Name Brand dog foods

[DennisK]

My dog, Abbie is over 10 years old, and her interest in play and going for a walk was slipping away. Aside from her age, she seemed in pretty good shape. Trips to the vet showed no apparent problems. I began to worry after hearing about problems with name brand dog foods with processes from China, I began to get suspicious. I use to buy named brand dog foods from stores like Costco, Target, etc. When I was getting our chicken feed from our feed store, I stopped at the stacks of dog food displayed on their floor. “Hay, are any of your dog foods without Chinese ingredients?” The lady behind the counter was out from behind her counter and stomping up to me, “NONE OF OUR FOODS HAVE CHINESE PRODUCTS! WE ARE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT THAT!” She then informed me that most feed stores follow that practice. I had obviously stumbled upon a very sensitive subject. I didn't recognize any of the brand names, but her emphatic posture sold me. I brought a 50 pound bag home and started feeding our three dogs the feed store food.
BIG DIFFERENCE
Abbie is now chasing and tumbling around with the two younger dogs. This afternoon, she bolted out the door with back-hair standing straight up leading the two young ones, showing them how to chase Mr. Coyote away from the chicken yard.
I took comfort in buying name brand dog foods, thinking I was buying quality insurance. What I find was that I was really buying profit insurance – for the company.

 

[HEChicken]

Anyone can put a brand name on something - it doesn't make it a quality product. About any pet food you can buy at a store like Costco, Target, Walmart, even most of the big pet store chains - are junk.

The thing to look at when looking at a pet food, is the ingredients. In the case of dog food, is meat the top 2-3 ingredients listed? If you look at the "brand name" food you used to feed, I would bet that the first ingredient listed is corn, followed by other grains and fillers and eventually, when you get down the list you might find some kind of meat flavoring agent used. Since ingredients are listed in the order of quantity, that means whatever meat there is, is nothing but a token amount.

Look for foods that have meat as the primary 2-3 ingredients, and if you can find one that has no corn, wheat or soy products at all, you'll be getting much closer.

Most of the foods that are actually quality feeds will be a little higher in price than the Costco junk but if feeding a quality feed keeps me from the vet, its actually saving me money. I feed my family, and my animals - who are all here to serve a purpose, whether it is providing food or protecting the animals providing food - only high quality food, that contains high quality ingredients.

 

[venetianblinds]

HEChicken has mentioned some key points in what to look for in a quality dog food but I'll just add a few more of my own opinions on the subject.

I'm a vet tech and have been researching holistic pet care for years. So many dogs come into the clinic with problems that could be solved by simply switching from Purina or some other low-quality food to a decent, high-quality food!

As the first ingredient it's true that you want to see a meat but even better than that is some sort of meat "meal". What this means is the the meat (be it chicken, lamb, fish, etc.) is weighed and added after being dehydrated/processed, which means it makes up a larger percentage of the food than something like "whole chicken". Ingredients are listed in order by weight/volume and when you see "whole chicken" as the first ingredient it means that they have weighed the chicken before extracting all of the moisture from it, so it's sort of misleading because how much of the food it makes up is much less after all of that moisture has been extracted. Hopefully that makes sense! Most, if not all, supermarket brands of dog food are the equivalent of Kraft Dinner and other such products in human food; yes, they'll maintain life but they're not doing your body any favours and certainly aren't healthy. I love this website: http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/brand/ They have some great articles on how to select a healthy dog food. I wish everyone knew how much of a difference a nutritious food can make in the health of their dogs.

I think a big put-off for people is that the higher-quality foods cost much more than grocery store brands too. What they may fail to realize, though, is that when your dog is eating a food that is high in nutrition you will feed much less; even half as much as what you feed of Purina or Iams. Because of this the cost actually isn't that different on a per day basis.

I'm so happy to hear that your dog is doing better! Since she's getting older you may also want to look into supplementing her diet with glucosamine/chondroitin to help her joints stay in good shape. It really helps many dogs!

 

[TwoCrows]

I have been feeding a holistic, organic, grain free dog food to my Maltese since last February. As stated, it is grain free. All his allergies, (itchy skin, liking and chewing on his feet, ear infections) have all disappeared. He has a ton more energy. It is not cheap, but it is worth it to keep him happy and healthy.

 

[venetianblinds]

I have been feeding a holistic, organic, grain free dog food to my Maltese since last February. As stated, it is grain free. All his allergies, (itchy skin, liking and chewing on his feet, ear infections) have all disappeared. He has a ton more energy. It is not cheap, but it is worth it to keep him happy and healthy.

This makes me so happy to hear! The vet I work for is so against holistic treatments and it kills me when so many dogs come in with skin and ear issues only to be given steriod shots or put on medications to alleviate itching. Change the food! That's all I want to say to the clients. But, alas, I cannot. So happy that you changed foods and got such a great result!

 

[TwoCrows]

Quote: Too bad the vet you work for is not enlightened enough about these types of foods. Some people are just so against anything that is not mainstream, such as herbal treatments, dietary changes and such. We live in a very rural area and the nearest town, up until recently, carried very little of anything really. Especially dog food. Only the big names like Purina and other similar products. And then my feed store, of all places, remodeled and one day I went in and there were rows of all these great dog foods! Many many grain free, organic foods. And I remember my vet telling me about my dogs allergies to foods, but at the time, unless I ordered it online, I could never purchase it.

Anyway, my vet says that not only does he steer his patients to the feed store for holistic and grain free foods, but he says the feed back has been tremendous. Everybody says the same thing....their dogs and cats allergies have nearly disappeared and in some cases, completely disappeared. I will never go back to the standard dog food again. And my dog is much healthier as well. I am grateful not to be cleaning up barf at midnight, along with all the other issues he had going.

 

[Chickenfan4life]

I was using a terrible dogfood with my dogs and when I got a new dog, I realized how that dog's energy literally just fell away from her as she got on a steady diet of the very food I was feeding her, which turned out to be the worst dog food my vet had seen in about 20 years. After a long and well-worth-it battle with my parents, whom were convinced all dogfood is the same, we finally began buying Victor, and our dogs have been much happier ever since.

 

[sourland]

Get rid of the grain filled products, and shortly the ear and skin problems will clear up on their own. Good point made by venetianblinds. When feeding higher quality feed you will use less and there will be less feces because the digestibility is so much better.

 

[sumatra lover]

I have a one year old rottweiler who is very sensetive with her digestive system. We feed her the diamond pet food brand and it is free of pretty much everything bad and they do several tests as they say on the package. She does extremely well on that. I believe she is on the diamond maintenance. When she was a puppy, her breeder had all the pups on tractor supply's 4 health wich is a great brand we just switched to diamond because of the amount we are able to save a little money. Blue I would say is the best dog food but diamond is a great brand as well an not as expensive.

 

[ShinShien]

I feed my dogs Orijen 6-fish or original.