Doggie Food Quality...

[Guest Anonymous]

I am dying to find out what people think is quality in the world of dry food...
Pedigree? Iams? Purina? Science diet? God help you if these are in your top books!
All of these have a high corn, corn-meal, corn gluten meal content.
Corn is the #1 cause of skin irratations, over weight dogs, etc It is also not digestable for dogs, ground up or not. Also in the U.S. The meat qualtiy or like there of for pet food is beyond nausating to even the strongest of stomachs. Hair, dog-bits and cat-bit are welcomed you know! So is stomach content. Feeling hungry? Top three <MINAMAL> INGREDIENTS FOR DOGS AND CATS ARE real MEAT. LAMB, BEEF, CHICKEN etc, they are carnvoures.<sp>
The WORST thing is vets as a general rule <if you can beleive this> spend extremly little time on specified nutrition for out pets. I have heard this direct from 15 HONEST vets and pet nutrition experts.

[Horsefeathers!]

Wow, Gunsmoke, we share some of the initial same views! I agree 100% with what you've stated so far. Even with higher priced foods, it's still buyer beware. I have eight dogs in my household and did have one of them (allergy dog) on the raw (BARF) diet for a while and she is one that did not do so well on it. My dogs now all get OMH Wellness supplemented with a cooked diet (not that it needs to be supplemented.... it just makes me feel better). My next choice is Three Dog Bakery. Also, I've found out that "human grade" claims are not always all they're cracked up to be. Nutro, for example, pulled their human grade claim after being confronted about the actual contents. Add to that the number of foods tested by the FDA found to contain sodium pentobarbital (the drug commonly used to euthanize animals)... ya just never know... :-?

[Horsefeathers!]

Now I'm curious, having read your other post elsewhere and noticing your ummm passion, for lack of another word. What percentage of a dog's total diet do you feel should consist of protein and red meat vs white meat? 100%? 50%? What percentage of carbs and what percentage of beta carotenes? I'm thinking this may be where the agreement ends...

[Guest roo]

Which pedigree food are we discussing?

[Guest Anonymous]

Check out

http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.com/

[Guest Anonymous]

Sorry try this link

http://www.bpn4u.com/Contact/contactus.htm

I use it for my 2 Dals and swear by it

[Guest Anonymous]

I feed my 2 pits Iams large breed puppy food. Check out their web site for more info. they are the only company that i know of that actually uses real chicken meat and has scientifically designed the food to help with slow grow as to avoid potential hip displasia.

www.iams.com

[Guest roo]

I am still waiting for a reply.
Which pedigree food are we discussing???????????
Or are we just trying to scare people???????
An answer would be nice!!!!!!
Roo :lol:

[Guest Anonymous]

When you talk about feeding your dogs chicken. Is it deboned? I thought chicken bones were bad for dogs??? I've thought about cooking for my puppy also, because b/c dog food is so expensive here (in Jamaica). Most people here feed their dogs scraps... which I don't think could be good for them... but maybe it is better than some of these dog foods.

If I was going to cook for my puppy, what would be recommended?

[Guest Anonymous]

I switch my Dobies food from Eukanuba(sp?) to Innova. The trainer for our puppy class had mentioned an ingredient in Eukanuba that is also used to make tires. I believe someone had found it but i cant remember the name :x . I started to add Vita Gravy in it and his coat(real short) and skin are feeling softer and shiner. Does anyone know anything about Vita Gravy?

[Guest Anonymous]

so K if I'm understanding correctly you feed your dogs RAW chicken. Dogs don't have to worry about salmanila or other things... they can just eat raw chicken. I guess it's not so crazy since most wild animals in the world do not know how to cook :lol:

I was thinking that I would cook the chicken, but it sounds like that is what caused the chicken bones to be dangerous.

[Guest Anonymous]

It was me who had the dog get sick from the BARF diet. Hygiene wasn't the problem. Do you do peroxide soakings? Extracts? I was extremely diligent. Dogs can and DO get salmonella AND e coli illness. As I've said before, many dogs do fine on this diet and will never have a problem. However, many do not. I know exactly what the books say regarding raw bones vs cooked and raw meat vs cooked and I know that much of it is very misleading information at best. Hey, I once took these books as gospel, too. I am not necessarily trying to talk anyone out of it. I just preach preach preach to do the homework on both sides of the argument (raw vs cooked) and make an informed choice. Don't take what these books say as gospel. Dogs DO get injured and die from raw bones, as well as cooked (one of the misleading "facts" in the books), though mine didn't have that problem. However, it does happen and it isn't uncommon. The argument about what dogs (wolves) USED to eat is sort of misleading... just like the assumption that dogs are TRUE carnivores. Anyway, I'm just presenting the "other side." Each person has to do what they feel is best, but please do be aware that BARF can indeed be a dangerous diet. Even with the absolute best execution of it. If I ever ever ever even remotely contemplated a raw diet again, it would only be under the condition that the raw meat I fed them was handled by ME from birth to slaughter to dinner table. I don't even trust that "organic" and "all natural" and "fresh" stuff.

[Guest Anonymous]

Ok I know this will sound stupid but what is a BARF diet??

[Aroura]

I'm a big believer that BARF is best for 99% of dogs (the 1% being horsefeathers and other people who unfortunatly have had a problem)
But *gulp* I am going to admit, although it is best for my dogs, after feeding it for a few weeks I've realized that it is certainly not best for my budget! If I lived in a city with more competitive meat prices etc it may be a different matter but prices of meat here are high, so I have sadly had to go back to feeding a supplemented quality dry food. It uses chicken as its prime ingredient, AND uses rosemary as a natural preservative... so no nasty ethoxyquin! I also give Lily a whole chicken carcass a day, veggie and rice water at night after dinner, scraps, liver, vegetables pureed with egg, kelp, cod liver oil etc so she has a varied diet. Tessa (a 22kg dog) eats only 2/3rds of a cup per day, so extras only make her fat! :wink:
Dogs convert fat into carbohydrate, so I don't worry about rice or anything for carbohydrates. The whole time they were on a purely BARF diet they didn't get a scrap of rice and they were boudning with energy day and night.
As soon as I have more money it'll be straight back to BARF though, with those results I wish I never had to turn back!