It’s the New Year, time for a change, time to make improvements. This is when a lot of us will try new exercises, new foods, even new ways of feeding our animals. As a health care provider I often get asked for advice on transitioning the family dog to Carna4. Even though it looks like kibble because it is baked, Carna4 is entirely different due to its ingredients and the type of bake we do (minimal) so transitioning is either going to be ridiculously easy or take more time.
Ridiculously Easy – put Carna4 in a bowl next to the dog’s old food and watch her go for the Carna4 every time. Your dog knows the aroma of real meat when she smells it, meat that has not had all the yummy extruded out of it. Your dog will want to gobble it, but make sure she takes her time! Carna4 is packed with more nutrition and calories, cup for cup, than almost all of the other brands so your dog needs to eat less Carna4 than she did of her old food. Watch that she doesn’t bolt it because that too has consequences for her digestion. If she eats it too fast you may see whole nuggets coming out in her poop because she did not bother to chew! After you’ve had your fun of watching her make the switch instantly, it’s probably best to transition her slowly by adding ¼ Carna4 to the bowl of ¾ old food, gradually increasing the Carna4 percentage over a week or so. Better to be conservative so that her body gets used to it, which leads me to the other type of transition story…
More Time Needed – because Carna4 contains such unique human-grade ingredients including the awesome super-food of sprouted seeds, some dogs’ digestive systems take more time to adjust. They’ve got to get used to such clean eating, in the same way you would should you choose to take all the artificial foods out of your diet. (Think about that) You may notice your dog’s stools might be bigger and a bit softer at first. Don’t worry, all the many billions of native probiotics in Carna4 are in your dog’s intestines, doing their job of changing over its microflora, e.g. kicking out the ‘bad’ pathogenic bacteria and replacing it with ‘good’ healthy bacteria. This takes some time, and your dog’s stool will return to a more ‘normal’ state, though it will never be hard as a rock again, and that’s a good thing.
One more resource at your disposal while your dog is transitioning is Flora4 probiotic supplement. Adding one serving (see package for your dog’s serving size) of our pure organic sprouted seeds to every serving of Carna4 will help speed the process of rebuilding the microflora in her intestines and normalizing her stools.
For every dog, the conservative, go-slow approach will be best, and we encourage you to give it a try. If you need help, email us anytime. All the best in this exciting new year!
– Maria Ringo, Director of Health