Has anyone tried Chicken soup brand? we are using Iams right now and where thinking of changing
http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul.com/
http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul.com/
-
Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.
dog foods
- Thread starter Hirobo
- Start date
I've read that chicken soup has decent ratings. IAMS is one of the worst foods you can use (along with Eukanuba).
This is a good site for info http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
This is a good site for info http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
Very interesting site, but how do you use it to shop for foods?! I can see me making 10 trips to and from the store trying to figure out which of the "good ones" they carry! And how many stars at a minimum would you accept? and ... I'm still a bit bewildered by it all.
Here's a listing of sites you can use for dog food info
http://www.consumersearch.com/dog-food/reviews
the easiest thing to do is to learn which ingredients to avoid (ie- ASH), and that the protein in the food should be the first ingredient listed on the label. Avoid anything that lists corn or other fillers first. You also want something with the least amount of ingredients possible.
Better dog foods cost more but you might save $ in the log run because you don't need to feed your dog as much. Petco has recently starting selling some of the better dog foods.
http://www.consumersearch.com/dog-food/reviews
the easiest thing to do is to learn which ingredients to avoid (ie- ASH), and that the protein in the food should be the first ingredient listed on the label. Avoid anything that lists corn or other fillers first. You also want something with the least amount of ingredients possible.
Better dog foods cost more but you might save $ in the log run because you don't need to feed your dog as much. Petco has recently starting selling some of the better dog foods.
The food we use is rated 1 star and it doesn't have any ash. It does however have wheat and some other starch as fillers. It is good to read the low end and high end reviews to see what elements are commended v. condemned. Reading the ingredients (without being informed) made it look to me like a good food. It is interesting to read the distinction between any meat and any meat meal. The meat alone "boils down" to not much meat while the meat meal is a dense good meat source. So they say that the meal is better than the meat. Unfortunately that isn't obvious by just reading the ingrediants. I assumed that "chicken" as a main ingredient would be better than "chicken meal". So much to learn!
We were using the Chicken Soup foods and were happy with them, but it was a tad of a PIA to drive to the only local place that sold them to get them... I ended up switching to Blue Buffalo brand for both of our dogs and our cat, no complaints at all and Petco carries it now. My cat looks the best he's ever looked, dogs look great too and I believe it's one of the higher rated foods. http://www.bluebuff.com/
I'll give my opinions on dog food: Our first dog, a Golden Retriever, was fed Purina One all his life because I honestly didn't know any better back then. He lived to be 12. However, when he developed cancer, which ate him up alive quite rapidly, I started doing tons and tons of research about all kinds of things, including pesticides, lawn fertilizers, and DOG FOOD. The book I seriously recommend to anyone concerned about dog food is called "Food Pets Die for: Shocking Facts About Pet Food", by Ann N. Martin.
After reading the book, and investing more money to buy more books, especially on dog nutrition, I decided to start cooking for my dogs. We lost our Golden in 2002, and had Simon, our Berner, whom we lost last year. Simon had always been plagued with many health problems, but within a month of being on a home-cooked diet, his overall health drastically improved. His coat was shiny, his shedding almost completely stopped, his breath was great, and his energy was incredible. Simon lived to be 11, and their "normal" life expectancy is 8. Yes, he still developed cancer, but I like to believe (and my vet strongly agrees) that his diet and the vitamins he took daily contributed to his longevity.
Now we're left with Max, our other Berner, who's now 6. He was raised on home-cooked food, and he's been rather healthy all his life. I did start adding some "regular" dog food to his diet, and I opted to try a combination of Solid Gold, Wellness Core and Innova. He still gets his portions of what I cook for him, along with daily vitamins, amino acids, and Glucosamine-Chondroitin-MSM for his joints, but he also gets part of the other food. So far so good.
My overall opinion on the matter is: You are what you eat.
After reading the book, and investing more money to buy more books, especially on dog nutrition, I decided to start cooking for my dogs. We lost our Golden in 2002, and had Simon, our Berner, whom we lost last year. Simon had always been plagued with many health problems, but within a month of being on a home-cooked diet, his overall health drastically improved. His coat was shiny, his shedding almost completely stopped, his breath was great, and his energy was incredible. Simon lived to be 11, and their "normal" life expectancy is 8. Yes, he still developed cancer, but I like to believe (and my vet strongly agrees) that his diet and the vitamins he took daily contributed to his longevity.
Now we're left with Max, our other Berner, who's now 6. He was raised on home-cooked food, and he's been rather healthy all his life. I did start adding some "regular" dog food to his diet, and I opted to try a combination of Solid Gold, Wellness Core and Innova. He still gets his portions of what I cook for him, along with daily vitamins, amino acids, and Glucosamine-Chondroitin-MSM for his joints, but he also gets part of the other food. So far so good.
My overall opinion on the matter is: You are what you eat.
Yeah, I'm with you, Deb. That really grosses me out too. I'll stick to store bought. I'm thinking the Wellness core would be a good food to switch her over to. Of course not until after I bought a bag of the Blue Buffalo... further reading on that they say it isn't certified to be ethoxoquin free so I'll return that and get the one that is.
Phyl said:
Blue Buffalo isn't worth the price, IMO. Especially with working with the product for a while now. I vastly prefer Wellness (especially the Core for dry and the 95% meat for wet -- and both are 6 star products to Blue's 4 and 5).
Quality dog food but a bit overrated. Still one of the better ones on the market, though.
They did point out something in the Beneful review that made me think, and that is that dogs aren't really designed to live on a cornmeal and grain diet, they're carnivores or at least omnivores. Our last dog got Alpo, which is meat, albeit cooked meat, and she lived a long time, maybe we should switch to canned...