What do you feed your dog?

[labman]

I get sick of the subjective nonsense on feeding dogs I read on many of the dog forums. I will not flame anybody that is feeding a chow that meets AAFCO requirements. I think the average person has much better access to objective, factual information on oil and oil filters, than on dog food.

I feed Pro Plan, original chicken and rice formula. 15 week old Sheba is on puppy chow now, but will be on adult chow by the end of the month. This is the recommended chow by the dog guide school I do so much with. Most of the service dog schools are feeding one of the common, premium brands. This is partly due to them being easy to find, and the smaller, easier to clean up stools the dog produces. With what I know about the schools, I trust them to know what they are doing, and to give those of us caring for their dogs the best info they have.

 

[kenw]

"I think the average person has much better access to objective, factual information on oil and oil filters, than on dog food. "

but remember, more people (this board exempted) are more emotionally attached to their dogs than to their cars. Emotion plays a huge role in marketing anything, even oil.

"Don't sell steak, sell sizzle."

Toss in a little psuedo-science to make it look good and sound "official", most people will fall in line like lemmings, be it oil or dog food.

And as far as dog food, Bogart Woofgang (the family basset hound) gets a better brand (i forget the name) from Petsmart always the same, and is doing quite well at 15 years of age. Very active, playful and amazingly healthy and extremely strong.

And I am considerably more emotionally attached to Bogart than to any of my cars; just in case anyone wondered....

[ February 08, 2005, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: kenw ]

 

[andrews]

I have three dogs, an Airedale, a Wire haired fox terrier, and a Welsh terrier. I used to use either Iams, Eukanuba, Science diet, or any of the top of the line, vet recommended kibbles. Reason being that the main ingredient is meat. Corn, wheat, and various fillers are very poor sudstitutes for meat, and can cause excessive stool production as well as allergies. Due to money issues at the present time, I've been using Pro plan, Pedigree, and other less expensive kibbles. I noticed a difference in my pets stool and overall vigor after only a few weeks. As soon as I can afford it I will be getting them back on Iams!

 

[integrare]

I feed my three (German Shepard, Pug, Pekingese) Breeders Choice Active Care with either Chicken or Lamb. The only place I could find it is Petco. It doesn't have any wheat in it and it has chicken cartilage for the joints. Before that I was feeding Royal Canin natural and Flint River.

I used to blend berry smoothies with soy protein and flaxseed oil for my Lab before he died last August. They are the best dogs IMHO.

 

[novadude]

We feed Nutro Natural Choice.

Actually, there is a UBB on the "Dog Fancy" magazine website where such matters have been discussed. From reading posts on there, I have concluded that Nutro is a good "middle of the road" food for people that want something commonly available at Pet Stores. Just like we have the Redline freaks here, there are some over there that will only use the most expensive mail-order specialty food available. I prefer to think that we are feeding a good bang-for-the-buck food to our dog... call it the Chevron Supreme of dog food.

Wonder if I can get a UFA (Used Food Analysis) to see how it is working?

 

[williar]

We feed our Golden Ret. a lamb & rice dog chow from Costco. Good nutrition and inexpensive. Seems silly to me to fork out big bucks for that so-called "premium" dog food.

 

[MarkC]

I'm dogless at the moment, but when I ahd my 3 big ones, two German Shepherds and an Irish wolfhound, they mostly ate Purina ONE, either lamb and rice, or beef and rice formulas. Of course, they all also got various treats, boht those made for dogs, and those made for me. The female Shepherd loved to steal cookies, jelly beans, etc, while the Wolfhound was tall enough to help herself to biscuits as they cooled on the counter.
I wonder about the large amount of grain products in commercial dog food, who decided that dogs should eat grain? I don't think wolves and coyotes eat much rice or corn meal.

 

[John K]

Have 2 greyhounds and a mixed breed, feed them Nutro Ultra. Expensive. One greyhound when feeding ProPlan, would simply periodically not eat. Since getting the high priced stuff he eats it all. Stool size is reduced. Whole Dog Journal recently gave it a recommended mark. There is even Neuman's Own. I understand that some people think it going overboard, but there are major differences in the ingrediants. I really like the sound of the BARF (Bones and Raw Food - I think) diet, but it is too time consuming and hard to find some stuff. People using it report teeth w/o tarter, good coats, healthy, etc. I think vets are unduly influence by their schooling, which is heavily influence by Hills Science and others... There are lots of sites that compare dog food ingredients, but my eyes start to blur after a while........

 

[novadude]

John... we tried an interval with Nutro Ultra when our dog started growing out of the puppy phase and his eating slowed down. He didn't seem to like it any better than the Natural Choice, so we switched back, figuring his appetite had just slowed and the Natural Choice was "good enough".

Hmmm... Maybe I could create my own Nutro Ultra/Natural Choice Blend.... Kind of like a Durablend or Mobil DCB for Doggies. Do I need to worry about additive clash?

Yeah, yeah, I know... I need psychological help.

 

[eljefino]

My Rottie/Lab mix is getting Ol Roy, the SuperTech of dog chow.

His quantity is limited to keep weight off his hips; getting elderly.

I keep a dozen chickens too, so he gets a raw egg once in a while.

 

[JohnnyO]

quote:

---

Originally posted by John K:
Have 2 greyhounds and a mixed breed, feed them Nutro Ultra. Expensive.

---

We have our own retired greyhound (Allen), we found he does best on Nutro Ultra also. For those not in the know, you absolutely cannot feed a greyhound food with very much filler, i.e. corn or corn meal. 4 cups a day of Ultra is fine, I think with a better quality food a dog does not need to eat as much, therefore it ends up not costing what you think. Sort of like a 3k OCI with dino vs. 5k OCI with M1.

I want to try plain Nutro though just to give him a little variety.
We currently have a foster greyhound also (Snoopy), he gets Purina ONE since the greyhound group gets hefty coupons from Purina. He does fine on that but he gets 6 cups a day too.
I think the Pro Plan is very good also.

[ February 08, 2005, 03:54 PM: Message edited by: JohnnyO ]

 

[SteelheadGuide]

My lab gets Pro PLan. She used to eat Eukanuba,but one day she just wouldn't eat it anymore. I figured she'd get hungry sooner or later and go back to eating it,but after a week I broke down and tried the Pro Plan. Shes been eating it for the last 5 years.

We hunt alot of ducks and geese,and E. Washington temps can be single digits in the winter.She seems to work just fine on the Pro Plan. She is slowing down a bit,but coming up on 11 years of age and she still loves to retrieve birds.

If I give her a bath,she acts like she is going to keel over and die. Send her on a retrieve,and the frigid water doesn't phase her.

 

[Shannow]

I prefer to feed my mutts something like they would have eaten in the wild.

Raw chicken carcasses/wings. Grated vegetables. Table scraps...and a couple times a week brown rice cooked up with vegetables.

Raw eggs occasionally, prawn heads if we've had prawns etc etc etc.

The guy who wrote this book was my vet for a while.

http://www.leerburg.com/950.htm

We used the principals of this book to cut the lady across the road's food bills (poor kidney function, $60/week food) to about $15...dog stopped looking like skin draped over a skeleton too.

 

[lobo11]

A good food contains a minimum amount of fillers. My wife is in Vet school right now, and manaaged a pet store for three years and is familiar with canine nutrition. She really likes Nutro, Science Diet, and Sensible Choice. She feels that Eukanuba is over priced and Iams is very very similar for less money, but a good food none the less. The benefit of these foods is you have to feed them less, and there is less crap to clean up. A lot of the large breed and senior foods also contain glucosamine/chondrotin, and other vitamins and minerals that really make a difference. Our 6 year old Rottweiler really benefited when we switched to a food with the G&C.

 

[Whimsey]

My sweetheart Whimsey, a golden retriever, who died almost 2 years ago, was fed Purina puppy, regular and senior chow for years then went to a vet diet, forgot which one. She also ate lots of fish, veggies, pork, chicken and beef mixed in with the dog food. All the meat was lean without fat. She died at 14 from kidney failure due to Lymes disease, which I now have. So the store bought Purina didn't do her in

. Funny thing was of all the human foods beef was her least favorite. She'd sooner have veggies and fish over steak. No accounting for tastes I guess

. I do miss her

.

Whimsey

 

[Scott P]

Our Catahoula mix gets Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed. He's 77 lbs, lean and strong as an ox. That's what the rescue group suggested when we adopted him , so we stuck with it. He's gotten Purina One when we had coupons. The kennel fed him Pedigree once, but he didn't hold it down.

He has been finicky lately, so we've been known to toss in a few Multi-Grain Cheerios or Chex in the food to get him to eat.

 

[TN Tracker]

Iams or Nutro, she gets tired of one and I switch. Her sensitive Shih Tzu skin can't tolerate Purina.

 

[eljefino]

Yup, I add glucosomine to my cheap dog food. Split open a capsule. The raw egg makes him lap the powder right down!

My 7yr old, 125lb hound:

 

[Jimbo]

The young German Shepherd and old Rat Terrier both get Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Senior. I tried the Ol' Roy type of food years ago and it produced too much "bulk" , if you know what I mean.

 

[msparks]

I've done my research and bar none Diamond Brand dog food is the best price/performance food.

I found this through a breed of GSP's and he has been feeding them Diamond for years. He is a big hunter and trainer.

I had tried Iams but their crap stunk so bad. I used Nutro for a while and the only way they would eat it was if I doctored it up with can food and hot water.

With the Diamond, they eat it good and their stool is nice and firm and not too much (though with 2 dogs over 50lbs, there is still a lot of it! hahah. )

I'm doing the diamond premium 50lbs for about $17.00 and change.

http://www.diamondpetfood.com/