New Puppy Food Recomendations

[jbud24]

Just got a 9 week old minituare shnauzer & was hoping I could receive some dog food recomendations. I'm looking for a quality food that's reasonably priced & easily accessible.

My wife purchases a bag of Sensible Choice Chicken & Rice upon the recomendation of the pet store, however I'm considering switching to Nutro Natural Choice.

Any opinion on either of these foods or any other recomendations?

[want4rain]

this is just my opinion but here is my own break down of dog food-

low quality kibble (anythign you can get in the chain pet stores and with ANY grain in it) is totally unfit for any creature to eat. its dry, its over processed and neither dogs nor cats should have grains in their diet.

high quality kibble(no grain at all) is slightly better but its still processed at very high temps and DRY.

canned wet food with grains are still using grain. imagine your dog frolicking through a wheat field nipping the wheat from the stalk... i cant see it either.

canned wet food (without grain) are acceptable but pricy. i keep some handy for the dog 'just in case'.

home made, pretty good if you know what you are doing. we did that for a while but man if it wasnt a hassle!!

raw without bones fantastic!! but still a hassle because you had to add stuff to their diet like calcium because muscle meat has little to no calcium in it.

raw meat and bones... its what we have been doing for months now and its wonderful! its easy, simple and no fuss. no questioning if its appropriate because its what they naturally eat, i dont have to put anythign together... i do have to remember to thaw stuff and we had to get a new freezer to buy bulk but its very very inexpensive if you buy bulk (and i dont mean 400lbs of food at a time either, we buy our chicken from SAMS at 77C/lb... 4lb chickens) the offal is also very very inexpensive, more so if you buy bulk. it exercises their jaw muscles, cleans their teeth, shines up their coats!! i have been so unbelievably impressed!! my cats have shown a... im at a loss for words... our dog didnt change much when we started a raw diet because was pretty young but our 3yo cats showed a marked difference in energy level, dental hygiene, weight loss...


if raw isnt your thing, go for a grain free wet food. any of the dry kibble are basically the same thing, some have outright harmful ingredients that in the long run cause diseases like diabetes, liver disease, kidney failure. being dry in and of itself is remarkably unhealthy for your pet. there are several very good pages out there breaking down the difference between kibble/wet/raw/grainfree diets if you are interested.

-ashley

[geisha]

Here are a few suggestions available at speciality petfood stores.
Dry kibble: Orijen Puppy - grainfree, reasonable price, made in Canada
Innova Puppy - good quality ingredients
Wellness Puppy - good quality ingredients, grainy though
Solid Gold - Huchen Flocken - good quality ingredients, grainy
California Natural Puppy - good quality ingredients, allergic dog
Canidae - All Life Stages - good ingredients, can use lifetime
Puppies have a lot of growing to do and you may want to suppliment their diet with premium canned food as well.
There are lots of good quality dog foods out there. Nutro is so so.
If you would like to do some research here are a few websites I would recommend: www.dogfoodanalysis.com
www.dogfoodproject.com
www.api4animals.org
RAW is an excellent food!

Good luck & congratulations!!

[rainbow]

I like Orijen (www.championpetfoods.com), Canidae (www.canidae.com) and Innova (www.naturapet.com). When you go to www.dogfoodproject.com click on "Ingredients to Avoid" on the left hand side of the page. Also the other links have lots of great information. Another good website is www.dogaware.com ....good luck and if you have any further questions just ask.

[SnoDov]

I have been a successful Dog Breeder of various breeds over 40 years now and an A.K.C. Conformation Trainer/Handler for the last 8 years...I would recommend nothing less for my dogs than the B.A.R.F. diet, (short for "biologically appropriate raw food").

My advise would be for anyone to check out the site, http://www.barfworld.com/ . Read, read, read!

Just as important check out or subscribe to The Whole Dog Journal and dig deep on any and all information about what is in the vaccines and other shots your dog is regularly getting. You just may save your dogs life.

Happy Tails to All

[CearaQC]

Raw made a huge difference in Belle after we got her. Her coat is shiny and she's getting way more soft.

She blew her coat though recently and what a mess... But what's growing in now is so soft and silky. Before, it felt like hay.