Honest Kitchen: Any Recent Gas?

Question for all the Honest Kitchen feeders out there: have your pugs been any more gassy than usual recently? Has their formula changed? Sammy in particular has been absolutely blowing me out of the place lately. Up until recently, the only one that my guys had issues with was Zeal, which gave Sam hideous gas. (I was kind of OK with that-- I didn't like the price tag on that one anyway! ) Recently, though, even our old standbys like Force and Keen have been setting them off. Thoughts?

Mac and LuLu eat Keen and Mac has had awful gas recently. I thought it was because of his habit of eating mulch, but with a snow covered yard for a bit that couldn't be the case.
Nothing has changed food or treat wise so I never considered it was THK...I don't know anything about their formula changing. It might be worth an email to their customer service.

I think they planned to replace their zucchini with pumpkin in the formula.... but, not sure that happened yet.

My pugs just gone through a box of Love, which they LOVED by the way! I did not notice any change. They are on a box of Keen right now, and doing good too.

Of course, I add raw meant / ground bone to the mix as well, so not sure if that makes any difference?

The ones that have been problematic recently that were previously fine have been Force and Keen (especially Force). We're in the middle of a small box of Verve right now, which I hadn't tried before. I'll probably need to retire that one before finishing it and just keep it for absolute emergencies, because I can barely stand to be around Sam right now, and Jackson's not far behind. I've got a big box of Keen and a small box of Love (which I'm also trying for the 1st time) in the closet, so I'm really hoping that it won't all go to waste.

Oh, and I did email them last night. Obviously I haven't heard anything back yet, but I"ll let you know what they say when I hear from them.

Ginger, the first ingredient in Verve is a grain, barley or rye, I believe.

I bet it is the Verve. I don't feed Verve to my puggies because of that grain. I do use Keen in my rotation, which has oats in it, but the oats have never been an issue for any of my pugs.

The Love is awesome, but it is much higher in protein, so watch for any reaction.

You're correct that Verve has a pretty high grain content compared to the other flavors, but since my guys haven't had issues with grains in the past and the protein/fiber contents are pretty similar to Force and Keen, I figured it would be worth a try for some variety. (And when I ordered it, I didn't realize how much they are now reacting to the Force and Keen!) I'm surprised it's been as big of a difference as it has. I'm eager to try the Love. It's a little more protein than Embark, but not too much of a difference. If they end up doing well on those two recipes, then perhaps I'm discovering that they just do better on higher protein.

We do Zeal, Keen, Thrive, Love and Embark and haven't noticed any gas issues over the past 60 days or so. If you've noticed the problems since opening the new boxes (brown kraft) with the ziploc bags - I'd say its probably definitely formula related. If you ping 'em on their FB page they usually respond within a couple of hours so if you don't hear back via email try that.

Well, I got a very nice email back from them. It didn't really shed much light on the situation at hand, but I liked that it was thoughtful and not only answered the question at hand but also gave some other suggestions to help fix the issue. I guess I kind of expect that from y'all, but not from and actual company selling their own stuff.

An excerpt of the response (minus the pleasant filler stuff): "We have not made any changes to Force, Keen or Verve. The only recent changes have been to Zeal and Preference. We just this month started new batches of Zeal with pumpkin in replace of the green beans. And the past few months we ever-so-slightly shifted the alfalfa and sweet potato in Preference but only by about 1%.

Some dogs do not digest or tolerate grains well which can cause gas and digestive upset. Both Verve and Keen contain organic grains. Force contains no grains but it does contain potato which some dogs do not tolerate well. And not all dogs do well with switching from food to food without a bit of a transition period. It is also quite common for dogs to become gassy from taking in too much air while they eat. This is especially true for dogs that have a tendency to gulp their food. Some digestive issues can be caused by a fat content that is too high for an individual dog, too. What else is included in Jackson and Sammy’s diet? Treats, etc?

You may wish to try adding a probiotic/prebiotic and a digestive enzyme supplement to help build their digestive strength. Prozymes, Total Zymes and Animal Essentials are a just a few."

Soooo... no big solutions so far, but I did open the box of Love today, and although it's still early, there's no horrendous room-clearing gas so far. Fingers crossed!