claims as to causation. I am sure it is only one of many factors at work in his overall health. As a psychologist I doubt I would ever say one thing 100% causes the other. Good versus bad breeding can equally be a factor for pedigree animals.

i will usually buy what i have a coupon for. it goes between purina one, beneful, puppy chow. my cats will only eat friskies indoor (even tho they are outdoors) and the naturals ( favorite). purina one also but they dont put out a lot of coupons. i tried the holistic dog food thing but it is way too expensive. my poodle lived 18 yrs an all she ever ate was catfood. she lived a great life, never sick. its like people, some eat healty and still die early and some eat like my husbands granmother (bacon, fats and smoked) and lived til she was 93.

I'm excited to see tomorrow's post! I'd love to hear a few more tricks of the trade on how to switch foods - especially when it's time for a pup to see a vet after a messy episode.

I'm always adding goodies to my little's diet. The only time she's had a digestive upset was after she got into a Chipotle Chicken sandwich that I left in the car as a ran into a gas station. Needless to say, that wasn't my only run in what gas that day.

The cats mostly get a mix of fancy "up-market" kibble and the weight control stuff, along with wet food once or twice a week. We change the fancy stuff and the other food after each bag. So far they have tolerated the changes perfectly well.

My thinking is they're less likely to run into some nutritional deficiency that manifests itself over a long time if there's variety in the sources.

We've a set protocol for feeding at our house. I'm very happy with the way our pets eat. Their main feed is kibble, we then add a bit of canned and homemade foods. All of our pets have lived 14-22 years, unless death was due to trauma, etc. I don't really like to switch foods and feed... I don't do it much myself, either :)

Thanks to the Menu Foods Recall, the dog we adopted in 2008 has been put on a varied diet of a mixture of three different dog foods - Prairie, Castor & Pollux Organix, and Orijen at the moment. And then his training treats are two other kinds of dog food - Wellnes in his Manners Minder and Natural Balance rolls that we cut up for working on tricks and such.

His stomach is pretty tolerant so no problems with various food changeups. Our previous dog was pretty much the same way.

The cats are more difficult - pickier about what they will eat whereas the dog will eat just about anything I put in front of him. And digestive issues their whole lives that made changing foods a challenge. I'm in the midst of trying some different foods and so far the digestive issue hasn't reared it's ugly head... not sure why it's okay now but I'm lovin' it.

I don't know that it's factually correct to say that our pets are dying prematurely of anything. Seems to me, anecdotally, that life spans have actually been expanding with better care and that could just as easily be the reason that we see more conditions like diabetes occurring. Pets, like people, develop more illnesses and failed body functions when they live to a longer age. We now die of things like cancer and heart disease because we no longer die primarily of diphtheria or small pox or childbirth.

Oh yes. I switch foods regularly. For the cats and the dogs. Sometimes I mix two different brands of food together, even. Plus the dogs get regular healthy table scraps and fresh food added to their meals. I've never had a problem and I suspect that's because I switch regularly, because their stomachs are used to change and variation. We rarely have GI issues around here. Occasionally I'll hit a food that makes my Border Collie itchy (I haven't narrowed down which ingredient does that), but that's about it.

When I took the veterinary physiology course at U Penn in the 1980's(part of the course work for a PHD in Anatomy) Hills provided a free "text book" on animal nutrition for the students. Had we not also had Dr David Kronfeld who had a specific research interest in canine nutrition, that would have been all of the detailed nutritional information given to the students. Dr Kronfeld ran a column in teh AKC Gazette for a number of years called something like "Home Cooking for your Pet" which was a mini-course in animal nutrition. He advocated adding cooked meat to dry commercial kibble. His research indivicated that the vitamin balance of the commercial kibble was not "diluted" by the meat because the presence of the meat increased the efficiency of uptake of vitamins and micro nutrients from the kibble. He was not an advocate of raw meat because of the potential parasite and bacterial load that can be present in raw meat.

When we later purchased the boarding kennel I was given invitation to "seminars" held by various representatives of the big dog food companies. At one of these seminars I asked about switching brands from a marketing point of view - the representative said that there food had a stool former in it so that when dogs were switched off the food the owner would observe loose stools on the new food and come back to the original brand. I do not know if this is actually true but that is what he said.

At the boarding kennel we will feed the food the owner supplies if the owner requests it. Otherwise I feed a regionally manufactured wheat free food that is milled in the mill owned by the dog food company and which only has North American Sourced ingredients. We do not see intolerance of this food in the boarders and in our own dogs we have rarely seen any dermal reaction food allergies. In fact I have reversed such allergic responses by switiching back to our food in dogs that have come back to us because of skin problems.

Periodically our dog get different formulae of this food and also some canned - meat based foods that are grain free.

Going over to an entirely home made diet needs to be done carefully because of the problem of getting the vitamin and micro nutrient balance correct. Wild canids eat the whole carcass of small prey and also will eat protein rich feces of other wild animals such as Bobcats and Lynx. This may be a source of some vitamins and minerals (but also of parasites).

Wild Canids may not be very long lived. According to a book I read recently on the wolves of Yellowstone Park, the maximum age any wolf attained was 8 years of age and most of the cubs die before a year of age.

I foster kittens from a local shelter. They eat what ever is donated, and that is a wide variety, from the junkiest dry food to the most premium of canned foods (and I usually slip in a little of the raw I feed my own crew at some point - btw, watching kittens eat raw meat, UBER funny!!)

Over the years, I've adopted quite a few of my own fosters, and I have to say they have the strongest stomachs I've ever seen. While they eat mostly raw, from time to time we forget to thaw enough for the next meal and have to jump into a can of what ever happens to be around the house. Sometimes it's junk, sometimes it's good. They eat it (and love it) and nary a sign of digestive upset.

Because of my experiences, and my knowledge of digestive upset with food changes, I usually suggest to people who ask that they keep up the mix of food. Even if they want to feed Brand X, that every once in a while they mix it up, because you never know when Brand X is going to change their forumla or go out of business.