food - Page 1

Hi All,
            Just a quick question on what you feed your GSD. I have had several GSD's and have allways found RC (not shure if i can actually say name) german shepherd food to be the best but I have a six month old pup at the moment who is on the puppy breed specific and he is allways hiper and his stools would not be what i would expect from a six month old dog in that they can be quite soft most of the time, he has been to the vet and had this checked out and is on antibiotics for a bacterial infection but this has been going on for arround two months now - and i think it may well be down to his feed. If anyone can give me any pointers it would be a greet help. I was thinking of putting him on RC Junior 32.


                              Pete.

 Hi 

I previously fed my dogs on Burns and couldn't fault it except for the price. A few months ago i changed all 5 of them over to Arden Grange and i've found it to be just as good but a lot cheaper. All have lovely shiny coats and they seem to prefer it much better to Burns. (During the week of swapping them over all but one of the dogs would pick out the burns and only eat the Arden Grange)

I have fed RC GSD formula in the past and had very good results.  The dog I have now cannot seem to handle the RC GSD formula.  She has lots of gas and quite loose stool from it.  I do like the RC company and my cat eats their Siamese formula with stellar results!   You would have to try it and see how you dog does on it.  I had given up trying to feed my dog the breed specific formula, but did have better results with their Maxi Joint & Coat Care formula.  I did end up switching off of Royal Canin for my German Shepherd and she now eats both Orijen and Flint RIver Ranch brand foods. 

I did not quite understand if from your post if your pup was eating the RC Adult GSD 24 already?  Were you thinking of switching to the GSD puppy formula?  If your pup is 6 months old you could safely switch to another brand of adult food.   Anyway, not every dog responds the same way to the same food.  My dogs eat different foods, I just can't feed them the same dog food.  There are many different brands of really good foods out there...some are Natura, Fromm, Champion Pet Products (Orijen and Acana)(which I feed), Merrick, Eagle Pack, Wellness, Solid Gold, Flint RIver Ranch (which I feed, also), Natural Balance and many others.  

Best of luck fiding a good match of food for your puppy!

I'm not sure how it will compare to all the rest of the foods. I use Purina Proplan large kibbles and everynow and again for a few weeks swap over to the Salmon for sensitive dogs. Gives him a great coat, extremly hard stool and he absolutely goes bonkers for it!!!!

Hope this helps a little

Does the food you are feeding has lots of fat in it.  Some GSD's can not tolerate alot of fat in their food.  I am always in search of the right combo. My GSD baby eats boiled chicken breast, mixed with rice, science diet WD, and metamucil.  This has worked the best for him, although it is a little more expensive than the traditional food.  I tried Blue, Nutro, Natural Balance, etc.  Purina does make a chicken and rice EN to assist with gastro issues which I have my other two dogs on--they are german shepherd/collie mixes and they love it.

Can someone please explain to me what makes a food "breed specific"?

Other than the size of the kibble chunks, and the picture on the bag, is there ANY tangible difference between Royal Canin Chihuahua and Royal Canin GSD?]

[Hint:  Absolutely not.]

It's all marketing.  It's genius actually.  Royal Canin (owned by Del Monte, who also makes Kibbles N Bits and Gravy Train= garbage) started it, and consumers go for it because it has their breed on the bag-- what makes Boxer food different than GSD food, oh maybe the shape of the kibble, who knows.  RC is not a super-premium quality food, it's mid-grade.  They've also had recalls on their products, http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/newpetfoodrecalls/brand_list.cfm?Trade_Name=Royal%20Canin&pet=Dog Which to me is not a good sign as there's plenty of companies that haven't had quality control issues.  Eukanuba (Proctor and Gamble) was the next name to make breed specific food. 

I was provided with this link and find it very helpful in education myself on what to look for in dogfood.http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/