Whats the straight dope on pet food?

Factual Questions
21

Purina Dog/cat chow is OK stuff, economical and fairly good. Don’t go any cheaper than that. If you can afford better, then great. Especially for cats, the less corn the better.

Some scraps of your real meal type food (meat scraps, bones, etc) is OK for your Dog. But no cookies, candy, etc. So sure, if you have a steak and give the bone to your dog, that’s great (be careful with turkey bones, and chicken leg bones. Turkey leg bones are quite dangerous). Some well cooked veggies are OK for the dog too. NO SWEETS!

22

My sister makes her own dogfood: well-drained ground beef, rice, and vegetables (peas and carrots, mostly) in a 2-2-1 ratio. The one dog is a picky eater and allergic to corn, and it’s been the only thing she could find that he would eat. Both her dogs are happy and healthy, and I don’t think in the end it really costs more than mid-grade dogfood.

23

Gave my dog Kibbles and Bits. He patiently ate only the kibbles(or bits ) leaving the other. If they dont eat it ,it is no good no matter what it costs. When I went to the dog show an expert told me one of the big dog food ingredients is carrots. Mine eat them raw. I read that pet food is more closely regulated than people food. Some kinds of beef ,for political reasons ,are deemed not fit for human consumtion. They are high quality and end up in pet food. They are also better labeled. My animals always walk away from food they dont like. They train me to get another kind.

24

I fed my dog Eukanuba and have started feeding my cats Eukanuba as well.
My dog ate it for the majority of her life, and she was quite healthy throughout that time. She lived to be about 15 years old.
The cats came home from the shelter on Science Diet. It was an all right food and I would consider it my second choice option. It seemed they were doing fine on it, but when I compared the ingredient labels for the two foods, I felt that the ingredients in Eukanuba were better. The first two ingredients in Eukanuba were chicken and chicken liver, whereas in SD they were chicken by-product and corn. Corn is not a good source of nutrition for cats since they are carnivores.
The downside with Eukanuba is that it is pretty expensive as pet foods go, and it’s only sold at pet stores (so I cant just pick it up at the grocery store). However, I think it’s a good food, and I feel like there is less litterbox mess now that they eat it than there was with SD.
My dog used to eat a lot of table scraps and it didn’t seem to hurt her. I don’t feed the cats any table scraps, partly because one of them loves to eat and is already a bit overweight just from stuffing his face with cat food. :slight_smile:

25

When I switched to a higher quality cat food, I first tried Science Diet. My cats just don’t like it. They would eat it if there was nothing else available, but they didn’t like it and Gwen started losing weight. So I switched to Iams and have never had a problem since. I would feed Eukanuba or Nutro if I weren’t feeding 8 cats, but the price upgrade is a bit much right now since we’re living on one income.

26

Almost the only food I ever fed my dogs was Iams (Eukanuba is their premium variety). Science Diet is highly recommended by many vets. Purina’s varieties are probably the cheapest thing I’d consider feeding my dog, if I still had one.

In my carefully considered opinion, if I couldn’t afford to feed Purina, I’d be unable to afford to keep a dog (and yes, I’ve been there). The problem now is that I can’t physically take care of one. There’s a point at which people have to think about what’s good for the animal, and not just what they want.

27

For those of you who feed your pets Iams, although your pet might do well with their brand of food, here is another viewpoint on this company:

People should be aware of this.

-NobleBaron

28

That’s a PeTA site. I tend to distrust anything they say.

29

Just curious Tygerbryght, why do you say this?

30

They - the leadership, at least - aren’t as holy and righteous as they purport themselves to be. The evidence is out there, and some of it’s been posted here on SDMB. An initial search turns up 750 threads that mention PeTA, and I don’t have the time or inclination to identify the ones I’m thinking about tonight. I can, however, give you a link to a site that dislikes them considerably more than I do (I saved that link from one of the anti-PeTA threads here).

Even without that stuff, I tend to distrust anyone who tries to convince others how virtuous they are, with or without evidence of virtue or vice. They, unfortunately, are big on telling the world how good, and pure, and wonderful they are.

I am vehemently opposed to cruelty to animals, but I am also totally convinced of the importance of animal experimentation in the search for cures to both human and animal diseases and conditions. I want animal research to be confined to uses where it’s essential, and I want the animals to be treated as humanely as possible, but stop using animals? That won’t work just yet, and it won’t happen all at once.

I foresee a future when it will no longer be necessary to use animals (or humans) as guinea pigs in research, and I want it tomorrow. Unfortunately, it won’t happen nearly as fast as I’d like. My best guess as to when? 20 years :sigh: I’d love to be wrong, so long as it meant it would happen sooner, not later. I do have a strong suspicion that, as stem cell research develops, they will find some of the information that’s needed to develop in vitro testing for a variety of different kinds of research. Why do I think that? It’s just a gut feeling I’ve got, related to how primordial some of the functions of and spectrum of changes possible for those cells are.

I’ve done laboratory research (microbiology), using mice. And no, I didn’t like inoculating the meeces with the bacterium and sacrificing them, all for the sake of satisfying Koch’s Postulate. But it was research towards trying to solve the mystery of canine bloat (Acute Gastric Dilatation).

I do, however, believe that anyone who is opposed to animal experimentation should refrain from using any of the medicines and medical and surgical procedures that have been developed through the use of laboratory animals. I do tend to believe that “Joe/Jane Average PeTA member” is sincere in their love of animals. I just don’t think they understand logic, or appreciate how many of the advances in various parts of ordinary life would never have happened without the stuff they want to outlaw.

I also think it’s stupid to try to make carnivores into vegetarians. Dogs can get very sick that way, and it’s flat impossible for cats.