German Shepherd dog food - Page 4

I looked up the ingredients of the back to basics formulas and really thought they sounded stable and would make a nice change for some dogs that are picky or have allergies.  Take a look, also the GO Natural Salmon/Oat formula my friend uses and has had great luck.  Just for info,  Nan

BM1
You wrote "Nothing beats Orijen. Most of their formulas are 80/20 which means 80% of the food is from animal. It is grain free and is mixed,made and bagged under one roof of one building. The only brand that does that. ...."

I feed NutriSource chicken and rice formula. The NutriSource is made at ONE facility. Yes I know the formula I am feeding is not grain free, but NutriSource does make grain free formulas.  Here is the paragraph from the NutriSource website....
The Tuffy's manufacturing plant in Perham, Minnesota, produces ONLY pet foods and the facility is the ONLY manufacturing facility that produces our branded products.

I am by no means say Orijen is a bad food, there are alot of dogs that do very well on it like your dog. I am just saying that Orijen is not the only dog food company that has one manufactoring plant.

As for a good dog food. Like several have mentioned everyone has their own opinion on what dog food is the best. I personally like the NutriSource that I am feeding. My dog does very well on it. I feel that the best food is what the dog does well on.

I feed Canidae and have for a dozen years or so and never had any problems.  The Diamond recall was an isolated incident at an isolated plant that was resolved and vowing to never feed any of the foods again because of it it tantamount to saying you'll never eat ground beef again because of an isolated incident at one plant that processes ground beef.

Thought I'd post this here - just got back from the pet store and there is a notice posted that Champion Pet Foods is experiencing some baglog in getting their product out for two reasons -

1) they have had a huge increase in demand that caught them off guard.

2) they have impletmented additional product quality assurance testing which is causing a bit of a delay getting the product out. They say they are the only pet food manufacturers who are doing this type of extensive testing. (I don't know all the details about it, couldn't find anything online)


Anyway, if you're feeding Orijen or Acana, make sure you don't leave it to the last minute to buy your food in case your local pet store is out. Apparently, the people at Champion Foods are working late/weekends/holidays to get caught up.


:)

I know this is an old thread.... but another food that I really like is Merrick. Like Orijen and also the NutriSource( I listed) it is also made at ONE manufactoring plant. There are NO ingredience from China either.

We feed our gsds Nutrisca.  It is grain and potato free:  http://nutrisca.dogswell.com/ .   Has a 5 star rating:  http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/dogswell-nutrisca-dog-food/ .

Most dog foods in the USA are made in Diamond Plants.  So when you buy different brands of dog food you can't really avoid it being made in a Diamond Plant.  HOWEVER, when you buy any brand that comes from a Diamond Plant be sure to pay attention to how attentive the company selling the food is with checking the quality control of their product.  For example Natural Balance is a food I consider to be in the middle in terms of ingredient quality, not top like Orjen and Acana and not low end like Kirkland (Please note, Kirkland is not a Horrible food, its a very good value for the price, but if you can afford a better brand of kibble, get it).  With that in mind Natural Balance, Taste of the Wild and Wellness are very good about being quick with recalls and getting bad product off the shelves.  THATS WHAT YOU ARE PAYING FOR. If you take a look at all the dog foods made at Diamond plants, it quite easy to find the ones that had problems getting the word out quickly to keep the bad food from being sold.  My opinion is Natural Balance may be made at the Diamond Plant, but thier QA/QC is process is better than many of the other dog foods made at Diamond Plants (there are some others that are just as good including Wellness and Taste of the Wild). 

So, pay attention to how the dog food company handles recalls in general, not where the food was actually was made.

Also I agree with others that you should feed grain free. In addition I have had dogs who don't digest chicken meal all that well, so I also try to buy foods that don't have chicken meal in them.

Last, anecdotaly it appeas that "fish-based, non-grain" dog foods are rarely recalled.  I was also able to find out that "fish-based, non-grain" dog food is made in an entirely different part of the Diamond Plants.  So if there is a recall on Lamb & Rice, Beef or Chicken etc, most likely it will not affect the Fish & Potato food in any way.

I have a 6 year old German bred female that's been on Canidae since she was weaned.  I switched to the grain free when it hit the market.  It has 34% protein and 22% fat, a good combination.  It contains all human grade ingredients.  With that being said, I'm considering switching to Evo Meat.  It has 42% protein,2% fat and very low carbs, like the Canidae.  The Evo costs $2.38 a pound at my supplier store, while the Canidae is 1.97 per pound.  I wouldn't feed anything that's not grain free to my dog, cat and my 8 ferrets.  The cat and ferrets have Evo as part of their diet.

Sorry, the Evo has 22% fat, not 2%.  Happy fingers.