For many of us we have dogs that are really more our family than just pets. I subscribe to a site that sends me an email when there's a recall. Dog Food Reviews and Ratings | Dog Food Advisor Its a good site to explore the nutritional content of a particular dog food. We currently feed our dogs Taste of the Wild High Prairie, and is grain free. But that hasn't always been the case. In the past we've bought the Walmart store brand because it was cheaper. We discovered cheaper isn't always better and it contained mostly filler ingredients: Ol' Roy Ground yellow corn, meat and bone meal, soybean meal, animal fat (preserved with BHA and citric acid), corn gluten meal, natural flavor, brewers rice, salt, potassium chloride, choline chloride, zinc sulfate, vitamin E supplement, ferrous sulfate, yellow #5, zinc oxide, yellow #6, red #40, blue #2, niacin, copper sulfate, vitamin A supplement, biotin, manganous oxide, d-calcium pantothenate, vitamin B12 supplement, thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), riboflavin supplement, sodium selenite, calcium iodate, folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement, cobalt carbonate. Where's the real meat? Please take the time to check out the site. You might be surprised what our furry family members are really eating.
I just looked up the brand my dog likes. It is bad, really bad. I guess he will be switching back to the good stuff. I was feeding him Fromm but he really disliked it so I switched to a semi-cheap brand. I guess I need to start getting samples to find a new brand for him.
Best thing is to start reading ingredient labels. Avoid grains (wheat & corn especially are known triggers for allergies and other issues) research any ingredients you arnt familure with. Watch out for “vauge” ingredients. (Stuff that doesn't specify what or where its from.. like “meat derivatives”) and things like vegetable oil is usally code for soy oil. And try to find company's that make there own. Most places outsource to “dog food production” companies so they arnt even controlling ingredient sourcing. hence the recalls in previous years for so many food due to the ingredients coming from china or other-wards tainted. or you could just do what I do & feed my dogs real food. Meat, bones, offal, eggs mostly. Course if you have big dogs like I do it means your gonna need a bigger freezer
I discovered if I fed my dogs 50 pounds ol Roy I ended up with 50 pounds of hard white dog turds in the backyard that rain couldn't dissolve. They seem to do good on a combination of Purina one and supplimental butchering scraps and veggies. Squirrels, opposums, skunks, and coons round out the diet.
We own a cat at the moment. (Or vice versa.) We used to feed canned catfood plus dry crunchies. Even the high-end canned stuff was made with meat so rotten that half the time the cat wouldn't eat it. So we said hellwiddat, and started cooking up "people food". Chicken. Bought by the twenty-lb. bag, then bulk oven-roasted and deboned. That makes a lot of chicken that's perfect for quick & easy soup, chicken & rice, etc. Plus a whole lot of soup stock. What we don't eat, the cat eats. Human portions are a baggie of meat plus broth, frozen until needed. Cat portions are chicken-sikles. We put a few pounds out on cookie sheets in wads about the size of a walnut, freeze them, and then fill baggies with the individual portions. Come feeding time, we just drop one or two into the cat dish and call it good. The cat let's it thaw out a bit, then chows down. Happy cat. No waste. And he doesn't do a lot of puking after every other meal now. Funny thing. Price is no issue. If anything, feeding the cat real food works out to a few cents a day cheaper. BTW: "Natural Flavors" is a deceptive code phrase for MSG. Dogs do not need MSG, or crystal meth, either. Both work pretty much the same. They are neuro-exciters that also kill brain cells.
We make all of ours as well as our food !! Raise Chickens & ducks , deal with road kill & my shooting of wabbits & coons . Deer ,hog ,beef,lamb, all around here to barter / trade . We find it cheaper by 70% less of what a bag costs , but the food is real and we know what & where it's from. time spent over convenience S
My boys get the real thing with food, and their lack of need at the vet and the older dogs very advanced senior citizen status bears this out! We buy beef by the side, chicken, and lamb, and we mix it up with fruit and veggies! All bones get partially smoked and those that don't get used for broth go to the doggies as a treat. The Neufy gets mostly beef and eggs, with a little salmon and sweet potato, the Golden gets mostly chicken or lamb and eggs with more fruits. He is almost 19 years old, and besides going blind, he is quite active and spunky, he is also a pillow hog and quite the ninja, able to climb up on the bed undetected! Our Neufy is a very healthy 234 pounds of muscle and fur, is full of energy, has zero health issues, and is as strong as a bulldozer! We have always fed them 100%Natural foods, I'm a firm believer in quality, and you get out what you put in! The boys love it, and it's always funny come feeding time! No table scraps ever!
