food Q???

[sarahmyjoy]

I feed my girls Canidae it seems to be great for them. healthy coat and skin good energy and all that.
My sis in law just adopted a 9 mo old sheltie from the shelter that I work at and they feed science diet (i dont care for it) anyways she wouldnt eat it and didnt eat very much for the first week at home till I told them what I feed and she thought she would try it. :agrue: Well they went to their vet and he asked what they feed and she told him. He said that it was a real new food and that it isnt good to feed a all stage food that there cant be any thing good with feeding an all stage food.....and told them they needed to change :roll: so I have their nearly 40 lb bag of food. I was kinda upset since she started eating it right when i opened it for her, she loved it! Everything was working out great. I have no idea what they are feeding now, they were feeding purina or purina one i think. As far as i know they didnt even keep enough to mix. Well there went my only chance as ive been trying to get them to change the other dogs food for a while to something that will help with her skin problems......
anyways my Q whats the problem with the all life stage food? Is it a big deal???

[TDG]

all lifestages foods are perfectly fine. they are labeled as "all lifestages" because they contain enough nutrients to feed growing puppies, pregnant and lactating bitches and adult dogs. the extra nutrients growing puppies need they will get from the increased amount of food they eat per pound of body weight.

the reason we even [i]have[/i] different lifestage foods is because when commercial dry food became more widely available and people added less table scraps, it turned out that the early formulas were not nutritious enough to support growing puppies. instead of increasing the overall quality of the formulas, manufacturers invented puppy formulas.

then they found out that the nutrient density in puppy foods made large breed puppies grow too fast and caused orthopedic problems. for the pet food industry, the next logical step was to invent "large breed puppy" formulas.

ultimately, it all boils down to marketing. if a company has 10 different bags of food on the shelf, the chance of anyone buying one of theirs is so much higher than a company that just has one or two products.

the bottom line is that a good quality adult food, even if it isn't specifically sold as an "all lifestages" formula (like innova adult for example) is suitable to feed to any puppies regardless of breed size, as well as adults. these foods will usually have the AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement of "suitable for all lifestages" in small print on the bag somewhere.

if a food only has the AAFCO statement "suitable for maintenance", i would hesitate to even feed it to an adult dog and examine the guaranteed analysis and ingredient list very carefully.

that vet has not much of a clue about nutrition at all, which is very common. vets generally aren't taught all that much about nutrition at school and what little they learn is mostly provided by the large pet food manufacturers.

[MajiesMom]

I feel your pain. I gave my parents a big bag of Wellness to feed their sickly Sheltie because they feed him Kibbles and Bits. He had diarreah which is not uncommon for him because he has EPI and he threw up so they took him off it right away and said they wouldn't listen to me when I say they feed crap because what I gave them made him sick. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:drinking:
Edit to say I wish they fed him Science Death compared to Kibbles and Bits.

[AllAmericanPUP]

[quote name='sarahmyjoy']I feed my girls Canidae it seems to be great for them. healthy coat and skin good energy and all that.
My sis in law just adopted a 9 mo old sheltie from the shelter that I work at and they feed science diet (i dont care for it) anyways she wouldnt eat it and didnt eat very much for the first week at home till I told them what I feed and she thought she would try it. :agrue: Well they went to their vet and he asked what they feed and she told him. He said that it was a real new food and that it isnt good to feed a all stage food that there cant be any thing good with feeding an all stage food.....and told them they needed to change :roll: so I have their nearly 40 lb bag of food. I was kinda upset since she started eating it right when i opened it for her, she loved it! Everything was working out great. I have no idea what they are feeding now, they were feeding purina or purina one i think. As far as i know they didnt even keep enough to mix. Well there went my only chance as ive been trying to get them to change the other dogs food for a while to something that will help with her skin problems......
anyways my Q whats the problem with the all life stage food? Is it a big deal???[/quote]

ugh i hate when vets spout off crap they have no idea what they are talking about! :evil:

Try printing off some articles about dog food and give them to your sister

[DogPaddle]

Yes the puppy food "necessity" is a result of petfoodcos propoganda. You may notice that puppy food is usually more expensive than adult dog food and in the cheaper brands it has MORE corn or wheat or whatever to boost up the cals but it is not always better food for growing dogs. Additionally after weening, dogs in the wild eat EXACTLY the same thing as the adult dogs. Same thing with people really, after a baby comes of breastfeeding or bottle feeding they generally get regular food (albeit regular food that is all mushed up.) Puppy food may even contribute to overly fast growth rates that cause problems but I am a bit reluctant to believe that one.
If you feed a quality food - all life stages is perfectly fine.
Zaphod never got puppy food. He is a lab/husky? cross and is around 65lbs. His head is the size his whole body was when we brought him home - he grew just fine and is an excellent body size/weight. He is healthy except for:

ear irritation - once every three months or so - corrected with warm canola oil and polysporin in a single treatment - I attribute this to an identified food intolernace or poor ears from poor genetics or something

not the best teeth - he gets the same toys, teeth brushing and food as Kavik and his teeth are 2x as bad - I atribute this to the fact that he is not as enthusiastic about chewing and a hereditary thing

I can't see a single thing that puppy food would have done for him and I would never worry about bothering to feed puppy food to any of my future dogs.

[sarahmyjoy]

ok well I went and found alot of info on canidae, innova, wellness, and nutra and some info on 'all life stage' and i took it over to talk with them about it. Of course i had to do this without hubby knowing cause he is all like 'its there dog and not your problem' and all that. I talked with them and she told me stright out that she didnt have time to read it and only wanted me to give her an overview of it, her hubby said he would look over it which is all good cause he is the one mostly careing for the girl. I told them im not trying to get them to feed what I do I just want them to beable to make a informed choice and that is why I give them the other food info. I also know that they only want the best for their dogs.

and ofcourse you know what the dr. got them to get...... Science Diet! What she wasnt eating in the first place as that is what she came home on... :roll:

Thank you all for answering my post :D Its all about the :angel: anyways right

[CincoandDahlilasgirl]

Vets just say that so they can make money off the stuff they sell at their office. Maybe the vets animal didn't like that food and she thought it was the nutrience in the food.