Dog food - What do you think about the Ingredients - Page 1

What do you guys think about Ingredients? Guarantee Analysis • Crude Protein (Min) 27% • Crude Fat (Min) 16% • Crude Fiber (Max) 2% • Moisture (Max) 18% • Calcium (Min) 1.5% • Phosphorous (Min) 1% Fresh Chicken, Ground Rice, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols a source of Vitamin E), Corn (Non genetically modified), Chicken Meal, Corn Meal, Hydrolized Chicken, Dried Beet Pulp, Dried Apple, Salmon Oil (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Flaxseed Oil (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Olive Oil (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of Vitamin E), Potassium Chloride, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin k activity), Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid (B-Complex Vitamin), Biotin, Folic Acid, Choline Chloride, Ferrous Carbonate, Zinc Oxide, Manganous Oxide, Potassium Iodide, Potassium Selenite, Potassium Sorbate.

Fresh chicken is mostly water, if it were in a meal form you would have a better idea as to the actual percentage, or rather, where it would really fall into the ingredients list. Ground rice is fine, but there should be meats higher up. Corns are a concern. Also, with 18% moisture you need to re-calculate percentages to make a comparison to most foods, which are comprised of 10% food. I'd consider something with more actual meat in it. There are lots of posts and tons of information on the internet. I don't want to recommend one thing over the next. If you are concerned or at least interested start searching and learn all you can about different diets and dietary components.

This is a dry dog food with "Fresh" chicken? How come you never see a dry dog food with carrots as an ingredient. Seems many sing the praises of carrots as part of the diet for more than one reason. Firmer stools, deeper reds (if that is what you are after), etc. Not to steal this thread but my vet and I have been trying to figure out why one of my dogs usually had soft stools and never gained weight. I tried many of the foods mentioned here. The usual, expensive foods, and none changed anything. I also tried the foods for "sensitive systems". My vet finally told me to quit using the highly touted foods and just give him plain old Purina. I did and his stools firmed up and he gained weight. He was tested for parasites, stomach bacteria, enzymes, etc. The purina did the trick. He would not munch on carrots, as some had mentioned would be good for him. I had tried "Olewo" also. I know most do not like Purina but it is working nicely and he likes it more than he liked anything else I have tried.

You are now entering a world of huge IGNORANCE. Nutrition in a complete dry dog food. Comments on a list like the above from ignorant people is totally meaningless, and totally mis-leading. Stick to what you know, it may be very little, but at least you know. Even if it is only how to cook a hamburger.

Dogs have lived, long healthy lives long before there were premium commercial foods. I sometimes wonder if we are not the victims of some very clever marketing. I raised my dogs, about 25, 30 total over the years (not including puppies I bred and didn't keep myself) on a locally milled food that contained corn and some other ingredients that most of us would never touch today. No one knew then corn wasn't good for dogs. Apparently my dogs didn't know it either as I never had one case of cancer, never an allergic dog and they lived to be at least 11 years, most to 12 to 13 and one made it to almost 15 years of age with never a sick day in any of their lives. I had 7 litters all from natural matings. Never a stillborn, every puppy whelped lived to adulthood. Never a c-section. Every puppy I whelped was fed Purina Puppy Chow and they did just fine. My first GSD was fed a premium food as was his dam and his entire litter. He was sick from the time he was 10 weeks old and died from cancer at 7 1/2. Maybe it has as much or more to do with the genes than the food?

I look at it like hillbilly's. Ya can't kill them and they have Pepsi for breakfast, chips and beer for lunch and hamburgers and fries for dinner. If they don't get killed with fireworks, drunk driving, fighting, by the police or in a family fight, they live longer than the people who eat designer health food and exercise at the gym four times a week. I can say these things because I are one :) When you think that you know it all, sometimes things change and you found out that what you were doing wasn't so good afterall. Take eggs and milk for instance. Years ago, eggs were considered the "perfect food" and it was recommended that everyone drink 3 glasses of milk a day. Now, you are supposed to eat eggs sparingly and the same with milk, or at least use skim milk. We can only do what we think works at the time. We can not see into the future. I have seen and read enough to know that everyone does things differently, according to their situation and understanding about things. This includes training, feeding, heat and air conditioning, supplements, etc.. No one should tell another what they are doing wrong, unless they are the worlds foremost expert in that particular subject. If ya ain't, just give suggestions. To reference a previous posting I did on a different thread. We dog people like to praise or correct others. That is fine, but don't beat them. We all know that there is a difference between a correction and cruelty. Okay, I'm waiting for the ghost cockroaches to crawl out from under the trash cans.

Hummmm I'd like to know why people believe all this BS anyhow. How can whole milk possibly be bad for the body? I drink raw milk right my the cows, always have since I can remember. Maybe people should wise up a bit.. it's all about this nation getting weak... and your feeding right into it. America is dieing because of brainwash or is it hogwash.... LOL

That's so true Do Right. I remember in the 70's we used to feed our dogs Ken-L Ration. Everyone got it. Bitches with pups on her we boiled chicken bones and all and gave it to them. Dry Ken-L as it was called was a superb food for its day. We had dogs win Best in Show that were fed this food. Our Collies and Shelties just shined on this food and they are hard to keep good show coats but not on the Ken-L Ration. I know that late 70's I remember Quaker Oats bought the food with others then later the Heinz people bought it along with Science Died and we know what they did to that food. I think the biggest culprit to a lot of allergies seen in dogs now is due to the adding of Flax seed meal and or oil. Designer foods contain a lot of designer ingredients like the flaxseed and beet pulp which are horrible allergens to many dogs. Now they are adding "tomato pumice" (tomato skins) that means a lot of residual chemicals (mostly pesticides) are being ingested by our pets and this junk is in most of the top dog foods. Birdy...

Birdy, there is certainly something going on as far as dogs and allergies are concerned. I got my first dog in 58 and have had dogs ever since. Mostly purebreds and a few mongrels. I never had a dog with an allergy until I bought my first GSD in 94. He was fed only premium dog food while the others ate Purina or the locally milled food I've mentioned. I think you said your father was a vet and you worked with him. I got my first job as a vet tech in 1970 and atopic dogs only constituted a very small percentage of the vets' practices at that time. Now I think allergies are a very big part of every small animal practice. I never even heard of a veterinary dermatologist or skin testing dogs until the 80's. Now it appears that allergies in dogs are at an epidemic level in some breeds and mixes as well. Is it food, contaminated air, weak genes, or a combination of all? Beats me. I think the person who comes up with the answer to that one could become a billionaire over night. I agree with Do Right, do what you feel is best for you dog/s and that's the best any of us can do. I personally would never feed my dog one of the generic supermarket brands, but sometimes I hesitate in front of the less expensive brands before heaving that expensive bad of Royal Canin into the shopping cart LOL. My next step will be making Blitz a homemade diet.

I don't know Blitzen, Air, water, genes? Look at the human race and the amount of cancer there is now. I think it's environmental. I mean look around. Ever remember hearing anyone talking about "Fibromyalgia" back then? Seems that everyone has it. I think Lupus was the big thing then and we felt sorry for anyone who had it. Maybe the same for the dogs too? Before responding back to you I was trying to think about the foods of the late 60's and 70's. The only "designer" food that I can recall then was Science Diet in the early 70's. It must have been good as I remember my youngest son would grab hadfulls and eat it himself when I wasn't looking. It was quite expensive then too at least $24.00 a bag. I remember the good old stanby at the clinic too. Hamburger/Rice and cottage cheese. Worked Wonders! Birdy...