Quote:
|
Originally Posted by shan
Okay, since I already bought it, I guess Annie will have to finish the bag, but does anybody buy a good quality one at their local petstore (Petland etc.) I was looking at Nutro, and Eagle Pack there last time, are these good? I also think they have Natures Choice or something like that. Annie really likes that Eukanuba stuff...maybe she willl ike a really good food better though.
|
As for local stores (such as chain type stores), I don't know of any great foods (though the local store here is getting a bit better), but if you were to have to chose between eagle pack and eukanuba, by far go for eagle pack (eagle pack holistic is even better).
I feed my dog California natural. So far it has done wonders for her. It seems to be only sold in health based pet food stores or individually operated stores. Theres also a way to get it by a UPS provider.
Other foods by the company are innova and healthwise (I've also heard these are really good). You can check out thier site at naturapet.com.
My Maggie used to be on a food called Natures Variety. It's a great food as well but extreamly expensive here.
Others I've heard are good are: solid gold, go natural!, back to basics, foundations, and Canidae. Some people swear by a food called Wellness, but I found my dog pooped alot on it. She also got kinda smelly. It's also more expensive than her current food but I've been told it's lower quality. I'm sure there are more foods than those, but I'm just going off of what I've heard or looked up for myself.
When you're trying to pick a healthy pet food, take these things into consideration:
Quality Foods Should Contain:
-Superior sources of protein, either whole fresh meats or single source meat meal (ex. chicken meal rather than poultry meal)
-A whole-meat source as one of the first two ingredients.
-Whole, unprocessed grains, vegetables, and other foods. Nutrients and enzymes are more likely to be found in unprocessed foods.
Quality foods should contain very little to NONE of the following:
-Food fragments
- lower-cost by-products of another food manufacturing process, such as brewer's rice and wheat bran...Manufacturers usually include at least one fragment to help lower costs. Beware any food that includes several fragments.
-Meat by-products (not handled as carefully as whole meat)
- any food that contains meat by-products as the MAJOR protein source indicates a low-quality product.
HIGH-QUALITY FOODS SHOULD NOT CONTAIN:
-Fats or proteins named generically (ex. animal fat/poultry fat instead of beef fat/ lamb meal)
-Artificial preservatives (BHA, BHT, ethioxyquin)
-Artificial colors.
-Sweeteners (corn syrup, sucrose, ammoniated glycyrrhizin) to improve unappealing food Propylene glycol - a toxic substance when consumed in large amounts; added to some "chewy" foods to keep them moist.
Also remember that if something says human grade, it very well may be, but you have to be careful on what exactly they consider human grade. Some companies include excellent meat cuts and quality ingredients, but there are alot of things that can qualify as human grade. It's just that some of these questionable ingredients wouldn't be included in our human food because of it's low nutritional value (example: Pig snouts). So you kind of have to do your research on making sure a company isn't "cutting corners" and trying to sell you something that sounds better, but infact it turns out to just be a sales ploy.
Might be more information than you are looking for but I thought I might as well share. Maybe someone else will find this information useful ( I did my research lol
)
Edited to add: also remember that a higher quality food you are likely to have to feed less. For my 50 lb puppy I only feed 2 1/2 to 2- 3/4 cups a day. On low quality foods I would likely have to feed her around 5 cups or more a day.