Whats the "best" food then?

[erykah1310]

Hi, After finally stumbling onto this sub forum after how many months now lol.
I have seen so far that neither Purina, Science Diet, or Vet food is considered " GOOD " food?? So what is then?
I have always fed Pedigree ( and im sure this falls into the BAD food list) and had no problems with it. My dogs all have had a healthy weight and good digestive tracks and shiny healthy coats. Now that said, I am sure it has the dreaded by-products and corn and numerous other things that i have never heard of before. Other than feeding raw diet, what dry food can give you the best possible nutrition for your dog?
The food topic is awfully confusing

[technodoll]

anything with human-grade ingredients, identified meat meal in the first ingredients before the source of fat (chicken meal, turkey meal, etc and not "meat meal" which is cheap generic, could be cats n'dogs), the more meats the better, no by-products, no corn, no soy, no wheat, no artificial colors, flavors, preservaties, sugar, you want high-quality grains (whole brown rice, not brewer's rice...)... basically if you cannot understand the what the ingredients mean (ex: corn gluten meal... WHAT is that?) and if the food sounds like the garbage bin of a grain processing factory - peanut hulls, wheat middlings, rice fragments, etc - run away screaming!

example of a high-quality kibble:
Turkey
Chicken
Chicken Meal
Ground Barley
Ground Brown Rice
Potatoes
Natural Flavors
Ground White Rice
Chicken Fat
Herring
Apples
Carrots
Cottage Cheese
Sunflower Oil
Alfalfa Sprouts
Egg
Garlic

example of a low-quality kibble:
Chicken by-product meal
corn
brewers rice
feeding oat meal
animal fat (BHA used as a preservative)
animal digest
bone phosphate
potassium chloride
condensed grain fermentation solubles
salt
dried egg product

...hope this helped

[kaytris]

The best food is the one that your pet does best on. Some dogs do not do well on the premium foods - my own dog had terrible diarrhea with Eagle pack, and Solid Gold gave her IMMENSE feces.

Look for a dry kibble with a named protein source (ie Lamb or chicken, NOT "meat") as the first ingredient. After that, it gets complicated... many kibble companies will split ingredients, so that a food that is mostly grain still looks good: Ie. Lamb, rice flour, brewers rice, rice bran - chances are good all those rice ingredients together will outweigh the lamb. So look for more than one meat ingredient.

Avoid artificial colours and flavours - your dog doesn't need them

Avoid preservatives like ethoxyquin, BHA and BHT


Here is a good website where you can compare ingredient lists: http://www.doberdogs.com/menu.html

[phoenix]

while I don't agree that some dogs don't do well on all premium foods... I will agree that it does take some trial and error to find a premium food that your dog will like and do well on. There is so much info out there... search out the whole dog journal; they have a 'best foods' list... but there really isn't one best food, just a best food for your own dog. That said, you can do a WHOLE lot better than what you are feeding for not much more $... One benefit is the amount that you feed decreases due to the improved nutrition. For example, my 80 lb guy would eat something like 5-7 cups of low grade food, but eats about 3 1/2 cups of Canidae.

Good luck and have fun researching!!

[Prin]

Originally Posted by kaytris

The best food is the one that your pet does best on. Some dogs do not do well on the premium foods - my own dog had terrible diarrhea with Eagle pack, and Solid Gold gave her IMMENSE feces.

Umm... You might want to try staying on a food a bit longer. Holistic foods take longer to get used to than crap kibble because they don't have the digestive aids that crap does. My doggies stools were huge for about 4 months on solid gold (and were super smelly) and now they're smaller than they have ever been. They call that phase of hugeness "detoxification". Also, because of the lack of digestive aids, if you feed too much of a holistic food, you get loose stool. If that happens, you cut down about 1/8th of a cup every day until the stool firms up. My doggies dropped to nearly half the quantity of the crap food. Because it's richer, you'll feed significantly less.

As for good food- look for ingredients that aren't a by-product of some human process. Things like "brewer's rice/yeast" or "by-products" or unnamed meats, bones or fats are to be avoided. So things like "animal fat", "animal digest", "meat meal", "bone meal", etc are to be avoided.

Also, things like beet pulp are not preferable. Beet pulp hardens the stool by releasing a toxin into the colon which temporarily paralyses it, holding the food in there, firming up the stool. Not a good thing. If your dog is sick, or is not digesting properly, you will have a harder time realizing and will notice later, because the food is practically digesting itself and running your dog's body.

Wheat, soy and corn are not ideal either. They are common causes of allergies in pets and are not very digestible. Soy has also been linked with bloat, as it can create more gas than a dog can handle. Oatmeal, millet and brown rice are better, IMO.

Along with all that, there are preservatives and supplements that should be avoided. Like BHT (preservative), and vitamin K supplements. The use of these is banned in humans.

Always try to get a specific meat meal as your #1 ingredient. Like turkey meal, salmon meal, etc. Meal means dehydrated. If it's not meal, it'll get dehydrated during cooking and lose most of its weight, bumping it down the ingredient list to just before the fat source (so they say).

For the fat, fish oil or flaxseed oil is best, but canola and sunflower are ok too, and lastly chicken/turkey/lamb fat (animal fats have more saturated fats in them, and we don't like saturated fats too much).

Hmmm.... Am I forgetting something?

Yes...

The ingredients before the fat source make up the bulk of the food. They say the more different ingredients there are, the less of each there are... But I don't know if the number really reflects the proportion...

I think that's it. That's pretty well all I know, dumped on one post. (watch me lose it now... the post I mean. )

[meb999]

Originally Posted by Prin

My doggies stools were huge for about 4 months on solid gold (and were super smelly) and now they're smaller than they have ever been. They call that phase of hugeness "detoxification".

Really?? Four months??? Ah, man now I feel terrible. I only gave Eagle Pack like a month and a half, and when I saw the stools weren't getting any easier to pick up, I gave up on it. Same with Wellness. Maybe I should switch again. But after I finish my HUGE bag of Nutram!!

[OntarioGreys]

The best way to introduce a dog to a new food is to fast them for 24 hours first and then you can switch them 100%

There is no one food out there that every single dog will do good on

[coppperbelle]

[QUOTE=OntarioGreys]The best way to introduce a dog to a new food is to fast them for 24 hours first and then you can switch them 100%

I have never heard of doing a drastic switch this way. I don't see the necessity of not feeding my dog for 24 hours. Doing it this way is gentler and works. The first 3 days 75% old 25% new, the next 3 days 50-50 and finally for another 3 days 75%new, 25% old. On day 10 give new food only.

My dogs too have huge poops for the first few months on Solid Gold. They are now small and easy to pick up.
Did you give your dog enough time on the food? It can take 4 months to totally get the old food out of their system.

[SunGurl372]

Originally Posted by kaytris

The best food is the one that your pet does best on. Some dogs do not do well on the premium foods - my own dog had terrible diarrhea with Eagle pack, and Solid Gold gave her IMMENSE feces.

That's pretty funny. Harley has always had what I call "pony-size poo" on all of the premium foods I've tried (including Solid Gold). It's too early to tell, but the Timberwolf might be different.

But really, as long as it's solid, I don't care if she poops a mountain. It's well worth the trade off in terms of the skin and fur issues the premium foods have resolved for us.

[kaytris]

can't remember how long I tried the Solid Gold for, but I know we finished the bag - and Kaylie went through a detox when I switched her to Raw, so I know how that went, and this was not the same thing at all. When the same amount comes out as went in, I know she's not digesting the food properly - and with a dog with skin and stomach issues, I really can't wait four months for her system to adjust. So we went back to Nutro

Both my dogs get Nutro Sensitive Stomach (Chicken and Oatmeal) formula, and are doing just fine.

[Prin]

I'm not sure about the whole exact amout coming out thing... I mean, Boo threw up a whole cookie a week after he was given it... They can store some goods in there. Plus, on commercial foods with all the stool hardeners, they might be backed up, but you don't notice because there's still a stool every day nonetheless... All I know is the stools were enormous and now they're tiny- the way they should be on holistic food.

[rainbow]

... I mean, Boo threw up a whole cookie a week after he was given it...

LOL.....threw it up "whole"?

[Prin]

Yep. WHOLE. It was red and some a** gave it to him at the park when I wasn't looking. I was wondering why it didn't make him sick (you know- the best cookies are never RED!!) and then a week later- literally- violà!

[rainbow]

Yep. WHOLE. It was red

RED....YUCK No wonder poor Boo barfed it....Smart Boy