need advice on dog food for a friend.

[Johnn]

My friend feeds her two dogs on bakers complete after i have told her it is a bad food, she wants to change to one of these food, (please don't suggest any because you will be waisting your time because out local shop only supply these at the best)
James welbelloved:
Minimum levels: duck (26%), rice (26%), oats (14%), linseed (3%), duck gravy (2%), alfalfa (1%), seaweed (0.5%), yucca extract (200mg/kg), chicory extract (0.1%), cranberry extract (0.05%), green tea extract (0.05%).
Harringtons:
Ingredients
Turkey Meat Meal (min 26%), Maize, Porridge Oats, Rice, Fat, Peas (min 4%), Beet Pulp, Digest, Linseed, Vitamins & Minerals, With Kelp, Citrus, Yeast & Yucca
Burns:
Brown Rice (min 63%), Chicken (min 20%), Oats, Peas, Chicken Oil, Sunflower Oil, Seaweed, Minerals & Vitamins
Engage:
Ingredients: (in descending order by weight) Maize, Dehydrated Poultry Meat, Dehulled Oats, Poultry Fat, Whole Linseed, Beet Pulp, Fishmeal, Chicken Gravy, Calcium Carbonate, Sodium Chloride, Yeast Extract, Chicory Extract

I have my dog on Engage but for some reason i find it suspicious because on the back of the back when it says anyalis it like says "Crude protien" instead of just "protien"

Hopefully she can get something good for her dogs , she has a bichon and a shi tzu

 

[Mattemma]

Home prepped meals are the best.Cooked or raw.She should give it a try for a while.Some fresh added to bought dog food helps too.

 

[Paradise Farm]

Hey -

With ingredients such as chicken meal, turkey meal, beef meal anything with the word 'meal' in it doesn't necessarily mean there's anything special in it. What they do is take the turkey grind up the bones some of the fat and other parts of the animal that doesnt really have any source of protien or anything good in it and throw it into the recipe and call it 'protien meal'. Her best bet would be to switch to a known dog food brand like Pedigree or Purina or someone like that, something that's well known.

My sources are my vet that's what he told me about the 'meal'.


~Sarah

 

[dainerra]

ok, Pedigree and Purina pretty much equals "crap food"
"Meal" is actually the best thing to look for when it comes to ingredient lists. Turkey meal simply means that the water has been removed before adding to the mix so it is at the actual percentage that it will be in the final product. If whole meat is used, the water evaporates in the cooking process and you end up with less actual animal protein in the final product.

What you need to avoid is anything labeled as "by-product meal" That is the scraps such as legs, beaks, feathers, ect


Johnn, of the products that you listed -
Engage is the worst. First ingredient is corn so it is automatically more inferior. Corn is a very cheap form of protein that dogs can't fully digest. You will find that it results in a lot of "output" and often gives dogs horrible gas.
Burns is also not good. The first ingredient is rice - another grain.

Wellbeloved is probably the best. Rice is still a grain, but is a bit better than corn.
Harringtons is also not too bad. It has corn as the second ingredient but is pretty equal with the wellbeloved.

hope this helps some.

 

[Fly 2006]

I feed Harringtons, my Border collie is a very fit and healthy girl, I also often add something extra like Pilchards in tomato sauce, just a little to make it a bit more interesting, Harringtons seems to be a pretty good food at a good price, Burns and JW are so expensive!

 

[Johnn]

wouldn't feeding a home cooked meal every day be really expensive and what would you have to put in?, my dog is on engage now but was on JWB before that but he used to fart alot and they really smelt so i changed, mebys i should change him back to james wellbeloved for a trial ot just feed him Harringtons or a home cooked meal depending on price, my dog is a JRT and he is really fussy but would eat anything off a humans plate!!

 

[1muttsfan]

Apart from the fact that raw diets put everyone - human and K9 - in the home at risk of food-born illnesses, it is notoriously difficult to properly balance a home-cooked diet, especially for calorie content, and for a proper calcium to phosphorus ratio.

And looking at the first ingredient to evaluate the quality of food is misleading. If it uses several sources of protein they wil be listed separately, and may still easily be a greater content than the first ingredient when you add then together.

Crude Protein is a legal term and does not indicate the quality of the protein, it is only a measure of the total protein content, and it has to be listed that way according to labeling guidelines.

Remember too that by-products are often the parts left after processing meat for human consumption. It may include meat off a carcass that is too small to interest human consumers, or things like organ meats that are perfectly healthy and nutitious, but not often eaten in THIS country - but are commonly eaten in other cultures.

 

[Johnn]

Apart from the fact that raw diets put everyone - human and K9 - in the home at risk of food-born illnesses, it is notoriously difficult to properly balance a home-cooked diet, especially for calorie content, and for a proper calcium to phosphorus ratio.
And looking at the first ingredient to evaluate the quality of food is misleading. If it uses several sources of protein they wil be listed separately, and may still easily be a greater content than the first ingredient when you add then together.
Crude Protein is a legal term and does not indicate the quality of the protein, it is only a measure of the total protein content, and it has to be listed that way according to labeling guidelines.
Remember too that by-products are often the parts left after processing meat for human consumption. It may include meat off a carcass that is too small to interest human consumers, or things like organ meats that are perfectly healthy and nutitious, but not often eaten in THIS country - but are commonly eaten in other cultures.

which listed food on here do you think is the best??

 

[Johnn]

on the back of the engage dog food bag it says:
ANALYTICAN CONSTITUENTS
Crude Protein 25.0%
Crude Oil 13.0%
Crude Fibre 2.3%
Crude ash 7.0%

 

[Johnn]

the thing that worrys me about Harringtons is that it is sold in supermarkets too, but if the ingredients is good why should it put me off?, is Harringtons better than Engage?, he goes on quite long walks daily so i like him to be active , my friend dosen't take hers for long walks so isn't that bothered....