Claire is a Shih Tzu puppy, now 6 months. I started her out on Purina Puppy Chow, which is what her breeder had been feeding and she was ok with that for a while, but became picky. I also noticed that she seemed constipated with this. A neighbor mentioned that her vet had suggested adding 1/4 teasp. of cottage cheese, to keep eliminations regular. It helped some. Also was adding a bit of Gerbers baby lamb....what a hassle. So, I found out about Purina Pro Plan and got the Lamb and Rice kibble. Claire liked this better, than the other Purina, but then had to start adding stuff and recently she seems to just not wanna eat it. Not good. I was at the vet this am picking up Claire's medicine for post being spayed, she's in pain and one of the girl's there suggested INNOVA. I failed to mention that Claire LOVES raw APPLES, CARROTS, BANANNA, okra, she's like a VEGAN puppy. She's also NEVER wanted to eat kibble dry. When I put the INNOVA down, dry, just a few kibbles, she LOVED it! No wonder with all the natural ingredients. She just wanted more. She is now sleeping peacefully and I am hopeful that she will respond well, ( not have diareaha, etc.) I would imagine gas is a given with the fresh fruit etc. I was also a bit floored by the price, but it's a small company and ingredients are worth the xtra cost. Also,  if she's happy then it's worth the $$.

DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE A SMALL BREED PUPPY ON THE INNOVA? IF SO HOW IS YOUR RESPONDING? STOOLS OKAY? Thanks and have a Blessed Day! 

Three dogs:

Chihuahua, 3 years old, 4.5 pounds

Siberian Husky, 4 months old, 12 pounds and growing.

Pembroke Welsh Corgi, 2 years old, 25 pounds.

I have fed these dogs, at varying points in time and not always at the same time, the following foods: Pedigree for Small Breeds, Pedigree, Canidae, Innova, and now Orijen.

Pedigree: bought a the grocery store when it was just my Chihuahua and I was a relatively uninformed dog owner. Never really noticed anything wrong at the time - her stools were firm, and she seemed okay to me physically. Then the Husky pup came along, and she had been fed Pedigree as well. She had loose stools that would not go away. The Corgi we adopted at about the same time, and she had been feeding on Canidae, which we got in small supply from her previous owner. She seemed fine too. But I knew that I couldn't continue this hodgepodge of foods, so I started doing research on a good dog food to buy for all of them. This is when I really got into the research (the gluten scare helped this along too). Orijen immediately stood out as having the best ingredients, but it wasn't available locally and I was a little leery of shipped dog food. So I settled on Innova Adult.

Chihuahua: She appeared to do well on the food - no puking or diarrhea - but she didn't appear to like the taste or texture of the kibble. She would eat three or four, then walk away. I would have to had feed her to eat any more than that. With hand feeding, though, her energy levels did go up and her coat looked shinier. Still, what good is healthy food if your dog doesn't want to eat it?

The Sibe pup: She liked the taste just fine, but she still had pretty bad diarrhea on Innova Adult. After a few weeks, I switched her to Innova puppy, and it helped a little bit (stools with a pudding consistency). Supplemented by pumpkin, it got a little better, but I was disappointed. Her energy levels remained low on Innova Adult, but rose quite a bit on the Puppy (probaby because her diarrhea was less frequent and less liquid).

The Corgi: Appeared to do well at first, but she started to like it less and less, and started to have loose stool to boot. It got to the point where her energy level was way down, and she would only eat once a day. It was this that finally made me switch to Orijen.

You can see the results of that switch in my Orijen review. To summarize, I now feed Orijen and will for the foreseeable future.

Now, I think Innova is a very good dog food made by a very good company. It's far more available and widespread than Orijen currently. It has great ingredients and is backed by a great company (Natura). It just didn't work as well as I had hoped with my dogs. If my Chihuahua was any example, it will do good things for your dog if 1) they like to eat it and 2) it doesn't give them diarrhea. It just didn't help me.

my puppy eats the innova puppy and loves it. I am starting to mix the EVO red with it cause she is 10 months and want to use both until she reaches a year.

I was wondering if someone could help me with a question.  My lab puppy has been eating the innova puppy for a while now and she looks beautiful, get compliments on her coat daily.  She's not digging at her paws anymore, BUT she is eating grass every chance she gets.  She just dives into it and will eat it until I physically grab her.  I understand she's a lab and they're known to eat anything, but we never had this problem before with the other foods we fed her (wysong, eukanuba).  Anybody got any suggestions??

I switched my 1 year old beagle/doby mix over to Innova from Nutro Ultra. He was beginning to grey around the eyes from Nutro and thankfully Innova some how is changing his color back to normal. My dog is much more active now, and I get many compliments on how shiny his coat is and how nice his muscle tone has changed. The only problem with Innova is that there needs to be other "flavors" to choose from to change it up a little.

My puppy has horrible gas on this and loose stools.  He's been on it for over a month.  He never had either of these issues on Solid Gold.

Pug puppy refused to eat the puppy food. Other dogs tolerated the adult food, but seemed to eat a lot more food when I fed it to them.

I have 4 bullmastiffs and they love it....2 on lg breed Adult and 2 on Reduced fat.....no stomach upsets....they want more !!!!

I've had my German shepherd on Innova Adult Dry since I brought her home at 8 weeks old. She had diarrhea at first but adapted pretty quickly. We weren't able to get the large breed puppy so I just used the adult formula. She's now almost 2 years old and has grown up on Innova very well. Her coat is gorgeous and she only sheds seasonally. She has had minor urinary issues so I think they should add more urinary support ingredients and she's had an occasional, also minor, ear goop issue, which would also be helped by the same stuff that would help her urine I believe. And she never had pano or showed any other signs of "growing pains".

For variety, I changed her over once to Nature's Variety when she was about 1 year old and she ended up having a bad allergic reaction. We went back to Innova but I'll try again in the fall with another good food as I'd like to not rely on one brand forever.

I have always supplemented with whole foods along with the Innova. She gets about 3 scrambled eggs per week, a big tablespoon of plain, live yogurt every day and raw bones, veggies and fruits.

After a frightening few weeks of tummy upset and switching food, we finally found Innova Puppy dry food (mostly based on recommendations on this site) and it has been a godsend.  I've read the other reviews, but my puppy had no problem switching cold turkey from Nutro Natural to the Innova.  I guess the protein and fat %s are similar but whatever the ick was that was making her sick was gone.  Frankly, I think her tummy was finally happy to have something in it that didn't upset it.   She loves the food and will even take it as training treats!

my don't just won't stop having diarrhea with this brand.  even though its has good ingredients, and after gradually changing the food for a week and keeping her on it for a week. Still had diarrhea.

Our lab/mix has been on Innova large breed puppy food since we transitioned her onto it when we first brought her home. She went from being the runt of the litter to a very healthy dog.  She did indeed have diarreah for a while at the beginning, but REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF FOOD she ate did the trick: the food is very rich and they need to eat much less. She is now 16 mo. old, and we will transition into the adult food. I am just on the fence between EVO or the regular large breed kibble. Does anyone notice if their female dog's urine burns the grass more or about the same on Innova? 

my dog has a sensitive stomach. it got so bad several years ago i had to start making his food per a recipe given to me by the vet. i found Innova one day and it had a lot of the ingredients i was using to make Kobe's food. i slowly transitioned him over and he loves it. he stopped throwing up. this food has excellent, high quality ingredients. if you're in doubt, just read the ingredients on the bag! Kobe loves Innova and has never had diarrhea. i have since put my cats on the Innova cat food and they do great on it.

Dog likes the taste but bad diarrhea. Tried to transition it very slowly but still bad diarrhea.

AWESOME...my dog loves it and it made her coat sooo soft!

diarrhea for over a week on this stuff. and don't start me on the gas issue.

I have a 2yr old American Yellow Lab with a very sensitive stomach. After reading all these reviews, I was almost certain that it would give him bad diarrhea. To my suprise, he had no diarrhea at all. I introduced the Innova dog food to him 50/50 for 3-4 days and he seemed to be fine, so now he's on it 100%. His stool seems to be perfect and easy to pick up, not too hard and not too soft. I can tell he really likes Innova over the old Science Diet that I was giving to him before because he drools like crazy while I'm filling his food dish. The ingredients in Innova is far supperior, the first 3 ingredients being: Turkey, Chicken, and Chicken meal. I would highly recommend this product.

Yeah, yeah, all the ingredients are great but my dog gets bad diarrhea from it. Also give him awful gas.

Diarrhea. I tried a slow transition and stayed on it for a couple of weeks. Had to throw away half a bag

My second favorite dog food (first, Nature's Variety Raw Instinct). Great meat protien based food. Their senior plus formula is amazing as well. Heres a bright idea that more companies should follow...more protien, less fat. Most senior formulas reduce the protien and fat in their foods. What made them think that dogs need less protien as they get older? Innova is amazing, they actually do the research to what the dogs need and don't just go with the crowd. Yes, this food may be a little rich when swithcing from horrible foods like Science Diet or Eukanuba, but if the switch is slow (try 2 weeks) then the dog should be fine. The dogs bodies just need to get used to a meat based diet instead of a grain based diet (like so many cheaper brands are) Would definitely reccomend this food to anyone who cares about their dog!!

We alternate our German Shepherd puppy on the Puppy Dry, and the Large Breed Puppy, and she does fabulous! She is beautiful, healthy, and to my surprise, does not shed like I was warned as a shepherd she would. Innova makes a fabulous dogfood, and it is probably the only brand we will ever buy.

I switched my Senior shepherd mix to Innova Large Breed Senior and she looks beautiful. With the "how much to feed" chart that had different food amounts for different activity levels it was easy to adjust her food levels so that she lost 11 pounds and now maintains a healthy weight when fed what the chart says to give for a 70 pound dog.
I have never seen her coat more beautiful, shiny and soft. The ingredients seem to be excellent quality and she has lots of energy and is the picture of health. She had a little diarrhea in the beginning but now her stools are perfectly normal .
I will never switch foods again. I think this one is perfect and I dont mind spending a few extra dollars when I see her beautiful coat and how healthy she looks.

My dog loves this food and starts dancing around at feeding time. He never did that for his previous food. I noticed his coat has become very shiny and he has less dandruff. This is a great food!

All I can say about Evo, GREAT DOG FOOD!!! Loose stools for the first 1-2 weeks when first introduced but never thereafter. My pups have nice coats, I free feed them and they are all in great shape, none of them overweight. I have three papillons, a chihuahua and a cat on EVO. THE BEST!

We switiched our three dogs to Evo several months ago because one was having stomach and skin issues. Since he started eating Evo, he no longer is having stomach or skin issues. In fact, all three dogs look really healthy. They have a lot of energy and theor coats look wondeful. We did read the label regarding how much to feed them since it is less than a normal dog food and they have actually slimmed down. Evo is definitely worth the money -plus, no more vet bills.

5 stars for ingredients. But...I am not entirely sure it's a good food for a breed prone to gain weight. Pembroke Welsh Corgis for example. I fed this to Chansey while she was nursing her second and final litter and she got fat! I thought that was interesting, even though I was feeding her the amounts for an inactive dog (I knew this food was rich to begin with) she still gained too much on it. Many dogs however, do absolutely great on it.

Innova has good ingredients but is a little rich. I found it hard to keep my dogs weights right on it and had a lot of diarrhea with it.

I was wondering if anyone has heard of Evo causing kidney damage from the high amount of protein in it. My sister's dog was on it, he's a border collie, and his hair started turning a redish color. She asked her vet about it and he said it was the high protein content and that her dog's kidneys couldn't handle it. He recommended she take him off of it ASAP. I have recently switched my dog, also a border collie, to Evo and am now scared I could be damaging her kidneys, although so far she seems fine. Has anyone else heard anything like this before? Thanks

Innova is one of the best dry dog foods you can buy. The company really cares about its products. My dog has been on it for 2 months and she is doing great. She eats it before I have a chance to turn around.

Has done very well for my great dane pup.

I am a breeder of Lhasa Apsos, and have had all 10 of my dogs on EVO for more than a year. Several litters have been weaned on it as well. All the dogs are in great condition. There was never any loose stool: poops are small and firm and almost odorless. This is a very important issue with long coated dogs! The cost is more than offset by the fact that they need very little of this food to maintain their weight. My adult females get 1/3 cup per day and are fat and sleek. The coats are shining and fast growing, and the teeth and gums are cleaner than they were on other grain containing foods. Some of my dogs were itchy on other foods containing grains. Nobody scratches now that we are eating EVO.

I started my dogs on EVO 6 months ago. The results have been nothing short of spectacular. I had already been feeding a super premium (Canidae or Prarie), so to see such improvement is really remarkable. All of my dogs' energy and endurance levels has substantially increased, their coats shine like glass, intermittent shedding and skin problems have disappeared, and their muscle mass has increased dramatically. It is not a food for the average dog - I would only recommend it for show dogs or working dogs that are stressed, or that expend a good deal of energy and calories. Otherwise the high calorie and fat content of this food will result in a fat dog. It is expensive,but you also feed substantially less food than even a super premium. My dogs are in the 75-85 pound range, and I only feed 2 cups a day, mixed with raw or wet canned. In regards to previous comments about diarreah, if you are going from a good or mediocre food to a food like this without doing a VERY gradual change, you are going to get diarreah. Any switch should be done gradually or you will get diarreah.

My Airdale has been on it for about 1 year. Her coat is perfect and she is very healthy. It is rich food, and it took a little while for her system to adjust to it, but she doesn't need as much food as she did with other brands. She loves her meals now...where before she didn't.

this is a wonderful food, keeps the body (doggie) oder down with our Great Dane and keeps her in good weight. She is 10yrs old and looks and acts 3.

I think there are a lot of uninformed people that don't know you have to add about 10% or so of the new food to the old food to keep your dog from getting the runs from a new food. I also wonder if people are confusing Innova with Evo. Evo is high protein and a lot of dogs get the runs on it. It's very high protein, maybe too much for more sedintary dogs. This is an excellent food, but not all good foods are good for all dogs. Some dogs never get over the runs from a new food.

One word - Diarrhea!

I have been feeding this food for over 7 years and within the past 2 years i have noticed a change in the condition of my dogs. I breed and show Standard longhaired dachshunds. I have noticed scurf and the coats that use to shine even when needing a bath are dull . I suspect that the formula has changed. I am presently investigating an alternative to this food.

A high quality food, based of meat and animal proteins. A great food for you're best friend. It has no chemical preservitives like BHA/BHT, which have been linked to health problems. No Animal by-products, meaning the meat content is not composed of things like heads, beaks, feet, hooves and bones. No artifical colours either. It is a high calorie food without a lot of fillers, so you tend to feed less, meaning your dog uses a higher % of the food and poops less. It may seem a bit pricey at first, but when you consider that you feed less, and that it it made of good ingredients, it's well worth it.

I put my new puppy on Innova and switched my two older dogs to it. The puppy had a severe allergy to it with diarhea and severe itching. His skin turned bright red and he pulled all his hair out. One older dog developed diarhea and the other dog was fine on it. The puppy turned out to be allergic to the chicken in Innova. Switched all dogs to Eagle Pack Holistic Lamb and they are doing great. Puppy grew back all his hair and is big and healthy. Watch out for allergies and diarhea with this food. Some dogs just can't handle it.

I fed my dog the canned variety with turkey, chicken, spring water, cottage cheese, alfalfa sprouts, etc. She loves it and at $1.69 a can, it better have good ingredients.

I just switched to Innova for my puppy about 2 months ago, and she loves it! I was impressed with the ingredients (first 3 ingredients are turkey, chicken, and chicken meal) and I'm impressed with the results. My pup has stopped shedding as much and she has a beautiful shiny coat. The cost is a little pricey, but worth it.

When Innova first came out they produced a great dog food. Once they became popular, they have had real problems with consistency. On two different occasions I've dealt with a runny messes from a particular bag of food.

I had fed Innova adult for years, switching over slowly is key as it is richer than many foods on the market. My 80lb active husky/shep cross did excellent on 2 cups a day, kept her lean and her coat was perfect and she never smelled like a dog. Over feeding can cause the hershey squirts. I just bought my first bag of evo tonight, but I don't think it is for most dogs, way too rich for sedentary dogs, they should get the sr formula. As for ethoxoquin being in the food, just because it is not on the label doesn't mean its not in the ingredients prior to the company buying it, they dont have to list it, because they didn't add it. Overall I think Innova is a great kibble if you cannot feed raw or homemade.

Our cairn terrier female puppy is just over 5 mos. old. We've had her about 6 weeks. Her breeder is wonderful and a ex vet tech, but she had her on Science Diet. In the nearly a month since switching her to Innova puppy her coat has greatly improved (but maybe it's the new adult coat coming in) and her skin is much less pink (maybe it's getting the fleas under control)and she's much less itchy. She loves the food. So, so far we think it has been wonderful for her.

I am currently feeding Innova EVO which my Rottie loves. His stools are pretty good, from what I can see. He potties twice a day (more if we take him to the dog park and he has nerves). But I love the ingredients. It was recommended because it has no grains, and I was told that grains can inflame hip dysplasia or arthritic tendencies. He's got great energy and is doing wonderfully. I'm really impressed with it. I represent a holistic food company called Blue Buffalo (which I also feed and absolutely LOVE) and had a scare yesterday when a customer told me that Innova EVO uses ethyoxiquin (a chemical preservative banned for use in human foods, known to cause kidney and liver damage). One of the first things I did when I got home was check the ingredients. Thankfully, he was wrong, it's not in there. I was so scared I was going to have to take him off the food because I'm so impressed with the quality. Thank GOD it wasn't in there, hehe. Great job with the food, Natura!

If you are going by the ingredient list, basically the best dry dog food on the market period. However that being said it isn't always the most palatable for all animals and can be a bit rich. Stick with it a while and most dogs will come around. If it is too complex. California Natural is the same company and quality just a simpler formula.

INNOVA has greyt ingredients. -be careful not to over-feed this rich food resulting in the big D. -can be difficult to locate. We trust the quality in Innova.

innova is a good brand, but beware. if your dog is ultra sensitive like my great dane mix is, it'll give him the RUNS! innova's formulation can be too rich for some dogs.

The best food on the market. The finest ingredients. The most nutritious. The best tasting. Buy it.

I believe Innova dog food is one of the best on the market. My labs love it and I have found that for the cost of the food it is worth it because i save on vet bills and don't have to worry about vitamin supplements and that junk. They eat all natural dog food and it has no fillers or dangerous preservatives. It shows when they hunt birds.