The majority of consumers only switch their dog’s food a few times during their lives, if that. Vets, friends, and people at pet stores tell people not to switch around foods, that it’ll only upset your dog’s stomach.

Uh, duh. If you ate chicken and only chicken every single meal for your entire life and then suddenly switched to beef, your stomach wouldn’t be able to handle it. Anyone who’s gone a long time without fast food is already quite aware of this.

My own dog is on a rotation diet and has been since she was a puppy. I buy a different food every single time – different protein, different brand, sometimes grain free and sometimes not – and she doesn’t ever get ill from this. Like a person or an animal in the wild, her diet is extremely varied and she can handle it all.

Doing this is a great way to prevent future problems. If you need to feed a different food, your dog eats something else, or a friend or boarding facility feeds the wrong thing, there won’t be a diarrhea problem. This alone is absolutely worth it!

But wait – there’s more!

Dogs and people alike can develop an allergy to something they eat often to an extreme. If a dog eats chicken one hundred percent of the time, later in life they could start itching and getting health problems. The same goes for grains and other common proteins. (Always stay away from wheat, corn, and soy in general!)

The other thing is that again, like people, dogs can have vitamin deficiencies and unless you do expensive blood tests at the vet to find out, you’ll probably never know. Different dog foods have different balances of nutrients, so if your pet is naturally low in a vitamin and the food you’re feeding is also low, it can cause a deficiency or make it worse. By varying their foods, you’ll be giving them a much better balance of vitamins.

This is a perfect feeding routine to start a puppy on, but if you have an adult dog who has already been on the same food for years, you’re definitely not going to want to jump right in there and switch their food immediately. You’ll want to slowly blend the foods and switch over a week or two, depending on how sensitive  your dog is.

This also isn’t for every dog! If you have a pet who has an extremely sensitive stomach (you know, the ones you look at wrong and they get diarrhea) and you’ve just found a food that works, you probably want to just stick with that. Illnesses during puppyhood, bad breeding, and breed in general can contribute to having an extremely sensitive stomach.

It’s up to you and your individual dog to decide what works for you, but a rotation diet is definitely something to consider!