What you should know about Dog Food!

[MS_PAWS]

What’s Really in Pet Food
http://www.api4animals.org/facts?p=359&more=1cat=286

Identifying better products
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index....betterproducts

Ingredients to avoid
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index....badingredients

Premium Dog & Cat Food
http://www.premiumfoodsonline.com/

Dog Food Ingredients & Nutrition
http://www.peteducation.com/category...cls=2&cat=1661

Dog Food Reviews
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/

Jennifer

[countrychic10]

Great links Jennifer. Many people are stunned when they discover what is in their pets food. Here are some more links about pet food:

http://www.critterchat.net/foodpets.htm
http://alpha-nutrition.stores.yahoo....ndmiofdog.html
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/petfood2.html
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/petextras/PFStext
http://www.mercola.com/2005/feb/5/pets_grains.htm
http://b-naturals.com/Aug2005.php
http://www.api4animals.org/facts?p=359&more=1

Personally though I do not feed kibble. I have a Great Dane and a Weimaraner who I feed a RAW diet to (not to be confused with the BARF diet, they are different) So I have spent many hours with my nose in a book researching canine nutrition. Thankfully though, my dogs are finally doing very well and I am pleased with the switch. Of course I don't have a problem with people who feed kibble, to each his own, but I would hope that people do their research and pick a good quality food for their fuzzy friends. :D

[ritabooker]

Thanks for posting these links, especially "dogfoodanalysis", my personal favorite.

[countrychic10]

Back when I fed kibble, I usually used the kibble grading system found on the diet section of this website:

www.oldmissiondanes.com/diet.html

I wouldn't feed anything that scored less than "A+" . Though there are some decent options in the A-B range that I believe are suitable....anything is better than the garbage like Ol' Roy .......

[Arazante]

The only thing I don't like is it's hard to find any of the A's in stores: grocery stores, department stores, and pet stores. I have not seen many of those brands in my pet stores or anywhere else in this city or my hometown. And it seems these sites target dogs, not cats. :?

The best I try to do for my cat is give him these Meow Mix packets because the main ingredients tend to be fish of various kinds. It's even hard to do a full RAW diet because they sell fish heads and a kind of fish, but I don't know what kind it is (it's not labeled) and that's the only full fish they have unless I illegally fish from the ponds at the ranches.

[JustAnotherDogLover]

I just switched my Mal to a different kibble and I'm really happy with the results so far. I tried this kibble-quiz but I must have done it wrong because I started with my score of 100 and ended up with....100. Didn't subract or add anything.

But I'm happy with the food. The top ingredients are chicken, turkey, oats, chicken-meal, lamb, lamb meal, brewers rice and then it goes on to eggs, cheese, potatos, yadayadayada and a variety of vitamin supplements and some garlic in there too.

But I do agree, Ol Roy and some of the other kibbles are pretty bad. I've seen quite a few with NO meat, meal or even by-products in them at all. I know someone who feeds his "prize winning breeder" Ol Roy and I tell him the dog would be better off eating table scraps. But he says because the analysis is the same, then it's the same food just a different color bag.

I am really surprised Eukenuba is on the list as a B though. It's been awhile but I don't recall meat or meal being anywhere near the top 10 ingredients. And I'm surprised the ProPlans scored so low considering the top two ingredients are "meat" and that meat meal (chicken proplan is chicken and chicken meal, lamb pro plan is lamb, chicken, and lamb meal etc, etc, etc). And ProPlans use a specific meat gravy too.

I don't know. Maybe some ingredients have changed since this was posted?

[smiffy]

thats why i changed to james wellbeloved - pets at home here in the uk are now doing a food they say is just like jw - made the same with no crappy products and the same natural oils and such.

its called something like wainsright or wainsworth i got a bag to try it out and my dogs didnt seem to notice the difference but then i do have dalmatians so thats not saying much at all!!!

[SalemWitchChild]

Yep we had a thread about dog food awhile back. At first I was skeptical but I tried Flint River Ranch. We liked it so that's our food now.

http://www.animalforum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=855

[smiffy]

wainwrights its called :) i have the salmon and potato

[JustAnotherDogLover]

Here's another website I found about dog food. Seems to spell it out pretty well. I again don't agree with everything that this one says about which foods are "good" and which aren't but life goes on.

From my point of view, it seems almost rather difficult to tell a good quality kibble from a poor one. For example, the food I feed some of my dogs is listed as a "bad" kibble on this webpage. Yet, the first 4 ingredients are 3 specific meat and 1 specific meat meal. No salt, no animal fat, no wheat. Oats are in the top ten and the top 20 include potatoes, peas, carrots and apples. But this website lists it as a very poor kibble.

And on the other hand, she lists a food on the "high quality" list that one of my pet stores carries that does not contain ANY meat, meal or any vegetables of any kind either. If I remember correctly, the main ingredient was corn followed by rice of some sort.

Unfortunetly though, all but one of the ones she lists as quality I've never even heard of (heck, for awhile there I thought Chicken Soup For the Dog Lovers Soul was a book).

http://www.asuperiorgsd.com/dog.food.html