i want to know if solid gold is the best food - Page 1

please help.i have a 9 months old male gsd and a 6 months old female gsd.they are eating canidade dry foood and i was thinking of changing it to solid gold what do you think.because my male he eats four cups of canidade and a cup of ground beef.but i want to put on some muscle please tell me if this is a good idea or not.

thanks for your help.i dont know much about this please help.

I know that there are people who swear by Canadae, but I do not care for it.  I found that my dogs had what looked like, corn meal, in their stools.  The stool were looser than I cared for, and their coats went to shit on the food.

That being said, I have fed Solid Gold Wolf King, and liked it very much, and would not hesitate to go back to it if I needed.

As far as "putting muscle" on your 9 month old male, there are a couple of things:

1)  Is he underweight?  Or is he at a normal weight for a 9 month old dog?

2)  Is he internal parasite free?

3)  If he is eating good, and looks good, albeit, a bit on the thin side(IE, no extreme ribs showing, or hip bones showing, but a nice "girlish" tuck in his waistline), then why the need to put "muscle" on him?  What are your goals? 

---Otherwise, if he is eating well, and he is simply out of condition, then good solid 2 mile brisk walks, some swimming in a pool, and walking up/down hills, is a great way to condition a dog.  Simply playing ball with a dog in a back yard often times isn't enough.

----Another thing----sometimes----If you have a dog with no muscle mass in the rear, it is often times because they have bad hips....NOT ALWAYS.....but, after looking at dogs with no SYMPTOMS of HD exrays, you can see the difference in the muscle mass on the good leg and the bad leg.

So, all that said, before you start a serious excercise program to "beef" up your boy, take him to your vet and do some prelim exrays on hips and elbows.

And, you might want to have a fecal sample sent off to a "reference" lab, as some things are hard to see under the microscope.

Make sure that there is no underlying medical issues, if he is underweight, other than just normal puppy hood.

There is no one kind of food that is the end all and be all of dog kibble for every single dog.  There are some brands that are certainly better than others.  Both of the ones you mentioned are higher quality foods.  You have to find what works best for your dog.  IMO, if it's not broken don't try and fix it.  If your dogs are on Canidae, they like it, they are healthy, have nice coats, don't switch their food.  Otherwise you'll probably just have loose stools and picky eaters.  Your male will need more than a good diet to obtain muscle.  He will first need MATURITY and then good exercise and conditioning.

Sara

I agree with Sara. You could ask 100 people and all would have different answers. If you like the ingredients, give it a try.

Tina

I have used Canidae and had a bitch that developed skin psoriasis on her croup and chewed on her left knee unitl it was raw. Two other dogs had no problems other than loose stools which I think was due to corn or a meat ingredient  fixed with corn meal. Must say that all of their coats looked poor. Switched toRoyal Canin GS 24 with no problems psoriasis left the bitch, knee healed up, and all of their stools firmed up. I have noticed that Solid Gold, which I use now, produces only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the stool produced by the other feeds that I have used.

However, RC GS 24 went up to $57.00 for a 35# bag and I switched to Solid Gold Wolf King (bison meat /salmon) No adverse reactions on the changeover, their coats sparkle, and they have energy coming out of their butts. Plus it's about 11 bucks cheaper than RC GS 24.

It's a crap shoot and most times in the past I have had bad experiences when switching foods, and I always buy premium. I have also fed raw diets when dogs are less than 1 year old.

If a food works for your dog and it's healthy and happy, count your lucky stars. If you want muscle, strength, and power, work him just like you would train an athlete, in a regimented routine. Feed him like you would feed n energy burning athlete. Build up, don't start out with marathon training because he or she is just a hairy, four-legged athlete

Beardog

alexgilma,

Hi guy's.

Them dog's still got a lot of growing to do..   Just keep them active and feed them a good portion of quality food, don't forget to add some of the goodie's we talked about once before.    And give them time to grow into it.  

What are they weighing now?

Brent.

EXERCISE is what puts muscle on a dog, not what they eat.  My pup is very "muscular"  (She has hind leg muscles like a Pit Bull.) and she is not quite 6 months old.   She swims EVERYDAY and gets "regular" exercise too.  Also, dogs are just like people, some will get "muscular" easily with the proper exercise, others NEVER will.  Though they WILL be in shape, they will never have "noticeable" muscles. 

(Edited to add that she eats Canidae ALS.) 

I would stay away from the Solid Gold Hundenflocken.  It is very low in fat and caused my dogs, 3 of them at the time,  to blow their coats and lose tremondous weight.  I was feeding a 65 lb female 6 to 7  cups a day and the dog still lost weight.  My 85 lb male was eating about 8 cups a day and losing weight.  I tried the food for about 5 weeks and the results were terrible.  Solid Gold has another company produce their foods in the US, they like many others don't manufacture their own dog foods.  I have been in the pet industry for almost 20 years and have met the owner of Solid Gold at trade shows.  After speaking with them and my experience with their food I've never used it again.  To be fair, I tried the food about 5 years ago and if I remember correctly the fat content was only about 8% at the time.  Maybe something has changed with their foods since then.  Dogs need fat for energy and don't utilize carbs like humans do.  For working dogs or active dogs, that fat content is way too low.  I now feed raw and couldn't be happier with the results.

Jim 

I've fed Solid Gold and I really liked the results.  I didn't have a problem with my dogs losing weight with it and in fact noticed really liked it.  One of the things I couldn't help but notice was the boldness of coloring in their coats; especially the red.  But not all dogs will respond to foods the same way.  My uncle had a picky eater GSD bitch that wouldn't touch the Solid Gold while his other dog couldn't get enough of it....you'll just have to experiment to see what you think.