Dog Food - What do you feed your dogs?

luvmykids wrote: My mom has been doing all this research on dog food....from grocery store dog food to organic to making your own...anyway, she is convinced that through all of her unbiased research there really is something to feeding them the higher end stuff. She said she feels like basically anything you can get at the grocery store is terrible for your dog.

I'm just curious, I almost always use Iams but she was saying that isn't even all that good. According to what she found, any grains (corn, soy, etc) are just fillers and of no use to them, and that they need a food with "meat meal" or a specific meat named as the first ingredient.....along with fruits and veggies. A good dog food can help with everything from shedding to joint degeneration, etc and that with the fillers they gain fat, with the high protein "healthy" food they gain muscle....a lot like our diet. She also said with the higher end foods you don't feed nearly as much b/c it doesn't have all the empty fillers, so it really isn't that much more expensive. They've been using a veterinarian brand for a few weeks and said they've probably only used half of what they normally would.

So anyway, it just got me wondering. It makes sense, and in our family our dogs are not really dogs but I still don't know if I can bring myself to spend that kind of money on dog food She called some breeders and they said even Science Diet and Nutro are better than grocery store stuff but still at the low end as far as actual nutrition.

And fwiw, dogs can have chicken bones as long as the chicken is raw, it's cooking the bones that makes them so brittle and dangerous.

grandma replied: Funny you would bring this up, just last week my husband decided on his own, at the last minute, to change our dogs' food. He went to the pet store to get the our normal Iams for small breeds, well he came home with Nature's Choice. I ask him what happened and did he know that this can mess with the dogs stomachs.
He said the man at the pet store told him nature's choice was much better than Iams (sp?). So he gabe it to him and there wasn't a big difference in the bowel movements. The dogs also seemed to enjoy the food more than the Iams.
With other dogs I have used Science Diet and liked that too.
The vet says our dogs are really healthy and they aren't overweight at all, so I'm happy.

luvmykids replied:
My mom noticed that, she said they LOVE the new food. One of the ladies she asked about it said to be careful, that they'll want more than they need b/c it tastes so much better but is so much higher in protein. I'm still on the fence, I'm taking Bogie to the vet next week for a check up and I'm surious to hear his thoughts, and it will also depend on if Bogie is overweight or just a huge lab (over 120 lbs, but super muscular) as to what we do with his diet. Harley I think is just right but SOOOO energetic that I think he could really use a higher protein. And Stevie.....well, he's just Stevie, I don't think the food would affect him or his demeanor

TrulyBlessed replied: I have been using Purina puppy chow, but I am getting ready to switch over to Purina healthy morsels.

This issue came up recently with my cat. He weighs 20lbs and needs to go on a diet. The vet recommended Science Diet, Iams and some others. What makes me nervous is a lot of those high priced foods were the ones that were in that major pet food recall. Although, there were a lot of them that were recalled......

mom21kid2dogs replied: We feed him Purina One for Sensitive Skin & Stomachs which you can buy at the vet, the grocery or Petsmart. He loves it and it works well for him. We used to feed a premium brand we could only buy at the vet for him for the first year we got him. It was super expensive but was pretty necessary to address some health issues. He had demodex and a host of medical issues when we got him from the pound. He is now recovered and she felt a switch to this would be find.

There is a ton of conjucture out there about feeding and a little research. Like everything else on the internet, sometimes it's hard to determine opinion from hard science. I generally rely on doing some research on my own and discussing it with my vet.

I know a few people who went to natural feeding (mimicking what they would eat in the wild, including bones) and/or home prepared feeding after the pet food scare but I can barely get dinner on the table for us let alone cook for the dog LOL!!! To answer your original question, though, I think there are some differences in store bought vs high end but I'm not really sure it makes a huge difference in the end for normal, healthy animals. I can tell you that you will pick up more poop with the cheaper food than the high end stuff, though My parents have always fed the cheapest dog food they could buy (heck, with 6 kids they could barely afford to feed us, let alone the dogs). They've owned 6 dogs all with very long life spans (except a dog that got hit and killed and she was 10). They had a Briard that lived to be 18 (literally unheard of for a 100 lb dog) and currently have a boxer that is 12 (long life for a boxer~10 is where they top out usually) The shortest life span they had was a 14 yo pomerainian.

Like everything else in life, the key to dog happiness is likely achieving a balance~a good food, good trainind and exercise are best.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: I use Eukaneuba. I just don't have the TIME to make my own dog food TOO.... lol

To be honest, whether there's "animal products" in the food or not doesn't make a lick of difference to me. Heck, if I eat hotdogs, my dog can have regular dog food.

But, I do make her treats.

(from allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 cups sifted whole wheat flour
1/2 cup dry milk powder
1 cube beef bouillon, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooked ground pork
1 cup grated carrot
6 tablespoons shortening
1 egg
1/2 cup cold water


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DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly oil two cookie sheets.
In a medium bowl, stir together the whole wheat flour, milk powder, beef bouillon, and salt. Add the ground pork, carrot, shortening and egg; mix in to the flour mixture while gradually adding water to form a stiff ball of dough.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters, and reroll scraps until no dough is left. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the bottoms of the cookies are browned. Allow cookies to set for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

aspenblue1 replied: I feed Hills prescription to Aspen and Iams or Eukaneba to Bruno. Iams is always doing studies on their dog food to make it a bette product.

DillsMommy replied: When we had our dog (we gave her away a couple moths ago) we gave her science diet. That's what the vet recommended and they gave us a free bag at her first visit, so that's what we stuck with. She liked it.

grandma replied:
HH - YOU amage me

luvmykids replied:
I agree, which is why I'm still fighting handing over that kind of money for dog food!

And I really thought about feeding them that type of diet but like you said, we're lucky to have our own dinner on the table.......I can't cook for three extra mouths

luvbug00 replied: Used to be a pet sitter/vet tech.

the best foods for your pets have the first 3 ingredints as actual meat, grains, veggies and then if it starts to list stuff like water or viadmins and stuff that's fine. you should NOT swich you animal from hard kibble to the raw diet without speaking to your dr. you could REALLY mess up thier systems. not to mention the raw diet includes feeding them chicken on the bones and they could choke and with all the desieases in meat right now it's just not a smart idea. when they say raw they mean raw, whole eggs and the whole 9 yards. great for the coats and dental health of dogs who have been raised on it but for your average pup they can be just as healthy on kibble from costco ( yes costco , it's just as good as any expencive brand.) and chewies that are skin made. ( actuatal rawhide bones are can be dangerous and have splintering potential. ) No need to break the bank at all just read the label and most dog foods with above qualities should be just fine for a long healthy life, and you don't have to buy the food that promises a longer life and spend the $$ to get that result.

Jackie012007 replied: I make Tobey's food and it really isn't time consuming. I make it every sunday night and freeze it into 3 day portions. Then leave one out, and freeze the other.

He is allergic to chicken so here is the recipe for him:

1lb 95/5 ground beef OR ground lamb, sauteed
2 cups of cooked rice
2 stage 2 packets of baby food vegetables (I reccommend a green veggie and an orange veggie)
2 tbs of olive oil
1 cup of cottage cheese

thats it - you mix it all together and give them a portion per night. We also give tobey Fish Oil caplets mixed in for his coat. The biggest thing is you hit all the groups - protein, dairy, vegetable, wheat/barley, natural oil. We make sure his treats are crunchy to help with his teeth.

Once you get into the habit of making it, it's no big deal!