New Food & Bathroom Updates

For those who are dying to know!! Barry hasn't had diarrhea since we started switching him over to a new food and added Kefir for probiotics. The switch took us about 2 weeks. We did it slowly and healthy so that he wouldn't get upset stomach or diarrhea in the process which can be typical. He never got diarrhea once. We have stopped putting pumpkin in his food because Love from Honest Kitchen features pumpkin as an ingredient. We have kept up with the Kefir, though, because he seems to love it and it's good for his gut.

We are now totally on the Honest Kitchen food and during the switch we noticed a slight weight loss. We have started to monitor his weight and will weigh him once per week to see how he does. We have upped the amount of food we feed him from 1 1/2 cups to 2 cups per meal. With Blue Buffalo he only needed 1 1/2 cups per meal (total of 3 cups per day) but the Honest Kitchen may have slightly less calories (we're not too sure) so we have decided 4 cups per day for the Honest Kitchen will be better for him for now. We can't be sure that his weight loss was from the lack of calories but after we weigh him tonight we'll see where he is weight wise and take it from there. If he packs the pounds back on too fast we'll reduce the food a little. This is all a learning process. Not all foods are created equal. The Honest Kitchen has all natural and whole ingredients (human grade) and is so much easier to digest for Barry. Blue Buffalo is a good quality food but it still has some ingredients that don't agree with Barry and wasn't as easy for him to digest.

Speaking of his digestion, he has started to poo much less as well. He has one good one during the day and then maybe another small movement later. His gas is also minimal. Thank goodness.

Even after taking him to Wisconsin last weekend and being fed biscuits and sausage gravy he had no issues. No diarrhea. Usually after eating questionable food (such as biscuits and gravy) he would be embattled with diarrhea and stinky toots. Not this time! Not that I think it's a good idea to feed him whatever from now on... I just feel that now that he has a good base for food that his body can process, plus good probiotics which are helping to balance his flora, he can handle the occasional naughty treat with no problems. Such a relief.

We still aren't totally sure if he has a chicken allergy or if it was just the Blue Buffalo in general being processed and harder for him to digest that caused so many issues. For now I'm happy that he's doing so well. I wouldn't say we're out of the woods yet, but he's doing great right now. I want to wait before I totally get excited. I think once he's on this food alone for a good two weeks solid with no issues I can allow myself to get excited about this new food. I'm already pretty excited about it but no celebrations will be happening just yet.