Food advice - please help!!

As some of you may know from my posts, Storm has had a runny tummy ever since we got him from the shelter, 3 weeks ago today.

We have tried him on various foods: Burns, Skinners (which he was already on in the shelter) and Naturediet, but the stools are still never solid.

Anyway, yesterday I was pursuaded (by a P@H member of staff) into getting Wainwrights Turkey & Rice, so I bought a 15kg bag and they gave me a 2kg bag for free (which was very nice), as I wasn't sure whether it would help and not too keen on the quality of the meat in the food and told me I could get a refund on the big bag if his stools didn't get firmer. The main reason I was against getting this food was, although the ingredients are quite good and certainly better than a lot of others, the meat in the food is from battery farmed animals, which I am against. Also, battery meat is full of rubbish and could potentially lead to health problems later in life. But, I was told that this would probably help his runny tummy, which of course we really want! Storm's not had one single solid stool since we got him!

So, do you think we should try something like Arden Grange, maybe the fish sensitive one? Or, is there something else instead that is good for sensitive stomachs and also, doesn't contain any cheap battery meat.

We really don't want to keep changing his food, as obviously that's not good for his stomach either.

Please help, we're going out of our minds trying to think of a good quality food, that's going to be gentle on his stomach too.

The nutritionist in P@H also told us that Naturediet probably wasn't helping his runny poos, as it's a wet food and he's better off on dry. Does that sound right?

The phrase `nutritionist at p@h` gave me a good laugh. If she were a nutritionist she wouldn`t be working as a shop assistant in a chain store.
Have you tried the elimination diet? If you try that it at least gives you an idea of what to avoid.
You feed only one protein source (e.g. chicken) for a few days. No treats, no biscuits. If the dog improves, you know chicken is OK. If he doesn`t you know xhicken is to be avoided and try a different meat - e.g. fish.
When you have found a meat he can tolerate you add a filler - maybe rice? Or potato (cooked obviously). And follow the same programme.
This way you can determine if each new thing you add is either OK or not.
The trouble with processed foods is that they contain so many ingredients. So this way is better than just trying loads of different mixes.

I may have missed a thread but has Storm been checked by your vet, incase there's a health reason behind it? If it continues for much longer then I would definately want to rule out any health issues, and perhaps look into food allergy tests or exclusion diets incase it's an allergy/intolerance.
However, you've tried so many different foods, I wouldn't be surprised if this was adding to the problem - I know you're desperate to get him having normal poos but the change won't be instantaneous so you may have to give it a couple of weeks to see a change anyway.
Was the nutritionist holding any official qualifications? When I worked in a petshop, we were given a "nutrition course" - run and funded by Nutro Petfoods so you can guess which food they recommended I got 100% and a certificate but in reality it just meant I knew a little more about Nutro foods, obviously in the slight biased opinion from Nutro themselves.
I have no idea why they would think that feeding a wet food would cause loose stools - afterall, we don't have explosive diarreah after eating soup, or frothy poos after drinking a frothy milkshake/smoothy The body digests it the same. A cheap wet food like Pedigree might cause an upset stomach because of all the sugar/salt/fat/poor quality ingredients etc. but that's the ingredients, not the fact that it's a wet food.
I would probably find a good quality food, probably a grain-free kibble, and stick to it for a minimum of two weeks, unless the poos get majorly worse. Perhaps look into the Fish4Dogs as that's meant to be good quality and gluten-free. A bit pricey, but if it does suit your dog, apparently they do stalls at dog shows around the country where you can pick it up at a better price which might be an option. Otherwise, look into doing an exclusion diet for a while - something like fish & potato (chicken and rice is another option but both can be the cause of allergies/intolerances and are in lots of kibble, you want to ideally do it with ingredients that you've not fed before) will be fine for a week or two, it's not an entirely balanced diet but short term it's safe for a healthy dog (might want to have a vet check before starting it though). No treats, chews, etc though incase they're the problem - you could cook some fish as treats if necessary. Then slowly introduce new foods, e.g. chicken, one at a time and see if the stools loosen or stay firm.
I've heard several Collie owners say their dogs are prone to sensitive tummies and need high quality foods, often grain-free. My mum's Collie x pup is fed on NatureDiet at the moment and she'll probably try the Fish4Dogs food when she's a bit older, she didn't get on with the couple of normal kibbles she tried, so it might be a breed issue and just a case of finding a food that agrees with him, without chopping and changing too frequently.

"Barking Heads" dog food is a good one if you are concerned about the quality of the ingredients. The Salmon and Potato is supposed to be good for allergies. It worked for Cherry's allergy problem but I have gone on to home-cooked food now as they enjoy that much better!

I think you need to be sure that it's not an infection. Cain had runny stools when we got him, turned out to be a bacterial gut infection which antibiotics cleared up.

The food company CSJ also sell herbs and I've heard good things about combining "Heal" and "Resist" which helps balance the gut and clear up runny poo. Might be worth a try?

I would recommend first of all that you get him checked over by the vet to make sure he doesn't have an underlying problem.

If all is well, he is lively, interested and active then all I would mention is that in 3 weeks he has not only been moved into new surroundings (the stress of that can cause a dog to have diarrhoea) and has also been tried on 4 different types of dog food, which can also lead to problems.

At the moment I think it would be hard to say if the loose poo's are caused by a sensitivity to an ingredient or if he just is not being given time to adjust to a particular diet.

I would be tempted to pick a decent diet, one that your dog enjoys, and stick with that for a couple of weeks and see how he goes.

If he is being a fussy eater, I would recommend tinned Natures Menu. My very fussy pup eats this down with gusto, has no upset tum, great poo's and looks really well.