what do you feed your dogs

I feed my boys Canidae dry and Merrick wet. They love both. I tried my Yorkie on Evo and he got diarrhea from this. I also wouldn't feed most of the lower end brands to my dogs. I'd keep trying different proteins and different brands as well, that don't contain the harmful ingredients.
 
DD's dog has to have IAMS - per 3 different vets - due to health problems.. (He has a history of pancreatits - a quick and painful killer in dogs..)
 
my sister who is living with us has a 2 year old Australian Sheppard. He eats a raw food diet and loves chicken, venison, buffalo and some others too. He does get Natural Balance Dog Food rolls for treats in training but 80% of his diet is raw food... Strange to me but I guess reommended by the dog trainer....
 
Been feeding our dog Nutro Max small bites. He seems to like it. Ran out during the Noreaster and had to switch him to Purina1 and he hated that. Guilted mommy and daddy back to to the Nutro b4 half the bag was gone:rotfl: Now if he'll just eat when we put the food in his bowl. :rolleyes:
 

DD's dog has to have IAMS - per 3 different vets - due to health problems.. (He has a history of pancreatits - a quick and painful killer in dogs..)

For the most part vets know very little about canine nutrition. Most of them recommend or prescribe brands, like Science Diet, which is horrible, or brands that give them corporate kickbacks.

If any vet is recommending a certain brand of food, I would ask them a lot of questions to see their knowledge base about nutrition (how much they know about raw or barf diets and things like that), because there are vets that are quite knowledgeable.

For pancreatitis, a dog needs a low fat high carb diet, and not necessarily a certain brand of food (though, most better food brands are high in protein). A poultry base would be good for them and the recommended bland food diet (white rice/boiled chicken) is the best. If your daughter is worried at all about feeding Iams due to the chemicals in it, she can look at the label and see what the fat/carb/protein ratio is, and find a better brand with the same ratio.
 
Our dog gets Royal Canin chihuahua. When he was a puppy, we were feeding him a specialty organic food due to his digestion being off (he had parvo when we got him, he was left to die, so we took him in an hospitalized him until he was well enough to be off of IV therapy).
 
my sister who is living with us has a 2 year old Australian Sheppard. He eats a raw food diet and loves chicken, venison, buffalo and some others too. He does get Natural Balance Dog Food rolls for treats in training but 80% of his diet is raw food... Strange to me but I guess reommended by the dog trainer....

Our GSD has been on a raw diet for about a year. She's happy, healthy and we'll never feed commercial food again.
 
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We feed our standard poodle Fromm Gold Adult. It's made locally here in Wisconsin and is a 4* food. She does well on it and it's not horribly expensive and her poops are easy to pick up :).
 
Ok, I will start this by saying that I sell Iams Pet Food. I also sell several other brands mentioned in others posts including Blue, Nature's Variety, Nutro plus about a dozen other brands.

I have had hours of training in dog/cat nutrition. I spent 2 solid days in training for a company just last week. I just have a couple of things that I would like to point out.

1. There is no ONE dog food that is right for every dog.
2. Iams removed ethoxyquin from their diets at least 8 year ago (sorry don't remember exactly.
3. Corn as a carb is good. It produces less glucose spikes. Think of how you feel if you eat a candy bar. Great in the beginning but then you need a nap. Corn helps reduce those highs and lows.
4. Corn as a protein (corn gluten) isn't very good.
5. NO long term research has been done on the affects of feeding a grain free diet.
6. Yes, animal protein should be the number one ingredient in a food but watch out for breaking up of ingredients. rice, rice flower, rice bran all in one food would out weigh the original animal protein.
7. Less than 15% off allergies in dog are food related. Unless you have had testing done you will never know if something didn't agree with the pet or if they are actually allergic to it.
 
Our GSD has been on a raw diet for about a year. She's happy, healthy and we'll never feed commercial food again.

Where do you get your raw food for your GSD? We looked into it a couple years ago, but the high costs were just so prohibitive for a large dog. I guess one of our big problems here is that the "garbage cuts" usually purchased cheaply for a raw diet are all sold for crab bait.

Just wanted to get some more ideas.... we'd love to feed raw, but just can't figure out how we can afford to do it!
 
We feed our dog organic fresh meat, veggies and fruit (the same food as the people in our family eat without the spices etc.
Her favs are apricots and blueberries:lmao:
I would hate to think what she costs to feed but it is less than my teenage son:rotfl:
 
Chicken Soup is a good food. There is no perfect diet for a dog; you often have to switch around dog foods to find the best fit for your dog. IMO, there is no excuse to feed icky foods (Iams, Purina, Science Diet, etc) as there are HUNDREDS of high quality brands out there with even more varieties in each. Just takes time and patience. The upside is that most dog food companies will offer you sample size bags to try out in advance.

I concur with the pp that noted that very few dog allergies are food related. I still steer clear of the most common allergens (corn, soy, beef, wheat) but 85+ or more of dog allergies are environmental. People are often too quick to blame the food.
 
Ok, I will start this by saying that I sell Iams Pet Food. I also sell several other brands mentioned in others posts including Blue, Nature's Variety, Nutro plus about a dozen other brands.

I have had hours of training in dog/cat nutrition. I spent 2 solid days in training for a company just last week. I just have a couple of things that I would like to point out.

1. There is no ONE dog food that is right for every dog.
2. Iams removed ethoxyquin from their diets at least 8 year ago (sorry don't remember exactly.
3. Corn as a carb is good. It produces less glucose spikes. Think of how you feel if you eat a candy bar. Great in the beginning but then you need a nap. Corn helps reduce those highs and lows.
4. Corn as a protein (corn gluten) isn't very good.
5. NO long term research has been done on the affects of feeding a grain free diet.
6. Yes, animal protein should be the number one ingredient in a food but watch out for breaking up of ingredients. rice, rice flower, rice bran all in one food would out weigh the original animal protein.
7. Less than 15% off allergies in dog are food related. Unless you have had testing done you will never know if something didn't agree with the pet or if they are actually allergic to it.

Thank you! That's great information.
 
I feed my pup Kirkland Puppy from Costco. It's very affordable and rated pretty highly. I used to feed her Orijen but she had very loose stools and as a student, I couldn't afford to keep her on it. She has done very well on the Kirkland brand and I plan on keeping her on it when we switch to adult.


Another Kirkland fan here! Before discovering Kirkland at $24/#40, I fed Wellness until they raised their prices and then Canidae until they raised their prices. Kirkland raised their price as well when fuel skyrocketed, but I am especially appreciative of Costco LOWERING the price/bag when fuel costs came back down. I foster as well as own my own dogs ( 165#, 120#, 118#, 70#, 60#)

My rules for dog food are

1. No corn or wheat. While perhaps only 15% of allergies are related to food, 80% of food allergies are related to these two ingredients. I've noticed a tremendous reduction in ear nastiness and skin itchiness when these two ingredients are eliminated.

2. A named meat source as the first ingredient. Chicken meal is my preference, but I'll feed lamb meal in a pinch. If actual meat is the first ingredient, I like to see it followed by a named meat meal to ensure that the food isn't actually a grain-based food parading as a meat-based food.
 
Ok, I will start this by saying that I sell Iams Pet Food. I also sell several other brands mentioned in others posts including Blue, Nature's Variety, Nutro plus about a dozen other brands.

I have had hours of training in dog/cat nutrition. I spent 2 solid days in training for a company just last week. I just have a couple of things that I would like to point out.

1. There is no ONE dog food that is right for every dog.
2. Iams removed ethoxyquin from their diets at least 8 year ago (sorry don't remember exactly.
3. Corn as a carb is good. It produces less glucose spikes. Think of how you feel if you eat a candy bar. Great in the beginning but then you need a nap. Corn helps reduce those highs and lows.
4. Corn as a protein (corn gluten) isn't very good.
5. NO long term research has been done on the affects of feeding a grain free diet.
6. Yes, animal protein should be the number one ingredient in a food but watch out for breaking up of ingredients. rice, rice flower, rice bran all in one food would out weigh the original animal protein.
7. Less than 15% off allergies in dog are food related. Unless you have had testing done you will never know if something didn't agree with the pet or if they are actually allergic to it.

You're totally lost me on this, particularly #3. Human's don't even digest corn, so why should we believe that carnivores do? What is the value of putting a cheap (and highly subsidized in this country!) filler in the food instead of something that can actually be digested and used?

Also, I don't care how much research has been done on grain free food.... how much research has been done on cheap crap kibble and the long-term effects? Commercial kibble has only been around for a few decades, and before that people were feeding their dogs on meat and kitchen scraps. And you can believe that they weren't feeding their dogs primarily corn. Also, most low quality (ie. IAMS) kibble is full of chemicals - the rate of canine cancer is insanely high (as high as 50% in some breeds) right now, and we have to believe that it is coming from somewhere. My high-quality grain free kibble is as close as I can get to a balanced diet without cooking for my dogs myself.

And if only 15% of allergies are food related, that still means that a significant number of dogs are going to have problems with certain ingredients. One of my GSD's cannot tolerate corn, soy, beet pulp, or wheat gluten. He also does badly on lamb and poultry. That rules out all of the low quality foods, and many of the higher quality ones as well. My other GSD, on the other hand, will have a gorgeous coat and perfect poop, no matter what she eats. Different dogs = different needs.

I am glad to hear that IAMS has phased out ethoxyquin, though. The sheltie that I grew up with ate IAMS his entire life, and had trouble with skin allergies, joint problems, and eventually died of cancer earlier than he should have. I am not entirely convinced that the food was not at least in part to blame.
 
He eats Purina One dry food. For "wet'' food, I buy a pet pack at the local farmers' market which is ground up organic chicken and mix in brown rice and veggies.
 
Ok, I'm truly starting to feel like Michael Vick or some thing. What's wrong with the supermarket pet food. We have 2 mixed bred mutts we got at the shelter. We love the dogs but we feed them Kibbles and bits.

Am I slowly poisening them? They go to the vet regularly and always get a clean bill of health. You guys got me feeling like I'm a bad pet mom since I don't get the high end stuff.
 














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