TDG

sorry for such a late reply, but i was out of town over new year's. :) matty, i do agree with what your vet recommends. he's worth his weight in gold, because most other vets would just sell you a bag of some prescription diet crap and your dog would probably be worse off than before. :( if you want to do some more reading on the topic of feeding a natural diet, one book i can [b]highly[/b] recommend is dr. lonsdale's "raw meaty bones promte health". it's quite detailed and if you don't enjoy reading much it might take you a while to read through it all, but it's information that (in my opinion) everyone should be aware of. personally i don't follow his feeding regimen 100% either, but the advice is excellent and can alleviate a lot of fears and hangups people have about feeding raw. :)

i've fed it a few times when raw wasn't an option (travelling) and use it as treats in a treat ball and am very happy with what i have experienced so far.

i know whole foods for example sells a few good food brands. i've seen petguard and newman's own and some others i can't remember right now. but then you can hardly group health food stores with regular grocery stores or department stores. :) your approach is a great idea, i agree that it's not a good thing to alienate others. and if you make up a nice display for the foods, people will be asking all by themselves and need no prompting. :D as for the vets - the sad thing is that most of them really don't have much of a clue about nutrition and will just sell you a shot of prednisone and a bag of a hill's or eukanuba prescription diet, instead of addressing underlying causes. tom lonsdale's book "raw meaty bones promote health" is a real eye opener in that regard and i highly recommend reading it if you haven't yet. :)

of those you posted, i'd rather tell you which one would be better to leave out :) Drs. Foster & Smith Nutro Natural Choice Ultra Wysong you'd probably make good business with eagle. other alternatives i'd take into consideration are back to basics (beowulfs.com), holistic blend (a canadian food, holisticblend.com), azmira or artemis. these are all small companies who might be more likely to work with you than the bigger ones. i especially love the azmira supplements and herbal extracts, you could add those to your program as well.

i don't think it's a problem at all. might as well use up all the odds and ends. :)

it's lovely :) i always sniff my dog when he's all dry again after a bath. my husband thinks i'm weird. :oops: lol

i really like the earthbath products, and have heard from a number of shih people that the chris christensen stuff is really good too. i wouldn't use pantene, not only is it full of chemicals, but it's also made by one of the corporate giants with the worst animal testing background. look for products free of ammonium-, lauryl- and laureth sulfates, methlychlorine, alcohol compounds and other harsh chemicals. they are unnecessary but used as cleaning substances because they are cheap. personally i use aveda and have used it on my dog when i ran out of "doggie stuff" and it worked pretty well too. :D

oh that's too bad. but i understand that not everyone has the means to go with a home prepared diet. if you don't exceed about 15-20% of the total amount of food per meal (depending on the calcium/phosphorus ratio of the kibble you feed), you can mix in raw or cooked meat scraps without having to worry about adding extra calcium. you can add steamed veggies if your dog likes them, or fruits (no grapes or raisins), cook up some oatmeal and add a couple table spoons, or yogurt, cottage cheese, apple sauce (without any added sugar), grated cheese, low sodium broth, low sodium V8 veggie juice... or you can cook up a batch of "dog soup" made from scratch by simmering chicken and pieces of veggies covered with water in a pot and some pasta or rice and add a few table spoons per meal in plae of canned food. it's not difficult, just cook everything until it's tender. it will keep in the refrigerator for 5-6 days.

why don't you just feed her a home prepared diet? once you get the hang of it, it really isn't that complicated and doesn't take all that much time either. depending on how much freezer space you have available you can prepare a week's or more than a month's worth of food and freeze it in zip lock baggies or used yogurt containers. :)

i don't think that turkey is any more gassy than any other meat source. at least, just like the tryptophan issue kat mentioned further up, i've not seen any hard evidence on it at all. much talk but no follow ups. :) overall i think it depends much more on the individual dog. i have a friend who has one dog who gets the worsst gas from lamb but eats any other meat just fine. my own dog tends to get gas from pork and chicken, but does great on lamb, beef and turkey. one thing i do know is that a lot of people who complain about gas or soft/runny stools on innova are simply feeding too much. innova has almost 30% more calories per cup than most other mainstream foods and people just tend to substitute cup for cup with whatever else they were feeding before.

[i] One of the most widespread myths the manufacturers of some (mostly poorer quality) products perpetuate. They claim that table scraps will upset the balance of the commercial dog food, but just like like humans, dogs do not require a diet that provides uniform meals every single day of their life. Dietary deficiencies do not appear overnight but need a long period of consistently poor nutrition to develop. Dogs will also not automatically get fat, learn to beg at the table, or refuse to eat their own food just because they are fed table scraps. They will, however, do those things for various other reasons, like being overfed, not trained properly or just plain spoiled. It is important that you do not feed junk food, candy, items that contain a lot of artificial ingredients, high amounts of fat, salt or sweeteners. Leftover meats (or meat trimmings), pasta, rice, oatmeal, baked or steamed potatoes and especially fresh, raw or lightly steamed vegetables and fresh fruits are healthy additions to a dog's commercial diet. Moderation is the key and of course you need to substract the amount of foods you supplement from the total daily ration of dog food. Carbohydrates must be processed in order to be digested by the dog. This is either achieved by finely grinding, pureeing or mincing, or gentle cooking or steaming - but not at excessively high temperatures or for long time periods. [/i] more info [url=http://www.mordanna.com/dogfood]here[/url]. :) hope it helps!

many dogs seem to have a bit of gas or loose stools when switching to innova. in many cases it's because the amount fed is too high. innova is quite a bit more calorie dense than other foods. try reducing the feeding amount by a little and add some probiotics. a good quality human acidophilus product will work. powderd ones usually start working faster than capsules.

[quote name='Matty']Thanks for clearing me up on bloat not being a genetic disorder.[/quote] bloat [b]can[/b] be genetic. i've been discussing this with a breeder recently. this fact is the reason why many vets will not do a gastropexy after a bloat incident in a dog without spaying or neutering at the same time - because dogs who bloat shouldn't be bred and gastropexy would just hide the defect. examine the limitations of the insurance you get very closely. i'm also not sure if commercial pet food can be blamed all that much, it may play some role but overall i think the biggest problem is that dogs are bred to increasingly ridiculous extremes (bigger, heavier, deeper chests etc.), and from shrinking gene pools (due to closed stud books in most breeds),which predispose them to a lot of health issues. and then of course there are a lot of unscrupulous breeders who only breed for looks but not for health. :(

[quote name='candy722']I was wondering if Natural Balance can be compared to Wellness and Innova. I believe Natural Balance is also organic.[/quote] NB is a nice food, but you can't quite compare it to natura products. a side note on the term "organic": [b]only[/b] if a food is made from all-organic ingredients it can be labeled as "100 percent organic" (or similar statement). there are no dry dog food products that are 100% organic because there are no organic vitamin and mineral mixes. they simply do not exist. geneally, organic ingredients also appear as "organic [name]" in the ingredient list, such as "organic chicken" vs. "chicken", "organic brown rice" vs. "brown rice" and so on. pay attention to that. to qualify for the label "organic", a product must contain a minimum of 95% organic ingredients. the best you can currently get is natura's "karma", which is made from over 95% organic ingredients. nice food quality wise, but it has the downside of being fairly low in meat content - organic meat is expensive. i think there is only one other product that can claim as high an amount of organic ingredients, but it's even lower in meat/protein content and i wouldn't feed it to a dog without supplementing fresh meat daily. almost all of the dry dog foods on the market that claim to be organic only have organic grain and fruit/vegetable ingredients but [b]not[/b] meats. for the label "made with organic ingredients", a food must have at least 70% organic ingredients. if you inspect the ingredient list and see organic grains and fruits/veggies but not organic meats, you know that the food has a meat content of 30% or less. again, personally i wouldn't feed such a product without supplementing some fresh meat daily. dogs are carnivorous animals and all that grain doesn't supply what they really need. that's one of the reason why so many crappy supplements like linatone etc. sell like hotcakes, even tho they are of pretty poor quality themselves. there are also some food brands out there that use the term "organic" or some variation of it in the name but do not contain any or only minimal amounts of organic ingredients. it's legal but to me that amounts to deceiving customers.

no, neither wellness nor innova are organic, but there are products out there that are made from between 70 and 95% organic ingredients. he problem with most of these is that they are very high in grain content and rather low in protein and fat. natura's products are all human grade and tested for contamination tho and the meats used are hormone and antibiotic free. you generally can't rely on sales people to give you an informed opinion. most of them have no clue about nutrition and will just tell you waht their company tells them to tell prospective customers. look here if you want to learn more about commercial dog food: [url]http://www.mordanna.com/dogfood/[/url]

[quote]she was a little hesitant as she said the protein level was much too high for most dogs. She stated that it can cause problems with the kidneys?[/quote] that's a myth, often perpetuated by reps from companies that make foods with a high grain and low meat content. i don't know your rep, so i can't say that's the case here, but it's definitely not true. protein does not [i]cause[/i] kidney damage. dogs are carnivorous animals with digestive systems designed to utilize protein and fat. even in dogs with kidney issues, it is not considered appropriate anymore to limit protein, unless they are in end stage failure. if a dog has kidney problems, it is even more important than in a healthy dog to feed high quality, easily digestible protein that the body doesn't have to work hard to digest. [quote]The other dog I am thinking of switching is my Rottweiler, I am a little wary of switching her to a high protein as she is currently over weight and a very difficult dog to get weight off.[/quote] you are far more likely to get weight off a dog by feeding a food with a high protein content than one with a high carb content, such as most "lite" or "less active" formulas. that aside, the evo has slightly less calories per cup than the innova adult. i don't think you can do wrong either way, no matter if you use the evo as a supplement or feed it exclusively. all natura products are of excellent quality. ultimately it just comes down to whether it isn't too expensive to feed a number of large dogs the evo, since it is quite pricy. :)

[quote name='candy722']Is that good food compared to Nutro?[/quote] nutro is one of the better "mainstream" foods, but far from being a true premium product. nutro is a food that contains a lot more grains and fillers than meat - the average content is under 30%, even less in some varieties. considering the fact that you can get premium products for the same price as nutro, or in the worst case just a little more, it's way overpriced too. *edited because i can't spell :drinking: * lol

one thing that works very well for any kind of intestinal worms in dogs is food grade diatomaceous earth. it doesn't work instantly, since it's a natural remedy, but it's 100% safe to use and even adds some trace minerals to the diet. to make sure all worms are eliminated, it should be given as a 2-week course, but it's also possible to just add it to the food daily. the dose is one teaspoon for dogs up to 35 lbs and one tablespoon for dogs over 35 lbs, and it [b]must[/b] be food grade, the type of DE used for pool filters is not the same thing and is not designed to be ingested.

please don't separate the puppies from the mother or from each other before they are at least 8 weeks old. they need this period of time to learn how to interact with other dogs and proper bite inhibition.

you'll have to find the underlying problem instead of just treating the symptoms that manifest themselves as an ear infection. otherwise you'll never get it cleared up entirely. i agree with cassie - diet is an important factor and you need to examine what you are feeding. it's quite possible that one or more ingredients just don't agree withy your dog. allergies are malfunctions of the immune system and symptoms manifest in many different ways. meanwhile, to combat the ear infections and to help the immune system along, you can start giving a good probiotic supplement (a human grade acidophilus product would be good) and either "blue power" ear treatment or the pellitol cassie mentioned already. also a daily dose of fish oil (not cod liver oil), up to 1000 mg per 10 lbs of body weight would be a good idea.

will he leave it alone while he's supervised? if yes, i'd rather say leave it uncovered so the skin can breathe and just dab it with a solution of tea tree oil and water now and then.

stress, boredom, allergies, all of them can cause dogs to lick excessively. i'd say probably boredom if he has been crated longer than usual. have you tried a frozen kong to keep him busy? :) lasts a bit longer than just regular stuffed ones.

[quote]Thanks, thats helped a lot! I think I'm starting to get the whole phosphorus and calcium thing.[/quote] great :) it's really not all that complicated. as you go along it will get easier and easier. [quote] So I should include a bit of raw meat now and then? What do you suggest? Lamb/chicken/pork? And the organs/legs/necks...etc?[/quote] yes, raw meat, or even cooked if you feel more comfortable about it, is a great addition. as much variety as you can possibly offer. eggs are also great! go easy on organ meat, it's very rich and likely to cause the runs if you aren't careful. if you check in the "care" forum, i posted some veterinary designed recipes for kibble supplements there a while ago. they are taken from dr. pitcairn's book that i mentioned earlier in this thread somewhere. if you can't find them, or can't get the book, PM me and i'll send you the stuff. [quote]I'll try to find the torula yeast, but unfortunately I doubt I will find any where I live (yep, middle of nowhere, how did you guess?). If not, should I go on with the Brewer's?[/quote] yes, do stick with the brewer's yeast if you have to, it's still a great source of nutrients. the difference is that brewer's yeast is a byproduct from the brewing industry and nutritional/torula yeast is grown specifically for nutritional supplementation, nourished by a specific nutrient-rich substrate. this brings more nutrients into the yeast itself. [quote]Thanks again, you've been a great help![/quote] you are absolutely welcome. :)

here in L.A., you get a tag when you first license your dog, and then it's extended through mail payment every year. every 3rd year proof of rabies has to be submitted along with the payment. $10/year for spayed/neutered dogs and $100/year for intact ones. in my eyes for a large city like this, the amount is way too low. animal control could do better if they had a higher income from licensing fees. when i still lived in germany, i had to pay about $160 a year in my city. that's excessive, but a happy medium like $50 a year with discounts or exceptions for seniors or low income folks would make sense.

since kibble has already a minimum of 50% grains, i wouldn't dilute that more by adding [i]just[/i] rice. if you substitute a meal of kibble with rice and scrambled egg or a bit of meat now and then, that would be fine tho. as long as you don't add more than about 20% meat to the diet, the kibble will have enough spare calcium to make up for the phosphorus introduced by boneless meat. and if you can find nutritional yeast (or torula yeast) instead of brewer's yeast, that would be even better. :)