Speaking of dog food, how do you feed; amount, technique, etc
I offer two discrete meals a day, morning and evening.
The amount I feed varies from day to day. Out pontooning and swimming in the river all day? Extra food. Just sitting around on a rainy day? Less food. Up a pound or two? Less food. Training day (lots of food treats) very small meals.
Our dog Kizzy thrives on discipline. I always train puppies to sit and wait for their bowl. I put the bowl down, then wait 5 to 45 seconds. The dog has to look at me the entire time, or else I pick up the dish and begin again. Not until I tell them to eat can they eat.
Kizzy loves that arrangement. Other dogs I eventually stopped, it had served its purpose. Kizzy still has to be told, “Kizzy eat” or she’ll just sit staring at me.
I don’t believe in expensive dog food. We have a sheltie from a top show breeder and he gets plain old Purina dog chow.
However, I’ll give you a contrary anecdote. We had Cookie, a border collie mix, from the SPCA, who lived to an estimated age of 22. When we adopted Cookie, she refused cheap kibble for a few days. Then we broke down and switched her to canned pedigree.
Few years later, we switched to Royal Canine kibble, an expensive brand by our standards, because it was advertised as high-palatability. She liked that, and ate it for at least ten years.
I’m guessing that the inbreeding coefficient is much more important than the food. With a shelter mixed breed, maybe the dog is the totally inbred product of littermates, but maybe it is really the product of two breeds. Who knows? I’m guessing Cookie was the latter.
Our current dog, although a purebred, has no repeats in his pedigree back to the 7th generation. This is likely much less inbred than a typical wild animal, or, maybe, typical human.
Then, the biggest factor in life expectancy is luck.
One of our dogs always had inflamed ear canals and corn was the main suspect. We didn’t want to go the fantastically expensive route so we checked the ingredient lists of various kibbles and found Kirkland Chicken and Rice had wheat middlings but no corn at all. Her ears cleared up on it so that was our main go-to for years.
The local CostCo has not had any in for years – about the start of Covid – and unfortunately when I just checked the website now, it showed available but $50 a bag, nearly double what we had been paying.
He doesn’t actually eat better than we do (we eat pretty well), but he eats quite well, and he gets lots of exercise. At his annual checkup, they always say the same thing: whatever it is you’re doing … just keep doing it. He’s in great shape.
Bicycle enthusiasts will argue endlessly about which chain lubricant is the best. My philosophy was simple: keep the chain reasonably clean and reasonably well lubricated, then ride your bike.
I put a fair amount of work into Sam’s diet, but I really didn’t/don’t overthink it. I feed him well and then enjoy the hell out of him.
My ‘upgrade’ that I occasionally consider is a fresh or raw food diet – something that makes me feel better to consider, but that I’ll surely never do
I wish all you fur-baby owners many happy years with your pets.
First of all, canines are supposed to be carnivores. Over time with what we have fed domestic dogs, they have become more omnivores. That being said, they still have the digestion associated with carnivores so the distinction between what you should feed your dog and what you shouldn’t is grains. Grains are very hard on their digestive system. Not only that, the brands a lot of what people use like Purina, Iams, Hill’s etc. is shit because the grains they use like corn and wheat is “spent grain” meaning whatever nutrients that your dog may be able to access has already been used for a different purpose (like making ethanol, beer, whiskey, etc.) and then the used grain is sold for cheap to the dog/cat food manufacturers. Yes we have used grain-free cheap shit in a pinch but never buy anything with grains as the filler.
Also, it is well-known in the industry that there is a trade off where Hill’s pay for vets to go to vet school and then upon graduating these vets recommend Hill’s Science Diet which is cheap-ass Purina in a different bag.
Yeah. It’s basically impossible to distinguish the marketing practices of some of these companies from those of the pharmaceutical industry.
And just as unlikely to truly benefit the consumer in the long run.
ETA: forgive the brief hijack, but …
Look at PDF page 51 (document page 45) of this 87 page PDF. Note this is New Zealand – the other country (besides the US) that allows Direct-To-Consumer adverts for prescription drugs:
[quote=“Saint_Cad, post:25, topic:962903”]
Also, it is well-known in the industry that there is a trade off where Hill’s pay for vets to go to vet school and then upon graduating these vets recommend Hill’s Science Diet which is cheap-ass Purina in a different bag.
[/quote] I’m ignorant on this point. What does this mean?
Hills pays the tuition for vet school on agreement that the vets recommend their product when they start practicing?
Or that Hills offers free vet classes in pet nutrition with the goal of influencing vet students?
You can get a better idea of what some industry players have been doing by seeing what a few reputable veterinary schools are doing in order to increase transparency and put a greater focus on ethics:
If you invite me over for dinner, I’m going to eat what you serve. But I’m mostly a vegetarian. Doesn’t make any difference to me whether I am supposed to eat meat or not. The only reason our dog doesn’t get a purely vegetarian diet is cost.
We feed our dog (and the previous two) Merrick, but canned. Our current dog is missing lots of teeth, and kibble is difficult for him. He gets turkey and rice. But his treats are all healthy: kibble-ish “cookies,” carrots, and lettuce (his absolute favorite – plain iceberg lettuce).
A lot of dogs are allergic to chicken. One of our previous two had coat and poop issues that cleared up when we eliminated chicken. Just on general principles, I won’t feed my dog(s) chicken. Our vet agrees that it is the most common allergy he sees.
Not really. There is a difference between what your body is made to eat and what you choose to eat. Being a member of carnivora means that physiologically your dog’s body is made to process meat and not vegetables. Can a dog eat vegetables? Yes but it doesn’t mean that’s the optimum diet;.just like you being a vegetarian-by-choice doesn’t mean that your body will now extract nutrition from cellulose.
Also, humans are not carnivores. We are of the order primate.
I may switch to your method. My dog currently gets Beneful, although the cat, who is almost fifteen, gets Science Diet K/D from the vet. Elderly cats are prone to kidney issues,
If they are in good health, then no. In my case, I spend lots of money on a prescription diet for my dog, but before the prescription diet, she was having episodes of diarrhea, coughing, persistent licking, and not being able to hold her bowels while I was at work. The strict prescription diet fixed all these issues.
I can’t speak about wheat but DDG – distiller’s dried grain – is what’s left over of corn after alcohol fermentation. Starch is what the yeast eats so DDG is higher in protein and lower in starch and sugar than whole grain.
I won’t claim it’s good for dogs but what’s missing they don’t need so much anyway.
We take our dogs to dog friendly breweries. Since we are there anyway, we drink some beer. One brewery stocks biscuits made from spent grain. They are 20% protein and 70% fiber. Our dogs like them, and it is better for them than the beer we are drinking. Plus we are talking about one or two biscuits a week.
I’m not thinking that the orders of animals work that way. But you could take that up with the zoos who feed giant and red pandas an all-vegetarian diet despite being in the order carnivora.
I concede that the scientific evidence that dogs are basically carniovores seems stronger lately than the evidence that they are basically omnivores. But my statement that you can find research both ways was correct, boith for dogs and people. Example studies can be found at scholar.google.com. And even if it turns out that dogs were carnivors for millions of years, this doesn’t prove it is better to be one now.
Question: What dog food, sold in the U.S. and meeting AAFCO nutrient guildlines, is best for global warming?
I’m guessing something vegetarian. But since those cost at least three fimes more than we pay, I’m hoping that there is so little of the advertised “real chicken” in Finchley’s Purina Dog Chow for it to be almost as good from a climate standpoint. And could it be that Purina’s bigger factory is more energy-efficient.
Still, I can see trying Natural Balance Vegetarian, which seems the cheapest in that caregory and comes from a company big enough so one can hope they have a quality control department. I wish, though, they didn’t use the word Natural, which seems to me an appeal to predjudice aganst science. YYMV, and almost surely will.
Current dog is an oversized Miniature Australian (American) Shepherd. Four years old. 37 lb (Big for the breed and big compared to his littermates.)
Purina Pro Plan Performance All Ages Chicken and Rice. 30% protein 20% fat. A half cup twice a day and a few small treats along the way. His weight stays stable on that even though the package guide suggests twice as much. Agree that the higher protein kibble needs less volume so on a use basis costs less even though it is more per pound. My only problem with it is that Chewy is sometimes out of stock when it is time for me to re-order. I just picked up a big bag from Petco though.
On list for a second puppy from the same breeder - an oopsie litter of Miniature Australian Shepherd with Border Collie - the mix intrigues me. She calls them Baussies. They are two weeks old now.
My question is about puppy chow. In general I’ve understood that puppies should eat puppy chow. The usual main point is the higher protein need? But the Purina Puppy Chow has slightly less protein, less fat, and more fiber, that the food I currently use for the adult. Any need to get a separate puppy chow? I’m thinking not.
In the wild pandas will eat meat if they can catch the prey and do eat carrion (cite - a National Geographic story from the early 80s). Isn’t one of the issues with panderic health is that they get almost no caloric value from just the bamboo they eat?
Our last dog was a Mini Aussie (before the AKC breed name change) from a former show breeder whose breed improvement goal was calmness. He was also above the mini-aussie show size limit.
I’ve seen, at the dog park a few not-breed-for-calmness mini-aussies, and they had, a, I’d say, remarkable activity level.
Regarding your food question, it says at Purina.com:
You can find people on the internet who complain those feeding tests aren’t long enough, but this also means the food meets the known nutrient requirements of puppies.
People like to do something extra for their dogs, and a lot of intelligent breeders do use ProPlan.
