we tried orijen, blue buffalo, and pedigree pro plan with my mom's blue heeler pup, and we had best results with orijen

 

Wait...is this spam?

 

The sig makes me wonder.

 

Pedigree isn't good at all really...
Orijen is an excellent dog food.
My dogs go nuts over Blue Buffalo. Over the years we've switched between that and Taste of the Wild, and they love and do well on both.

 

i have a feeling it is, i didn't even read the signature when i posted.

it's still okay to post for future readers... did the same thing with the cooking guy... and the person who was trying to train their horse or whatever. clever spammers.

 

Pedigree is junk, and has actually caused dogs to die when they changed the dye color in the food.

I have had my fair share of dog foods.. I had a dog with EXTREME digestion issues, and we had to try almost everything.

My list of recommended foods: Kinda in order

1. Orijen
2. Performatrin Ultra
3. Before Grain
4. Wellness Core
5. Wolf King
6. Canidae
7. Taste of the Wild
8. Wellness
9. Diamond Natural (cheapest Holistic food- not great but better if on budget)

Everyone states that Blue Buffalo is Great.. honestly, anything that petsmart carries really makes me wonder. They carry wellness (not core) as well, and I stopped buying it when I seen it on their shelves. However, PetCo carries a decent amount of good foods. That's where I found Wolf King, and it's SUPER fresh.

ROYAL CANIN... some people think it's great, but it's been proven that dogs can't digest corn.. and that a lot of breeds are less tolerant of corn. On Royal Canins website, they have a PDF file where they talk about how it's great for your dog to eat corn, and all it's great benefits. "It's a great source of energy because it's 80% carbohydrates". Dogs react to carbs the same way people do.. too much means FAT.

CORN and WHEAT are NOT good for your pets to be eating. Anything made by Pedigree/Purina should be a last resort IMO. I would even feed Iams before them.

I used to feed Pedigree, and then I got smart. I spend more money on food yes ($80 month for 3 dogs) but I feed less, they don't have that gross dog smell, and they are overall leaner, more energetic, and better looking. Not to mention smaller more digested poop.

Not to mention, I change dog food a lot so that they get variety and they don't get bored with it.. vets recommend against doing this because it can cause stomach upsets etc.. I switch from holistic food to holistic food, and I never have any issues.

Spend the extra money, and your pet will reward you for it.

 

a chain store carrying a food isn't really a good reason not to buy it... really, a good understanding of the nutritional analysis and ingredients list will make it super easy for you to grab any bag on the shelf and decide then and there if it's something you want to feed to your animal. being in a chain store means it's readily available for a lot of people, and the prices will be consistent. i don't see how it's a bad thing. i'd rather have someone walk into petsmart and buy the blue buffalo, over it not being there at all, and have them walk out with the fancy feast or meow mix instead.

some of blue buffalo's stuff is pretty good, especially on the cat side. my cat gets blue buffalo wilderness kitten formula, because it's a high quality grain free food at a reasonable price. it's about $20 a month to feed him. the kitten formula is only slightly different from the adult cat formula - more calories and nutrients for the price, so i can feed him even less.

i understand it's important to give your pet a high quality diet, but your cat should not cost more to feed than your family. lol. dogs are a bit different... but for people like me that live in areas where cheap brand name stuff just doesn't exist, you have to make due with either a slightly inferior quality food, or order it online... and with shipping, even that can be super expensive. i like to be right in the upper middle as far as quality goes, and blue buffalo is right about there.

you don't even want to know how much my local pet store marks up top tier foods like orijen... over 65 dollars for a 15 pound bag of food? imagine if you had to feed a big dog, like an akita... oh god. lol.

i also find it a bit weird that here we're discussing the highest quality pet diets available, and out there homeless people have large dogs that eat table scraps and trash and are the best companions one could ever have, shelters and vets are feeding and advocating crappy foods like science diet, and grandmas all over the world have 15 cats that eat nothing but meow mix their whole lives and live to be 16 years old (mine is one of them). not saying either of those situations is right, but... i don't think the joys of pet ownership should be reserved only for the rich that can afford $65 for a bag of dog food. that's really not fair. as i said before, i prefer the happy middle of things... a balance between a reasonably good food and affordability.

 

Blue Buffalo Wilderness is the higher end of Blue, which is more than decent, and yes, I think their cat food is better than their dog foods.

I have to feed an english mastiff, so trust me, I know what it's like to feed a BIG dog. And at 1 time I was also feeding a 110 lb pitbull, and 4 other smaller pits. I've taken on massive feeding, and I was unemployed.. talk about bad.

However, majority of the dogs that homeless people have are mixed breeds aka: mutts. And it's been proven that mixed breeds don't have near as many issues as purebreds. I don't get how what it's eating is going to determine how great of a companion it ends up being??

Shelters and Vets advocate crap foods like science diet because they get a kickback for it. They get paid to carry their foods. And MOST vets are only in it for the money. It's hard to find a really good vet in some places, not to mention it's not nearly affordable enough.

No one is saying buy a bag of dog food for $65. I spend $80 a month on dog food, and that's high end dog food, which is 2 40 lbs bags. If you can afford to buy Pedigree/Iams/Purina, you can afford to buy a bag of Diamond Holistic. It's $30 and it's 45 lbs I believe. And the same goes for their cat food as well.

I love my dogs, and I love my cats.. they eat the best of what I can afford because I don't want my dog to live for 8 years, and then be "old"... I want them to live out their life span, which on pits is about 15-20 years.

I'm not saying you HAVE to feed the best to own a pet.. ****, my mom fed her basset hound kibbles and bits, and he lived to be 18 years old- AND he was an outside dog.

But, thinks of pedigree as pizza... imagine eating that everyday for the rest of your life.. you won't be as healthy as you can be, you will get lazy, and you're going to start going to go downhill shortly after. And again, I'm not saying that you can't feed this. But there are many dogs which have issues, and feeding a low quality dog food isn't going to help that. Pits are prone to being allergic to corn.. so once you start feeding pedigree or a lower brand, you will soon find your dogs shedding more, dry skin, biting etc...

I don't feed my dogs or cats anything that I wouldn't eat. No, I don't eat dog food, but I am sure you get my point.

 

I don't have a list, but my dog used to be on crap (beneful, which actually made my sister's dog start pooing blood), and now she's on Taste of the Wild after some internet recommendations

 

Our dogs are allergic to corn (they get skin irritation), so we use Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul. They like it pretty well.

 

Let's see..... I have my muttbutt (Scrappi) on Rachael Ray right at the moment. I'd been having money problems and was trying to find one bag of dog food that didn't have corn in the first five ingredients. Rachael Ray was it. Scrap likes it well enough. She's used to having her food switched every time I have to buy a new bag, plus she eats my BF's dog's food which is Beneful. She was on a Rx diet but stopped eating it completely, so he became desperate and picked the first bag she sniffed excessively at Petsmart. If she had gotten to the cat section, she'd be eating cat food. ;D On a serious note, she is taken care of very well and I'm trying to convince him to switch her food.

The plans in my house is that once this bag of Rachael Ray is gone, in about another month, I'll be headed over to a place called Paws N' Play near me and getting what DogFoodScoop.com says is one of the best foods out there. It's ranked number 3 on their list and I can't seem to find the first two at the moment. The food is called Artemis and I think it will be all right. Here's a partial list of ingredients:

Chicken, Chicken Meal, Turkey, Fish Meal, Barley, Brown Rice, Rice, Chicken Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Oatmeal, Millet, Potatoes, Egg Product, Tomato Pomace, Duck, Salmon, Flaxseed, Flavor Enhancer, Salmon Oil (A Source of DHA), Choline Chloride, Dried Chicory Root, Dried Skim Milk, Kelp, Carrots, Apples, Tomatoes, Blueberries, Spinach, Cranberries, Rosemary Extract, Parsley Flake, Pea Powder, Green Tea Extract, Barley Grass Extract

And, the breakdown:

Crude Protein, min.	25.0%
Crude Fat, min.	15.0%
Crude Fiber, max.	3.0%
Moisture, max.	10.0%
Vitamin E, min.	300 IU/kg
Biotin, min.	0.25 mg/kg
Omega-6 Fatty Acids, min.*	2.4%
Omega-3 Fatty Acids, min.*	0.4%
DHA (Docosohexaenoic Acid) min.*	0.05%

*Not recognized as an essential nutrient by the AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profile.
Calorie Contents Calculated
ME-3,683 kcal/kg
345 kcal/cup (8oz.Cup)
Calculated on an as-fed basis.

I plan on feeding her this food according to a dog half her weight and feeding her homemade yums to fill the other half. She gets table scraps on a daily basis as it is, though mostly fruits and veggies while I feed the reptiles and small mammals. She actually steals from the turtles every time I bring in apples. Luckily, the turtles don't mind much. I was also considering getting some patties that my dog trainer feeds his charges, but I can't think of the website at the moment so I'll have to look it up on the baggy of treats he gave me to try. He thinks that the reason my muttbutt chews on her legs is because she has an allergy to the commercial dog food. I haven't brought it up with my vet yet as the only symptom is her chewing. She's only had runny poo once in the past two years and that was after she ate half her weight in baker's chocolate, which was in a box a friend brought over and I didn't know I had. She almost died, so runny poo was the least of the worries that day.

At any rate, because I haven't tried the Artemis yet, I can't say much about it. I can only say that I'm willing to try it. Other brands of food, like Kibbles N' Bits, Beneful, and whathaveyou will keep your dog alive, but I personally think that dry food in general is just a convenience thing. There aren't many regulations on pet foods and I don't think it would really kill most people to prepare food for their pets just as they should be preparing food for themselves. It's one reason I love having reptiles. Sure, you can feed a turtle the prepared diet only, and the turtle may live a long life, but feeding fruits and veggies and bugs and the other billion things I feed them takes work. I know what they are eating and most of it I would gladly eat myself (minus the crickets). The fact that I have to feed the mealworms and roaches and other bugs in order to make sure they are nutritional for my turtles makes me proud. I know if I ever have a problem with one of them and the vet asks me what they are eating, I can say without doubt exactly what they have eaten and can provide most of the quality myself. The one thing that bothers me out of all of it is the fact that I don't know exactly how the fruits and veggies were grown, but living in an apartment prevents me from growing everything. That, and I don't think banana trees would do well in the Rocky Mountains. All I can do is try my hardest to buy locally so I get the freshest possible. Living very close to a farmer's market is great.

On a last note, I am 100% for mimicking a natural diet for all animals. In some cases it's not possible, but in others, you can get pretty darn close.

 

Im getting worried I don't see Science Diet...is this not a good diet!!?? ???

 

Taste of the Wild for Toby.
Addiction Raw Dehydrated for Replay.

Transitioning Creeper (Replay) to raw food hopefully.

I'm a dog food nazi .LOL.

 

Science Diet is NOT good, in fact if you look at many websites dedicated to dog food, and nutritional analysis, Science Diet is usually on the top 5 worst foods.

My dogs eat Merrick Kibble +Raw diet, and the best thing for them in my opinion. I would do exclusive Raw but it's not feasible.

 

Science Diet is plugged by vets because it sponsors their vet programs in school. It is a crappy food; some of them have peanut hulls in it and no meat at all. pedigree has colors and tons of fillers that you scoop up in the yard. It sponsors show and that makes everyone think it is a good food. You have to read the labels.
Check out this magazine: The Whole Dog Journal. It doesn't have advertisers and is neutral and geared to holistic dog care and training. It tests dog foods and rates them. And no, I do not have connections to this magazine

 

The general rule of thumb is: if it contains Meat or poultry (or any) Bi-products it's bad, if it contains corn it's bad, if meat is NOT one of the first ingredients it's bad (unless it's a food meant specifically for a dog with allergies).

You want to see Meat in the first ingredients, no corn, and no Bi-products. There is of course much more to it then this, but those are the basics I learned.

I find generally, most foods in the Holistic section are good. Foods such as Blue Buffalo, Merrick, EVO, Innova, Chicken Soup for the soul, Solid Gold, Wellness, Wellness Core, Orrijen, Fromm, Taste of the wild, and a few others that you will find in the same section.
In general Raw, or BARF diets are the best, whole raw bones, organs, and meat that is clean and uncooked. If you don't want to prepare raw foods, Natures Variety sells Raw medallions, and patties, but they are expensive.

 

Add Trout oil to the pet's food and buy some organic things like the type for people and it has probiotics, additional nutritional value etc. You may also want to add in a intestinal compound for pets. I nourish my dog Natural Stability In & Spud.

 

I feed my dogs HealthWise Lamb and Oatmeal. It's a good food - it has no corn.
I'm thinking of switching to a Canadian brand called Lifetime, which is Canadian. My cat, Links, eats Lifetime cat food and does amazing on it. It also doesn't have corn.

P.S. Science diet is c r a p. I agree with all the Science diet bashing above. I also hate all department / grocery store brands. Down with Iams & all that jazz.

 

Old reply, but - honestly byproducts are less of a concern to me as meal. When an animal in the wild consumes its prey, it does not just go for the breast and leg meat like humans do lol. They eat the whole carcass, head, liver, heart, feet, and all. Byproducts are mostly that kind of stuff. I wouldn't want too much of it in the food because it is an inferior quality protein source to muscle meat, but it is not that scary. Maybe you were thinking of meat meal, Kiko? That is the stuff that is boiled off meat/fat and rendered into some kind of edible jelly to be put into pet foods. Meat and bone meal contributed to the spread of mad cow disease. THAT is ew.

Yes, Science Diet is TERRIBLE food. A lot of the vets that formulated the prescription diets don't even stand by their food or recommend it to their own clients. It is expensive, the ingredients are awful, and there is no "magical" ingredient in any of them that makes them better than any other food. I am so sad that so many rescues/vet clinics feed Hill's exclusively... if everyone just did 10 minutes of research about the nutritional requirements of the animals they were working with...


I don't have dogs right now but I do have a cat with diabetes who has VERY strict diet regulations. Since cats are obligate carnivores they should have little to no grains in the diet, just what their prey consumed before the cat consumed it. It's so awful to see foods out there made by Purina, Iams, Hill's, etc. that have the first ingredients things like ground corn, rice, oat meal, etc. when does a wild cat ever just sit down and munch on a cob of corn or some stalks of wheat? A dog might, but a cat... no. Even my own vet tried to push Science Diet on me for my cat.

Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken By-Product Meal, Powdered Cellulose, Chicken, Chicken Liver Flavor, Soybean Oil....

Those are the ingredients for Science Diet w/d "Feline Low Fat Diabetic Gastrointestinal". Look how far down the list real "chicken" is! And it is listed by weight... That's like feeding a human diabetic a diet of Twinkies and Coca Cola! Awful stuff. The dog food is just as bad.

 

I've used Wellness for years, and love it. My dog, Toad, has developed allergies - to wheat, I believe - and I have had him on Wellness Simple Solutions LID for a while now. He does great on it, and actually eats it, although he'd prefer people food lol.

 

I have 5 dogs, and it's hard to find something that they will all eat. After being misguided for years by thinking Iams was a good food, I did research and have switched to the following (in the order of current food to good alternatives):

1-Acana
2-Evo
3-Wilderness by Blue Buffalo
4-Before Grain by Merrick
5-Royal Canin

 

My dog LOVES royal canin, but it's so expensive ><
She'll eat anything to be honest, but I'm very against Bakers. It's a brand with very low nutritional value and very high sugar content. The brand I occasionally get from Lidls is better than it X'D

 

My dog eats Purina One. I know it's not the best, but I tried to switch him to Innova, and then Blue Buffalo, and he refused to eat either. For some reason he just really seems to love Purina One. :/

 

That's because it's the same as junk food to us. Tastes so good, but is so bad for you! If you want to switch the food, do it in increments over a few weeks. Your dog won't starve himself - he will eventually give in and eat the food you present. Show him that you're in charge and he will eat the food.

 

Krueger gets Prescription Diet because of his allergies. Great stuff, but you need a prescription card from your vet to buy it and it can be obnoxiously expensive (think $80 per a 25lb bag). The Low Allergen food did wonders for his skin and coat.

Gauge, although a lizard, gets specialized grain-free, soy-free wet dog food mixed in with her Rep-Cal pellets. They vary by brand, but I primarily use Hound & Gatos, Blue Buffalo, and a couple of others I cannot recall at the moment. I used to have her on Merrick's, but it was attracting fruit flies (GROSS!) for some reason, so I got rid of it. Haven't had a problem since I switched over.

 

Mine have been eating Wellness for as long as I can remember.

 

My mom uses Verus he loves it !