Dog food….the HORROR - Page 2

All dogs are different.  I am feeding a kibble called Exclusive and it rates 4 stars on dogfoodadvisor.  My Australian Shepherd (barn dog) and my Jack Russle (house dog) do awesome on it.  My GSD likes the food and eats it well, but lost weight and blew coat like no tomorrow on it.  She is on raw and does beautifully on it.

HAH!! I can relate.. I work for a vet 'and' at a pet store.. ((oh no)).. I get a free bag of Earthborn dog or cat food every month.. My cat wont eat it.. (go figure) and my dog's stool isnt the best.. Sigh.. I went back to Iams for the kitties.. they are in heaven, and I have to mix the Eukanuba for the dogs.. Maybe they know the best! My sheltie is 15 years old, and the Shepherds are doing wonderful!
     I buy it at Wal Mart late at night too !!  :) sherry

Exclusive is a Purina product and similar to Costco's chicken & rice food last I remember but that was a decade ago.

Same here. We have tried everything.  We went back to Pro Plan Performance. My dogs do excellent on it. Excellent weight, shiny coats and nice poop 

I feed a lot of chicken quarters raw and raw beef fat trimmings to my GSD .. the cost is not that much different than expensive $50 per bag dog food.  I do feed some cheaper kibble sometimes but it is no corn, no wheat, and no gluten and always with beef protein sources or something they call beef before they cooked it to a dead mass of indigestible low grade protein.  Low carbohydrate and high animal protein and animal fat seems to work for my mostly Czech and mostly solid blacks.  My dogs are operating with ketonic metabolism and they seem to do fine and get big and strong with few plant based carbohydrates, protein or fat.  The fact is that dog food is a new convenience food for owners and dogs never evolved to eat a high carbohydrate diet.  Selection for dogs that could survive on cheap byproduct based dog foods ( and almost all are ) has just been going on for about 50-60 years and perhaps the convenience and cost savings of commercial dog food have been paid for with bad joints, immune disorders, and metabolic/gastric problems which plague many breeds.  

I just want to say you had me sitting here LOL! 
Love the way you tell a story :)

I agree with all above, feed what's in your budget & what your animals do well on. I had Labs that did great on Purina for years. I only switched when I got my 1st GSD as she didn't do well on it.
Now with 4 of them, feeding mostly raw is easier on my wallet & they do good on it.

I would suspect that breeds over 20 pounds do better with raw than those smaller breeds.  Some of the miniature and tea cup breed variations are the equivalent of a glow in the dark goldfish and are not bred to eat natural food or survive without a lot of human oversight.  German Shepherds are one of the breeds closest to the Grey Wolf in anatomy ... the foundation stock for most modern dog breeds.  The smaller breeds probably need processed raw but my GSD can process a deer down to hooves and antlers without human help.  Most hounds and hunting breeds seem to process whatever they can catch or find in raw form also without problems.  Raw bones present no problems to my GSD but cooked ones can cause problems both on the way down and on the way out.

I too feed Pro Plan performance, with excellent results. Petsmart has it on sale, free shipping and $10 off your order right now Bhall. Tried grain free with cow pie poops for a month... if its not broke..

Pro Plan Select has as a primary ingredient by dry weight corn gluten meal .. chicken (wet weight) and chicken meal (dry weight) are the first and third ingredient so chicken in some form is likely second by dry weight to corn gluten meal .. the dog food companies play these label games .. so Pro Plan Select is corn gluten meal and some form of chicken .. not really so select is it??  There are several sites rating dog foods on quality and label truth vs label BS.  Purina has never done well on any of these sites.  A customer bought a 6 month old from me and told me that his dog at home had such a shiney beautiful coat and ate commercial dog food.  Later after he got my pup home he called me and said my pup fed raw was at an entirely different level of coat quality when placed side by side with his dog fed commercial dog food and he started feeding some raw meat as well.  

Have any of you used/heard of Victor dog food.  Look it up you might like the food and price. Comes in many formulas and is from a small company located in Texas.

The Dog food analysis  web site rates it quite high.  Prices start at $45 for 50# bag all purpose