I’ve spent the past few hours “trying” to research the best possible dog food, and the stuff I’m reading scares the crap out of me.
Is it really as bad as the google hits make it?
Pet food made from dead cats and dogs, chicken beaks, feathers and feet all ground up?
“Non-Human grade chicken / beef by-products.”
I’ve got a very dim view on everything I’ve read, and it seems these companies only care about profits.
Is there a company out there who makes wholesome, nutritious food, from fresh ingredients fit for human consumption?
If so, who?
If some of what I’ve read is true, this would make for a juicy “behind the scenes” investigative report.
We just picked up our 10 week old Bichon Frise puppy, and we want to feed her the best food possible (whatever it costs)
Thanks
–> I tried the search, but it kept freezing on me.
Just a bit of helpful information. Just because it’s on the internet, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Pet food is often a very very over-exaggerated issue among the pet community. Alot of people will try to tell you that kibble is bad. That you should feed your dog a raw diet. That a raw diet cures any and all illnesses your dog may have and that it’s what the dog’s built to eat. They fail to mention the problems a raw diet can cause. Pancreatitis, rotting teeth, excessive diarrhea, malnutrition, intestinal blockage/rupture.
Kibble is a perfectly healthy and effective diet. Even the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) recommends a balanced kibble diet over a raw diet 100%. Your best (and easiest) bet for finding a good food is to go to the petstore. Not the grocery store, most of the brands there aren’t good really. The best are found at petstores. Look at the ingredients. If the first ingredient says ‘cornmeal’ or ‘beef meal’ or sometype of ‘meal’, then look elsewhere. You want the first ingredient (preferably the first 2) to be meat. The first two ingredients in the diet I feed my dog are beef and lamb. But if you’re not sure of even doing that yourself, I would recommend either Royal Canin or Pro Plan diets. Science Diet is not bad but I usually only would recommend that if your dog needs a specialty diet that’s been prescribed by your vet.
And please, do yourself (and your pocketbook) a favor and feed your puppy hard food from the getgo. Wet food is horrendous on their teeth and small breeds are notorious for dental issues.
In my experience in the pet trade, people recommending raw food are a tiny fringe minority.
What you do, find a local INDEPENDENT feed store. (A feed store is what you call a pet store that doesn’t sell pets, just supplies.) Do NOT go to the big box PetScare type places: you can’t get decent information from highschool kids getting minimum wage. Most of the “premium” (a misnomer: they should be “standard,” and the grocery store foods should be “garbage”) food manufacturers supply sample packs to their resellers.
When I was working in a pet store, the best dog food on the market was Solid Gold/Hundenflocken. Also the most expensive. I usually settled on Nutromax (often the most popular with picky eaters) or Nature’s Recipe (great ingredients, slightly less expensive).
Please avoid the most popular premium brands, Iams and Science Diet. Iams contains artificial stool hardeners and engages in unfair wholesaling practices. Science Diet is not nearly as good as its reputation.
My last two dogs ate nothing but premium kibble their entire lives. I’m convinced the higher priced food paid for itself in reduced vet bills and general all around long term good health.
Again, don’t think of these foods as “too expensive,” think of Purina as unreasonably cheap. Some of the grocery store foods contain extra cereal filler, which means the dog needs to eat more to acquire adequate nutrition. Some people make the understandable mistake of interpreting this to mean their dog LIKES the cheaper food more. No, they just NEED more of it to survive. Some grocery store foods add extra sugars and flavor agents to “bribe” the dog to eat more.
Avoid all this by choosing a good food to start with.
There are specific suggestions I would make based on both breed and individual peculiarities. My advice to you would be to have a post-purchase veterinary exam. Make sure the animal is healthy before you are too attached to deal with possible problems. During that visit, get specific recommendations from your veterinarian.
One that you can afford and is easy to obtain when you need it
One that your dog thrives on.
I can tell you all about raw feeding, what I consider the best kibbles and what I consider the worst but it all comes down to your wallet and the pooch. I know dogs that do great on Uncle Roy and others that need Innova. Personally, I’m a fan of raw but that’s not for everyone!
I would stick with whatever the breeder was feeding your pup for now. You don’t want to mess to much with her diet while she’s adjusting to new surroundings.
Nutro, Royal Canin, Nature’s Choice, Innova, California Gold etc…they’re all out there and they’re good stuff. As said earlier, go to a smaller pet food store and start looking at ingredients. (I have also heard very good things about Cosco’s brand of kibble but haven’t looked into it.)
I’m sure you will soon find a diet for your dog that works for both of you.
I heard once that by law, all pet food sold in the United States has to be fit for human consumption (because so many poor people eat it). Anyone know if there’s truth behind this?
Nothing much more to add here except that our dogs now are on Nutro kibble. They seem to love it, they are healthy and there seems to be a lot less… um… waste than with other brands.
I also notices on the younger pup foods that had a lot more starch in them tended to clear rooms quite often. Whereas on Nutro it has pretty much cut off the gas problem.
Canidae used to be a very good food. a while ago, they changed something, and my dogs started throwing up a lot and had skin problems. apparently this was pretty widespread, and a LOT of people switched from Canidae. i used to get it from a lady who sold it out of her home, and she said that several other customers’ dogs suddenly developed problems over a couple months.
i feed innova.
i don’t have the link right now, but several major pet foods have detectable levels of the drug used to euthanize pets (from all the recycled dead pets in it). here in illinois, an investigative report a while back forced vets to find a new place to get rid of euthanized aminals after it was revealed that the biggest rendering plant supplied pet food companies with their “meat” from pet doggies and kitties.
100% false. the quality of a lot of meat destined for human consumption is scary enough. ironically, pet food is much too expensive for poor people to eat, and it tastes f’ing terrible. um, i’ve heard. yeah.
I had no idea. Goliath has not had any bad experience with Canidae to this point. However, I found that there is a store nearby that sells Innova. I’ll give that a shot.
I don’t know why THAT outrages you so much. My older dog can probably eat a chicken, feathers, feet and all and she would be pretty damn happy about it.
Now, I read the label and all dog food has GRAINS in it.
I mean, my dogs eat it and don’t seem to complain, and I haven’t noticed any changes that would prompt me to change their diet again. However, I supplement dry dog food with raw meat.
But who the hell was the first person to think, “Hey, I know, I’ll add some rice to this dog food to make it cheaper” :dubious:
Does anybody know of any dry dog foods that do not have corn/grains/starches in them? I’d happily switch.
All dry food has to have something besides meat in it. More than 50% animal protein and the kibbles won’t maintain shape - they crumble. There are kibbles that are grain free - Innova makes Evo and Timberwolf Organics has 2 formulas now. I heard that Solid Gold is coming out with a version as well. Innova and Timberwolf use potatoes instead of grain. There are also several companies making dehydrated diets some of which are grain/starch free - just add water and go. These are great for camping trips.
I admit I’m a dog food snob. If I’m ever trapped under something heavy and all I can reach is the dog food then I don’t want to have to worry about what’s in it.
And yes, there are some companies that use the “4-Ds” (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), road kill, or even euthanized pets. Anything with the unspecific title of “meat” can include these.
“the drug”? You think there is only one drug all vets use for this? Not true!
You’re probably referring to the barbituates family of drugs. These drugs are commonly used for large animals, like cattle, horses, & sheep too. And those animals make up most of the meat that is listed on the dog-food label. So it’s not surprising that there are ‘detectable’ levels. But it certainly doesn’t show that there are ‘recycled dead pets’ in the food.
Yes I found that very hard to believe too. The number of ‘dead pets’ needed to make anyt significant addition to the volume of dog food would be too high to be of any financial benefit. Pets that are euthanized at a vet are either returned home with the owners, cremated privately or cremated in a mass with other pets. Even shelters, the only places capable of supplying that amount of bodies, do mass cremations.
I’ve found that those ‘anti-kibble pro-raw’ fanatics will use scare tactics like this in order to ‘convince’ owners that kibble is horrible for their dogs.
I found this study that says the dead pet thing is a myth (caution .pdf) so I take back what I said about dead pets. Although I’m not wholly convinced that this doesn’t go on. Here is one story that claims dead pets go into pet food. Valley Protein is mentioned. Valley Protein trucks used to stop by the vet office where I worked and the ASPCA next door to pick up all the unclaimed dead animals. I find the claim that they end up in cattle feed more disturbing : http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3727
And BTW, I’m not one of those “raw fanatics”. I feed Innova.
I feed my dogs a mostly raw diet, but I’m not fanatical about it, they get kibble as well a couple of times a week (at present I’m feeding Eagle Pack), sardines, raw eggs, carrots, yoghurt, some tinned food (an Australian brand called Nature’s Gift), and occasionally a semi-moist food which is all human grade meat and vegetables, fish oil and cider vinegar (not all at once!).
That being said, the best food for your dog is one that your dog thrives on. If you’re going to feed kibble, then I suggest you look for a premium grade one. Since your dogs is a small one, it shouldn’t work out that prohibitively expensive, and because it’s a higher grade food, you can feed less.
But I’d also recommend some raw to get your dog chewing, little dogs can be prone to dental problems. My vet suggested things like raw meat in chunks because it’s the chewing action as the meat breaks into strings which clean around the teeth (dog floss), or softish bones such as raw chicken. I feed chicken frames to my big dogs, but wings and necks are good for puppies. I don’t like giving my dogs rawhide and I don’t think other chew toys do as good a job as bones of keeping teeth clean.
My mother gives her dogs roasted cow knuckles - all three dogs will lie around of an evening grinding away at those, and they all have gleaming white gnashers that would put a werewolf to shame (they get through knuckles 2-3 a week!). Plus which they are not prone to being confused with shoes, belts or other leather goods, unlike those stupid rawhide slippers people buy.
My mother’s terrier mutt caught a rabbit during a hike, and carried it along for 15 mins until the next rest stop, where he disappeared behind a rock with it. Crunching noises emerged and the rabbit completely disappeared - he finished up by licking the stains off the grass. He too was apparently pretty damn happy about it.
And finally, when I was small I used to eat the dog biscuits we had for the German Shepherds without any noticeable ill effects. I’m not sure what this says about me, the biscuits or the dogs, but I thought I’d share.
