puppy food?

[mandysbus]

Havent been on in a while but where else do I go when I need budget advice? The DIS! So...We've got a new puppy, American Bulldog...my new baby. So my question is dog food...good quality and hopefully a good price so I thought I'd see what all you budgeteers feed your furbabies without breaking the bank 'cause right now he's 8 weeks and a little bitty thing that eats a lot and soon he'll be a 90lb beast and eat even more!

Thanks in advance for anyones input!
mandy

 

[unionville]

I'm interested in the responses as well. By the way, your puppy is adorable! We adopted two puppies from the humane society in May. They are 5 months old and we have only fed them the Science Diet puppy food. We too are going through lots of food and wondered if there are economical options out there.

 

[Momma2dakidz]

As a dog trainer and mommy to 5 special needs pups. (all with food issues) I recomend doing some research and buying the very best food that you can afford. Here is a great site to help you out. http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/index.php

Ingredients that have NO nutritional value is corn, wheat or soy. I would recomend avoiding grocery store brands and i HIGHLY recomend avoiding pedigree, science diet and Iams. Sorry to say this, but this is going to be some fun research.

Also please get into a puppy class, You will really see the benefit of it. (no classes at pet stores though, they are worthless!) If you want help finding a good place to go let me know and i can ask around for you.

Becky

ps ADORABLE lil guy......this puppy class i am teaching now has me wanting a puppy! and those pics sure didnt help! LOL

 

[Momma2dakidz]

Oops didnt see the second poster...dont want to offend anyone...teh reason why i say stay away from Science Diet is because it is FILLED with corn, hardly any nutrients for a growing pup. You are only paying for a name with this one. It would be like buying a Gucci paperbag.

 

[Parkers_girl]

Our dogs were having a lot of skin problems when they were on science diet so we decided to jump on the healthy dog food bandwagon. We did a lot of research and we no longer feed "filler" foods that are filled with corn. We feed our two pups Innova, and they have been doing great. It is is a bit expensive, around 30 bucks for a 15 pound bag, but you get what you pay for! It's easy to spend 15 bucks on a thirty pound bag of grocery store food but it isn't that great for your dog's health. My vet tells us to stay away from foods that you can buy in the grocery store or even most of the ones at petsmart. I know petco has some good organic foods, but we buy ours from small feed stores.

 

[buckeyelabmom]

Our dogs were having a lot of skin problems when they were on science diet so we decided to jump on the healthy dog food bandwagon. We did a lot of research and we no longer feed "filler" foods that are filled with corn. We feed our two pups Innova, and they have been doing great. It is is a bit expensive, around 30 bucks for a 15 pound bag, but you get what you pay for! It's easy to spend 15 bucks on a thirty pound bag of grocery store food but it isn't that great for your dog's health. My vet tells us to stay away from foods that you can buy in the grocery store or even most of the ones at petsmart. I know petco has some good organic foods, but we buy ours from small feed stores.

First of all that is an ADORABLE baby!

I have 2 labrador retrievers - so we go through A LOT of food We LOVE Natura products (who makes Innova actually) and found they have a little more budget friendly food - called Healthwise. We have been feeding this food for about a year now - and are VERY happy! I believe we pay about $35 for a 30 lb bag.

http://www.healthwisepetfood.com/default.asp

 

[Leleluvsdis]

We have only fed nutro to our dogs and we have always been so happy with the results and always get so many complements on how nice their coats and teeth look.

 

[SandrA9810]

The more fillers you feed, the more they poop, the more they eat. Even if you pay more for a few pounds less, the less they eat because they're getting more nutrition out of their food.

I go to pet supermarket because that is the ONLY store in Florida that sells merricks brand. I get their monthly email that has a coupon for 5$ off 25$ or more. Her food is 28$ for a 15lb bag, minus the coupon, and I still only pay a few dollars more than the cheapo brand. There's a 5lb difference, but it still takes just one month to go through the bag. Plus for every 10 bags, you get one bag free. But just remember if you buy a 5lb bag in between, the coupon will be for the 5lb bag, even if every other bag was 15lbs.

The Merricks food scores a 5 on that website. There's about a 1/2 dozen different flavors, and a dozen different flavor of canned food.

 

[Green Tea]

We use the Kirkland food from Costco, following recommendations here. The dog is fantastically healthy with a great coat and energy level. I believe it is highly ranked in one of the websites listed. A 40 pound bag is about $19, and without all the fillers, the amount they eat is actually less. The dog does much better on this than she did on Science from the vet. I believe it is manufactured by Diamond.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

Oops didnt see the second poster...dont want to offend anyone...teh reason why i say stay away from Science Diet is because it is FILLED with corn, hardly any nutrients for a growing pup. You are only paying for a name with this one. It would be like buying a Gucci paperbag.

I 100% agree with this. I think the first ingredient on Science Diet is CORN!!!

Check out this web-site. It has lots of great info.

http://www.petfooddirect.com/store/dept_child.asp?dept_id=93&cm_re=A-_-Header-_-Dog

I have heard outstanding things about Orijen, Taste of the Wild, Welness and EVO.

They are expensive though!

 

[Momma2dakidz]

You got all great suggestions.......Kirklands is supposed to be a pretty good food also. I feed Blue Buffalo for one group of dogs and a discontinued food for teh other group, i think i will be trying Kirklands for the discontinued group.

 

[stephie1012]

we feed our boy innova evo.
in the past we have used Solid Gold and Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul.
what an adorabloe puppy! looking at him now i understand why people confuse my white boxer for an american bull dog lol

 

[RachaelA]

We feed Wellness (Chicken Super Mix. I think its a 5 star food) which can be found at Petco, Pet Supplies Plus and Pet Supermarket.

Definitely look at dogfoodanalysis.com and look for a 4 or 5 star food. Iam, Purina, Science Diet are all foods filled with filler that dogs don't need. Plus you need to feed them more of it which makes it more costly in the end.

 

[RachaelA]

On a side note, I know a lot of people feed Science Diet because that's what their vets recommend. Just because your vet recommends it doesn't mean its a good food.

I think its awesome you are doing your research

 

[NiftyJ88]

We used Nutro for awhile, then I started hearing bad things and they were involved in the massive recall, so we switched to Canidae. I get a 44 lb. bag on sale for under $40. My 12 lb. dog gets 1/2 cup a day and my 35 lb. dog gets 1 cup a day. The bag lasts me 8 weeks for 2 dogs.
I use Merrick canned food, but I only use one spoonful for each dog. They really don't need the canned food though. But I take a can of merrick and put it in a dish and add about a can of water (my little dog won't eat his dry food without a lot of "juice" in it, he's old and I think it hurts his teeth to crunch a lot). One can lasts about a week for us.
Watch for sales. Last year, the Merrick cans went on sale for $1 each which is almost 1/2 price, so I stocked up with a years worth of food. The dry food usually I buy when it is $10 off.
Using high quality food will pay off in the end. It's healthier for your dog which will usually mean less vet visits.

 

[SarahKate]

I wish I could find the link I used to determine our puppie's food quality. It's basically a scoring system and anything that ends up 100+ points is really high quality. It asks things like, if the food has corn deduct X points, if it has a certain vegetable or meat, add X points. It's a VERY thorough calculator.

I was very happy that ours came out well over 100.

It is Science Diet, but is the new all-natural line. No corn at all. It is expensive. About $12.99 for a smaller bag that lasts our Shih-Tzu about a month or so. IT's worth it to us though, plus we know he's not going to be a big dog and can afford to pay more for it since he won't gobble it down. It's a little harder to find. I have found it at FSH but noplace else, really. PetSmart doesn't carry it (yet, I think it's still pretty new).

 

[bootleg89]

I started by feeding my dog Royal Canin when I first got him, then after talking to my vet switched him to Iams. My vet recommended about 5- 2 were the above mentioned. I went with Iams because it was the cheapest of the ones she recommended. She, however did not recommend Science Diet. He's 10 months and doing great on it. In fact my mom-in-law feeds her dog puppy chow and decided to switch after she saw how much her dog enjoyed eating my dogs food. Good Luck!

 

[Smile4Me]

Your puppy is sooo cute! I got a year and a half old English bulldog over Memorial Day weekend! I never want to be without a bulldog ever again! I love them! With his previous owner, our guy got Royal Canine for bulldogs. I met with a lady who breeds bulldogs and she used NutriSource, so thats what I switched our guy to! And he is doing really well with it. Bulldogs are a bit different than most dogs because of the shapes of their mouths and their teeth when it comes to eating. Lots of human foods are actually really good for them, like yogurt to help their digestion, and any type of meat (not the bones!), even canned beans! Also do not feed them raw hide. A lot of bulldogs (because they are so stout) have real problems digesting it if they eat it, and it can be fatal.

 

[WDWorBUST]

Definitely research on dogfoodanalysis.com. I spent a ton of time on there before we brought our Maddy home. We started her on Wellness Puppy....switched to Canidae.....and she's now on Natural Balance Venison and Sweet Potato in hopes of either determining that she has a food allergy or that it's some other allergy. They are all expensive, but we honestly don't go through that much. Our teacher at puppy class did one class on nutrition and although she did talk about the high high quality expensive foods, she said that the best "balance" she has found between quality and cost is Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul food.(and it gets a decent score on dogfoodanalysis.com)

 

[leamom2princesses]

First of all your new fur baby is too cute!

We feed our dog and our puppy Science Diet and have been thrilled with the results. They are happy, healthy and beautiful. We lost a lab to canine cancer a few months ago (after years of eating Science Diet) and personally I don't think that it had a thing to do with too much corn in her diet. It's important to note that whole grain corn is only the first ingredient listed in some of their blends. There are so many more things to consider than ingredient order. I considered vet recommendations, manufacturing practices, coworker recommendations, ingredients, and my dog's response to eating the food.

To see a list of dog food's recalled (which happened in 2007-2008), visit fda.gov. Sadly, you won't find many dog foods that weren't recalled. HTH!

Have fun with your new baby!