Dog food shopping

I found out the hard way today that Purina "Little Bites" indoor dry food is now Purina "Little Bites" Healthy Life Nutrition in a slightly different bag." This after visiting three Walmarts, a Walgreens, a Petsmart and calling two Petcos in town. It can be challenging at times to fill a particular need for a patient's pet. One of the things we believe is that maintaining a consistent diet is important for our hospice patients' pets (as well as pets in general). I learned in vet school that abruptly changing a pet's diet can cause, well, let's just say a "digestive upset" that can be labor-intensive for the patient and/or caregiver. It can be a frustrating situation when we have donated good quality food on hand in our pet food pantry, but we can't use it in all situations. It takes time and effort to change diets and the last thing we want to do is add stress to the patient's or the pet's life. We've also had patients tell us that they are keeping their dogs on a cheaper brand of food for economic reasons, but when they've tried to switch, the dogs had digestive problems. We've decided that the important thing is to keep both patients and owners happy and content by minimizing change for both parties. So far, this has been the best approach.