any opinions on Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Adult dog food? - Page 2

I had my dogs on this food, yes I was also attracted by the marketing of the logo on the bag, but I didn't see any positives from the food. My dogs coat didn't seem healthy and was falling out. I can't prove that the food has caused this , however My male developed a Salivary Mucocele that needed surgery. My dogs are both off of this food and on another brand, Platinum Natural Dog Food.

Richo, Thank you so much for providing us the URLS. very informative :)

i thank you all for your feedback. by the way is there a food that doesn't make them itch? both dogs scratch constantly, i had been feeding iams and then the nutro. is there a food where the poop isn't smelly? i thought all poop was. i have considered the german shepherd formulas of eukanuba and royal canin for spunky and chicken soup brand for one or bothe dogs. would that be better? how about bil-jac? i almost bought bil-jac but my boyfriend liked the nutro ingredients better.

Well,

Aside from their recent compaints,  (AFTER THE RECALLS)  all over the internet with sick pets............... they have some serious ingredient issues ................

Therea re a lot of a lot of grains, (ahem....FILLERS)  in the foods!!!!   

Then there is the  WHEAT GLUTEN..........and *THAT* is pretty scary.......... especially since they were *stopped at the border*  not too long ago...........  and as if those are not bad enough, we now have the fact they are still using 

Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (source of Vitamin K activity)   even though most Pet Food Companies have removed it form their ingredints !   

That is my dollars worth :)

Pam Myers

LetsTalkPetFoods@GMail.com

www.AnimalsSpeak.org

ilovemypoodlefluffy ,

Yikes! I wouldn't feed my dogs Iams if the company it's self provided me free unlimited petfood.

If you're willing to pay more... the best thing to feed your dogs are raw meat/veggies, mostly meats. Make sure that the meats that you're buying doesn't have growth hormones, It's not good for neither humans and dogs.

To be honest with you (I feel like a hypocrit for saying this) corperation petfood in general isn't good and it's not "natural" by any means. Do you see wolves out in the wild eating Iams or eukanuba? no! You see them killing it's prey and eating them.

Iams is made by Eukanuba so if your dogs are already itchy on Iams, I would not step up to Eukanuba as I would think their formulas or ingredients would be similar being made by the same company. 

If you soak Bil-Jac in water, it turns into a very pasty mush. I've seen dogs digging at the roof of their mouths since this is where it gets stuck. I have also had to pull clumps of it from their mouths. I can only imagine what it does inside of them.  

Isn't Chicken Soup made by Diamond Foods? They have had more than one recall of their foods, and I believe Chicken Soup was one of them.

The smell of a dog's waste should not be overpowering. If it is, I would find another food. Something is not right. Volume of the waste is another thing to pay attention to. If your dog has very large and frequent eliminations, it is not using all of the food. Higher quality foods will help lower the amount that comes out of the dog as they use more of the food and do not contain as many fillers.

DKiah already listed many of these, but look into foods such as Innova, California Natural, Wellness, Canidae, Orijen, Merrick, Timberwolf Organics, Fromm or Nature's Variety. California Natural has a limited ingredient list and is very good for dogs with allergies. Avo-Derm is made by the makers of Orijen and supposed to be good for dogs with allergies, but I have no experience with this food and have not spent time looking at their ingredients. You can order Timberwolf directly from their website and they ship for free. By Nature makes an organic dry dog food, but I have no experience with it. Eagle Pack also offers a holistic variety. These all will seem more expensive, but you will most likely find that you will not need to feed as much and in the end will probably equal what you pay now.

I do not know what type of climate you live in, but if both your dogs are scratching constantly, I would get them on a better quality food than they are on now and consider a source of omega oils. There are many varieties of salmon oils out there you can look into. 3V Caps are decent. They make a snip tip variety that you can cut the end off and squeeze it into their food. If your house is very dry, you may want to consider a humidifier to see if this helps ease the itchiness. Since both dogs are scratching, I would guess that it's a combination of the food and environment as opposed to allergies.

Good luck to you in finding a food that works for you and your dogs. Spend some time researching ingredients and the pet food recall lists as many foods you have named have been recalled at one point or another.

http://www.avma.org/aa/petfoodrecall/products.asp

Try this site for independant reviews on dog foods.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/

John.

i thank you all for your input, will check the sites mentioned, thanks.

This is really really interesting information for me.  What do I know about Nutro-Choice??? 

 Well, as dog training and behaviour goes, I know that I can almost section out the little souls that are eating Nutro-Choice. !!!   This has been something that I am watching at the moment, and obviously the above gives answers.  I have found that the owners give the same info to me, of erratic behaviour, hyper-activity, and lack of concentration for even one moment.  Then when I meet the dog, it is not sometimes displaying this type of behaviour - seems to me that I was getting there in my assumption that its not the food I would be choosing.  No doubt if it affects them in this way, its worse after feeding...Also, at our local pet store, I am told by one of their assistants, the makers of Nutro-Choice do lots of promotions in house to get people to buy the food, with a rep standing there for days singing its praises, and even worse - the actual shop gets £5 per bag for selling it extra and over above the normal profit margin ..... ever likely lots of dogs in my area are using it.  Now I have some hard facts as above, I will know better what I am talking about, thanks everyone for your valued info   Mo - Mascani.