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Dry Dog Food - Your Opinion On The Best

16K views 41 replies 17 participants last post by  arjina 
#1 ·
What's your opinion on what the best dry (or wet) dog food is. Small, Medium, Large, and whatever the other categories are (Allergies, Natural..ect)

I don't feed Sparky dry food often (and when we do its Cesar, because he's uber picky and if the bites are too big he'll just play with it :rolleyes:) so I don't get an opinion! lol

I read that .. Blue Buffalo, Wellness, Canidae, Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul, Innova, Solid Gold, Timberwolf, Merrick, Science Diet, Natures Variety. Are good.. but that's all up for y'all to 'vote'! LOL
 
#2 ·
I've been doing some reading on the subject too, and while some people debate the finer points of different foods (predominantly breeders who are much more knowledgeable than I), those are all decent foods. The only one that I have reservations about is the Science Diet, which I feel is marketed as a much higher quality food than it actually is. The first ingredient is corn, which is a red flag that generally signals a low quality food. I think the reason it keeps surfacing in these food discussions is that a lot of vets recommend it, and because Hill's also produces a lot of specialized prescription foods. I'm not saying that vets don't know what they're talking about, but they're susceptible to reps just like people doctors.

I've been feeding my 5 month old Blue Buffalo, so I guess that's my vote for now. But we just switched her over to it from Iams, so it's going to take some more time to really conclude how well she does on it.

In case you haven't found it already, check out Dog Food Reviews | Dog Food Ratings. It has a lot of information about dog food ingredients, but keep in mind that the author is not a vet.
 
#3 ·
I spent a good hour earlier, reading up on the popular 'high end' brand dog foods, and I found that Wellness was the one with the better ingredients. Also, helps that they have cute packaging (NO I was not biased LOL!)

Wellness was also the one with the most meat ingredients, and out of the three I reviewed it recommended less food per weight, than the others.

For a 100 lbs dog, one recommended 5 1/2 cups. Then you measure that out according to price, and you'll be spending almost 50$ every 2 weeks and its not even the 'best' in reference to ingredients.
 
#14 · (Edited)
I

Wellness was also the one with the most meat ingredients, and out of the three I reviewed it recommended less food per weight, than the others.

For a 100 lbs dog, one recommended 5 1/2 cups. Then you measure that out according to price, and you'll be spending almost 50$ every 2 weeks and its not even the 'best' in reference to ingredients.

Taste of the wild has some great formulas and is not so expensive. Very high in protein and grain free so you feed less. There is also a brand at costco called natures domain that is very reasonable made by the same company.
Nature's Domain Pet Food | About Nature's Domain
I would cross science diet off the list
PS there is no best food http://www.dogaware.com/diet/commercial.html#best
 
#4 ·
I think that almost all food manufacturers grossly overestimate their feeding amounts because they want to sell you more food. And I think they base their portions on highly active dogs, which most household pets are not. At first I tried to get Cady to eat the recommended amount indicated on the bag and found that she simply couldn't finish all that food. I wouldn't base my choice on the recommended serving size. Choose the food for the quality, and then consult a different knowledgeable (neutral) source regarding portion size. And take cues from your dog too. If he tears through his meal and looks for more, then increase the amount next time.
 
#5 ·
There are a lot of factors that go into how much to feed a dog. Companies generally tell you to feed more because then you buy more of their product. It would be more accurate to calculate how much to feed your particular dog based on his/her needs rather then what the company says on the bag. Every individual is different, some need less and some need more.

A lot of those brands I have not heard of personally and of the ones you did list. I would recommend Wellness or Chicken Soup. Science Diet is OK and how it is tolerated varies from each individiaul animal.

I would NOT recommend fallowing the Dog Food Review. The author knows very little in terms of nutrition IMO. There is more to a food then just the ingredients. Dogs need specific NUTRIENTS, not specific ingredients. There are a lot of brands on there stated as high quality diets that I would never feed for many reasons ie) too many protein sources *causing problems if you ever encounter allergies*, too high calcium to phos ratios, formulated for all life stages etc.
 
#7 ·
Hi, Below are some links for you to compare dog food ingredient The Dog Food Project - Grain Free Dog Foods

Dog Food Comparison Chart - Dog Food Ratings of Premium Dog Food and Supermarket

My Catahoula can only eat Azmira or she has a terrible reaction/allergy. We tried TOTW, Buffalo, and so on, all grain frees.... We are now searching for another as Azmira has Vitamin K3 in it. (Thanks for that information VetTech!) Any suggestions would be welcome! I am going batty trying to figure out what exactly she is allergic too! Now our other Houla has "hot spots"...jeez.
 
#8 ·
Allergies are normally caused by the protein source and less likely caused by the grains. If you are still having allergies on grain-free formulas then it could either be an environmental allergy or a food allergy to a specific protein.

I would try a limited ingredient food. Some recommendations I would make would be:
- Blue Buffalo the Blue Basics Grain free turkey & potato
- Wellness Core Ocean Recipe
- Wellness Super5mix lamb formula (Not grain-free) as long as she did well on lamb previously
- Purina Veterinary Diets DRM (dermatological management) diet. It's a good limited ingredient diet that our clients have a lot of success on and we recommend it before trying an elimination diet on a hypoallerginic diet. A little bit of a better ingredient list then Hills. Limited ingredients are salmon & trout.

If there are other formulas you want to try then stay away from protein sources such as chicken and beef. Lamb might be okay depending how it was handled previously. I wouldn't try any protein sources such as venison or bison just yet. If it's allergies that are suspected I would have testing done with a veterinarian or dermatologist before using a harder to come by protein source. The diets I recommended I am okay with their protein levels and Calcium to Phos levels which for an adult dog should be between 1 and 1.5 to 1 (Can be as low as 0.6:0.5).
 
#9 ·
My vet told me not to feed Marty Cesar canned dog food as it pure junk and not good for dogs. I feed my last dog Nutro dried dog food until the company started to buy ingredients from China to made their food. Sadly my dog got cancer and was not able to eat . I am not saying he got cancer from his food, it did not matter what I brought him to eat , he was too sick to eat.
 
#10 ·
I don't think there is a "best". I think you feed the highest quality you can afford on your budget. The best dog food, Imo, would be a homemade diet.I also don't agree that you shouldn't "trust" dog food advisor. The bottom line is that not all vet programs have nutrition or required nutrition classes (we already had a huge discussion on this) and dfa is a good place to get basic info on what foods are decent. Yes, more count than just ingredients but I cant help but notice that all the 5 star foods on dfa get rec'ed by members who've said not to trust dfa...


Basically the first ingredient in your dog food should be a named meat. Then take out the grains. Those are better foods.
 
#18 ·
I thought I was doing my last dog a great favor by buying him a really fancy dried dog food! It was expensive but that did not impress my dog! I think you should try to find a brand that is healthy and stay with it. I would had stay with Nurto but they getting putting products from China in their food.That is my biggest concern about buying dog food, how do you know where all the ingredients are coming from that go into the final product.
 
#11 ·
Thing is grains are necessarily evil. Allergies are often to the protein source of the food ie) chicken, beef, lamb but of course they can occur with ingredients such as wheat, soy, egg etc. but more commonly its to the protein source not the grains. I think that is the case for the OP's dog because it has been on grain-free diets and continues to have allergies.

I'm not saying recommendations made on the website are wrong, there are some I would agree with and I do recommend but I wouldn't trust a lot of the recommended diets either because the author is only basising his recommendations off the ingredient list and the fact is dogs need specific nurtients, not specific ingredients. There is a lot more to it. There are a lot of holistic diets on the market I won't recommend because they contain too many different protein sources, the Ca to Phos ratio's are too high (and this is a "minimum" value on labels) and many are marketed for "all life stages" which is going to contain MORE nutrtients then what should be fed to certain life stages. My prime example of this would be Orijen.

What a vet recieves for a nutrition course is going to vary depending on the region that has been proven. Some its an elective course, other's its manadotry. It all depends on the school. However regardless veterinary diets are still backed up by research which is easily available to the public and these diets do have a time and a place.

Personally, if someone wants to feed Science Diet, I'm not going to jump down their throat on the case because there are far worse diets to be feeding your animal that are going to cause more problems. It's a brand many animals do just fine on. The "it causes ear and allergies" ... I have a Westie with allergies (typical among the breed) and guess what he gets? A Hills Science Diet lamb and rice formula that does not contain the ingredients he is allergic to. There is a big debate on Hills Science diet that I am prepared to discuss anytime.
 
#26 ·
Personally, if someone wants to feed Science Diet, I'm not going to jump down their throat on the case because there are far worse diets to be feeding your animal that are going to cause more problems.


I dont want to jump down their throats either but a lot of people don't read labels or know what is in their dog food. They come to this forum to learn and so people like us give them our opinions. I am not a nutritionist but
Wow it just seems the logical choice to choose blue buffalo. Science diet ingredients are cheep and junk I hate to see people waste their money on junk food.

SCIENCE DIET SENSITIVE DIET Ingredients
Brewers Rice, Whole Grain Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken By-Product Meal, Dried Egg Product, Animal Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid),

BLUE BUFFALO SENSITIVE STOMACH Ingredients
Deboned Turkey, Turkey Meal, Potatoes, Pea Starch, Peas, Pea Fiber, Tomato Pomace (source of Lycopene), Flaxseed (source of Omega 3 and 6 Fatty Acids), Canola Oil (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols),
 
#13 · (Edited)
taste of the wild. I feed it because of the quality and price. It's along the same lines of BB, Innova, etc. I find it a bit cheaper than other brands of the same quality if purchased at the feed store.

FWIW, I don't think I've jumped down anyone's throat for feeding Science Diet, but I'll just say in general I think we feed everything waaay too much corn (including ourselves), but that is another topic. ;)
 
#15 ·
FWIW, I don't think I've jumped down anyone's throat for feeding Science Diet, but I'll just say in general I think we feed everything waaay too much corn (including ourselves), but that is another topic. ;)
It's a interesting topic. I would recommend you read 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' by Michael Pollan. It goes into detail about the politics of agribusiness, which has led to a huge surplus of cheap corn, which partly explains why it ends up in everything. Especially in animal feed for creatures whose digestive systems are not designed to digest it. I even read somewhere that scientists are trying to genetically engineer farm-raised salmon to eat corn. Crazy, huh?

Sorry for going off on an unrelated tangent.
 
#21 ·
I was just about to say... No talk of allergies here.. Lol

Keep in mind many ( if not most) dogs are misdiagnosed with allergies when they really have systemic yeast infections...

I feed TOTW. I do not personally believe that dogs are obligate carnivores, but I do believe in avoiding grains.
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#22 ·
I was just about to say... No talk of allergies here.. Lol

Keep in mind many ( if not most) dogs are misdiagnosed with allergies when they really have systemic yeast infections...

I feed TOTW. I do not personally believe that dogs are obligate carnivores, but I do believe in avoiding grains.
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It was in regards to another member who had asked a question in this same thread that was based around allergies, not to the OP, but it was still mentioned.

There are many grainless options out there. I still stand by my reasons for not liking certain holistic brands such as TOTW.
 
#23 ·
So you dont like totw because it has multiple protien sources? Why does that matter AT ALL if the dog isnt allergic to them?

Ive had several dogs "diagnosed" with "allergies" and they actually had SYIs. Ive helped cure probably a dozen dogs now, that also had "allergies" by recommending a probiotic which magically cured the "allergies" that didnt exist. Vets heavily heavily overdiagnose allergies only to have people chasing LIDs that really just mask the issue
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#24 · (Edited)
I have to say comming from a place where I see lot's of different dogs who eat lot's of different foods (I work at a boarding kennel) I start to see how some foods make big differences.

From my experiences this is the "average" I see with dogs:
Dogs that have corn based products tend to be overweight and have unhealthy looking coats.
Dogs that have colour die in their food tend to have diarrhea (and on the kennels food don't).
Dogs that have Science diet tend to have blood in their poop (and on the kennels food don't).
Dogs on dog food that is rated "five star" have healthier coats and tend to be less overweight.
Dogs on "low grade" wet food tend to have diarrhea.
Dogs on "high grade" wet food have very nice poop, as well as nice coats.

I personally feed our dogs BB, and they do very well on it - better then on the grain based diet they were on before. My Aussie was able to loose those extra pounds we could never get off her, and the coats on both dogs improved very much. Not to mention the amount of times they needed to go poop was cut in half.
 
#25 ·
when i got my little min pin pup the breeder already had her on blue buffalo. to save money i had bought a bag of puppy chow. i was a new dog owner but eager to learn and after much reading and about 2 days later i threw that puppy chow in the trash and put her right back on BB. Blue Buffalo Small Breed Puppy i feel is perfect for her! she abouts about 1/2 cup a day. sometimes less cuz she is clicker training and pee pad training so she gets many extra treats. For those treats i use Natural Balance Dog Food Roll (cut into very small bits).
 
#27 ·
my dog is allergic to beef, wheat, corn and soy, so he's been getting these "high end" dog foods since he was 4 month old. among the brands we've had him on are nutro, wellness, solid gold, taste of the wild and now he's getting acana. in the taste of the wild and acana brands he's been getting the high protein diet and now he won't eat anything that's not high protein. i would recommend any of these brands, though solid gold, taste of the wild and acana are probably favorites of both me and my dog. solid gold is based on the diet that great dane's get in germany, and there great danes live up to 12 years (b/c of the diet) where as they only live to about 7 or 8 on the typical american dog diet.
 
#28 ·
I'm echoing that there is no "best" dog food... it's what is best for your dog. My dog did best on Pro Plan Shredded Blends... so that's what she gets. That was after many switches of brand trying to get her system to accept the food.

Ditto "the dog food advisor" being a site to avoid if you want some actual nutritional information. VetTech was spot on regarding her assessment of nutrients and the creator of that site not having a clue.

The "grainless" fad is just that... a fad and good marketing IMO.

And to whoever posted about the K3 in the food... that is also not proven to be an issue in dog food (that I have ever seen a true study about). The only documented issues I've ever seen are with injectable K3 used in human infants...
 
#29 ·
Holly,
Whew, my houla can eat only Azmira Lamb (allergic to BB, TOTW, etc. She would get scabs around her eyes and itch like crazy. I was going to try another dog food hunt because someone mentioned danger of K3, but now we don't have to look again for her! You saved me a lot of expense and her misery while we experimented again. Thanks so much!!! I actually emailed the company asking they take K3 out of their formula....
 
#30 ·
We feed our 10 month old a mix of Orejin 6 fish and Pinnacle duck & potatoes. When he was a puppy he ate a mix of Orejin puppy formula and Pinnacle duck & potatoes. We found out that the high protein in Orejin was too rich for him because he would get loose stool when we were to feed him just Orejin alone. He was also on Wellness for a little bit but he would get terrible diarrhea so we stopped that real quick lol. I think we've got a good formula going on here lol. His stool is nice and firm, he is energetic and loooves his food!
 
#34 ·
Dogs need specific NUTRIENTS, not specific ingredients. There are a lot of brands on there stated as high quality diets that I would never feed for many reasons ie) too many protein sources *causing problems if you ever encounter allergies*, too high calcium to phos ratios, formulated for all life stages etc.
Yes but the specific nutrients come from the ingredients, so it would make sense to me that the ingredients/quality of ingredients matter. It seems like there is more to the Cal/Phos ratio than just the chemically analyzed min/max number listed on the dog food bag. What type of minerals are being used/and where are they sourced from? Are they chelated or not? I would think that the bio-availability of the macrominerals and trace minerals in the food would matter when considering any possible deficiencies caused by excess.
 
#35 ·
Yes but the specific nutrients come from the ingredients, so it would make sense to me that the ingredients/quality of ingredients matter.
Not so much the "quality". Some of the same nutrients can come from a variety of sources so obviously pet food companies use the cheapest to keep costs down.

I would think that the bio-availability of the macrominerals and trace minerals in the food would matter when considering any possible deficiencies caused by excess.
Yes, absolutely.
 
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