Dry food for sensitive tummy?

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Our rescue pup has a very sensitive tummy. All dry food gives him the runs and some tinned food. I don't think it is allergies as he is fine with raw food and we haven't excluded any protein types. He has a good variety of protein types plus veg, offal, and bone. It could be a wheat allergy but he doesn't have any other symptoms. His eyes and ears are clear, his coat is healthy and he's not itchy.

Anyhow, I sometimes struggle to get his raw food and cannot afford to feed him tinned. I need a dry food to keep in for times when getting his raw is hard.

We have so far tried James Wellbeloved, Skinner's chicken and rice and Autarky puppy. All made him liquid shit several times a day. Some tinned foods also have the same effect eg Chappie. The tins he can eat are too expensive.

I had a conversation with my vet about the same issue yesterday. Puppy is 5 months and been soft/runny frequently for a month. Plan of action is to try a specialist gastrointestinal kibble for a few weeks with a probiotic, and (assuming improved) she says it's likely puppy will be OK going back to a standard kibble, but we will see how we go.

There were a few kibble choices she suggested, but the only one with a specific puppy version was Royal Canin Gastrointestinal, so I've gone with that.

So I ordered the special kibble for delivery Monday and packed away all treats with the intention of having nothing but the plain kibble for a while. Today she has had two lovely solid poos. Great. But the special kibble hasn't even arrived yet 😂 It's like she's cured in response to vet suggestability!

The main things she didn't have yesterday vs previous few weeks were sprats and venison training treats. She did get some banana and some cooked carrot (mainly to stick kibble to kong & mat).

I should add, this advice was based on puppy seeming otherwise healthy, happy, growing well, etc.

He's fully grown and a good weight. He came to me with liquid shits. When I contacted the rescue they told me he'd been in the puppy room free-ranging with lots of puppies and they knew one of the puppies was liquid shitting everywhere but they didn't know which puppy. They'd fed him on various dry foods that were donated. We put him on Autarky for two months, then switched to JWB for a month then tried Skinners. I then gave up on dry and went to raw and he had his first solid poo ever after day 1. After just one meal of kibble he liquid shits again.

I don't want to change him to kibble full-time. I'm happy with raw barring the difficulty getting hold of it. Would the Royal Canin still work if he was only having it for a few meals at a time or is it something that takes time to get into his system?

I don't really know, but the vet did say for the gastrointestinal kibble to just do a hard switch to it, and not worry about a managed transition from her current kibble.

Thanks @brawhen. I might order a small bag to keep in to test. If you find you're still having issues with the Royal Canin I can heartily recommend raw. It was a literal game changer for us and if you can find a local supplier it works out cheaper than most quality kibble and all tins.

My 20kg pup costs around £1 a day to feed raw from a local supplier. My only issue is they don't deliver and I don't drive. They're not close enough to me to be able to walk/use public transport and haul it all back home so I have to wait until someone will drive me. I find the raw suppliers who do deliver are a lot more expensive.

Royal canin is very poor nutritionally. Best look at allaboutdogfood website. Try a top quality food like Acana pacifica or Orijen. Always works for fussy eaters with sensitive tummies. Royal canin is garbage food, sold by vets because they make a hige mark up on it. Google it or check out my recommendation for independent advice.

We’ve fairly recently switched completely to burgess sensitive salmon. Our rescue greyhound seemed to be intolerant of anything poultry based and ‘wet’ food. Since being on Burgess she poops a lot less and it is possible to actually pick it up!

We feed pooch and mutt calm, because it's turkey. No chicken, no grain both of which give my pooch the bum of doom.

It's been fantastic, and he looks SO well on it, even the vet commented on his condition.

I was once told by a vet that feeding your dog kibble is the best way to get solid poos... DM and DP's dog has a very sensitive tummy and they feed her on a (vet recommended) white fish (zero grains) kibble which has sorted her out a treat. Can ask them the brand if you want?

My vet told me the same thing re kibble but it has the opposite effect on mine. I've never known a dog like him and I used to work in rescue so I've met a lot of dogs with a lot of dietary issues.

When I talked to the vet we were offered Hills prescription food, which I politely declined and they then advised to find a grain-free kibble which is when we made the switch to JWB grain free which made 0 difference.

I'm well aware of the issues with Hills/Royal Canin and would never feed either full-time but this is literally 2-3 meals once or twice a month. He'd be on raw the rest of the time so I'm not so fussed about it being nutritionally complete.

Pooch and Mutt calm sounds interesting. The JWB was white fish and veg and he loved it but it didn't love him.

It could be chicken/chicken fat setting pooch off. Sometimes the ingredients still have chicken fat in, even when it's not advertised as chicken based food. Chicken fat is what sets my lads tummy off most.

We tried a few foods. He was great on Eden but went off it during his fusspot teen months but the pooch and mutt has been fab.