[cmiddl01]

I'm trying to do some research on the best natural dog food and what a better place than here to get an answer! I think I saw a thread on here somewhere about it before but I can't find it.

Anyway, as many of you know, my dog has hip dysplasia and I'm trying to find the best food/supplements/etc for her. I'm currently feeding her Nutro Natural Choice Venison food because it has a high amount of glucosomine and chondroitin. However, I think there may be too many fillers in it. (I read some where that all of the grain is inflammatory which will make her condition worse.) So, any dog food recommendations or supplement recommendations (and links where to buy) would be greatly appreciated.

FYI, she is a German Shepherd.

Thanks in advance for your help!:razz:

 

[goosler]

Canidae.

http://www.canidae.com/?gclid=CMqovuTutp8CFaM45QodLhgb3A

 

[hiker chick]

I highly recommend subscribing to The Whole Dog Journal -- the best source I know of for info on high quality dog foods. It's a monthly online and hard copy publication that does not have advertising.

The February issue is the 2010 guide to dog food:

http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/

I also started a thread recently about Flint River dog food. My Samoyed is presently on Wellness' Whitefish & Sweet Potato, a food with relatively few ingredients.

http://www.elementownersclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61129&page=2


Since you're in West Virginia you might be interested in this dried raw food a friend of mine has her Samoyeds on -- "Wolfie's Wild Dog Food" -- dried raw food sourced and made in the Shenandoah Valley. She gave me a box of it to use as treats for Gidget (she loves it - "Wind-Dried" Meatloaf dinner). The Whole Foods nearest me carries it, or they deliver. Needs to be kept in a cool place, she keeps her's in her garage. I've got Gidget's in the fridge. Because it's raw, you have to be more careful in the handling of it. I might go that way in the future but for now am inclined toward another kibble.

http://www.wilddogfood1.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=33&zenid=0a2fc9110e780a600f5da6a233f8087d

Wolfie's All-Natural Dog Food Recipes​

​

​

​

We take our Raw/Frozen recipes and Sun & Wind dry them, dry them to 12% moisture and reduce their volume to about 1/3, making them shelf-stable!

Easy to feed at home, easy to carry in the car, in the field or on vacation, our Wind-Dried Raw dog foods offer the same complete nutrition as our Raw/Frozen products.

It also makes a great grain-free training treat or show bait!

 

[mkh]

About the best "natural" is home-made. :grin:

Take two pounds of ground turkey or hamburger, or lamb, put into a large skillet and cook lightly. Boil up a box of Uncle Ben's rice. Add the rice to the meat. Add a one pound bag of frozen peas. Add a 1 pound bag of frozen carrots. Stir occasionally until "cooked". Put in plastic storage containers in the fridge. We add Dinovite supplement, and salmon oil when we dish it up (nuked in the micro to warm it up a bit).

This feeds our two French Bulldogs their evening feeding for about a week or so. Morning is Flint River Kibble.

 

[lmdavis1004]

About the best "natural" is home-made. :grin:

Take two pounds of ground turkey or hamburger, or lamb, put into a large skillet and cook lightly. Boil up a box of Uncle Ben's rice. Add the rice to the meat. Add a one pound bag of frozen peas. Add a 1 pound bag of frozen carrots. Stir occasionally until "cooked". Put in plastic storage containers in the fridge. We add Dinovite supplement, and salmon oil when we dish it up (nuked in the micro to warm it up a bit).

This feeds our two French Bulldogs their evening feeding for about a week or so. Morning is Flint River Kibble.

Agree 100%! This way you always know exactly what is in your pet's food.

 

[asp]

"best" dog food

Hello fellow dog lovers,

The question of what is the best dog diet is a bit like asking about the best human diet, etc. As a veterinarian, I get asked this question frequently. I think a home made diet is the "best", but many people don't have or make the time to prepare food for their pets, and pets can't even agree on cooked versus raw foods. Here are some of my suggestions on the subject of what qualities make a dog food "better":

1) use only fresh ingredients with minimum of processing
2) from a food safety perspective, all foods of animal origin should be of high quality, handled properly after purchase, and cooked properly just before consumption; the losses in nutrition from proper cooking are generally minimal and cooked foods are easier to digest, and SAFE for you and your pet
3) cleaned and/or uncontaminated raw ingredients are SAFE only for foods not of animal origin, but can be cooked too to help guarantee that they are SAFE for you and your pet.
4) no artificial preservatives, colours and flavours
5) must be balanced [see www.balanceIT.com]
6) must be complete [addition of supplements is typically required]
7) must be fed in proper amount and frequency
8) must be selected in accordance withy age, breed, activity level, physiologic state, disease state, etc.

There are a variety of home made dog diet recipe books for a variety of life stages, physiological states, disease states, etc. so there is no one diet that fits all. I cooked for my dog and he lived a long, healthy life, and what is just as important to me is that he LOVED eating this food, as opposed to just eating to stay alive, and it was about the same price as buying high-end commercial foods.

Talk to your vet and ask about home made diets... if you have the time to prepare them, they are the "best" IMHO,

Good luck,

Dr. Andrew

 

[mkh]

I cooked for my dog and he lived a long, healthy life, and what is just as important to me is that he LOVED eating this food, as opposed to just eating to stay alive, and it was about the same price as buying high-end commercial foods.

Talk to your vet and ask about home made diets... if you have the time to prepare them, they are the "best" IMHO,

Good luck,

Dr. Andrew

amen to that! Cost is comparable, and really, time is not an issue - takes maybe a half hour to make once a week or so - and that's enough for two 20lb dogs. Bigger dog - make more! If you haven't a half-hour a week to spend for the health and well being of your dog(s).....

If you look at ANY dog food company, they've had recalls and problems. Not necessarily their fault - if you buy "bulk" ingredients, sometimes you don't get what you thought. If you saw what actually went in to most dog food, even the premium brands - you'd gag and blow chunks. :razz:

Good info:
http://www.bornfreeusa.org/facts.php?more=1&p=359

 

[Sigrman069]

We're a fan of Blue Buffalo. No fillers and the dogs love it.
http://www.bluebuff.com/

 

[mkh]

We're a fan of Blue Buffalo. No fillers and the dogs love it.
http://www.bluebuff.com/

http://wordsmoker.com/2009/07/27/blue-buffalo-brand-dog-food-kills-puppies/

 

[Picturepro]

I've found to be very useful

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/

The past couple years I photograph all the products for "Dogswell"
http://www.dogswell.com/
My New Luci loves the treats and Roxy last meal was several handful's
of treats as her meal (had to put her down Wednesday due to cancer)
last week I just finished photographing 33 bags. sometimes I end up with new sealed bags, I send those to Iraq for the service dogs

GL

 

[mkh]

I've found to be very useful

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/

The past couple years I photograph all the products for "Dogswell"
http://www.dogswell.com/
My New Luci loves the treats and Roxy last meal was several handful's
of treats as her meal (had to put her down Wednesday due to cancer)
last week I just finished photographing 33 bags. sometimes I end up with new sealed bags, I send those to Iraq for the service dogs

GL

Sorry for your loss. :-(
And have heard good things about Dogswell and how they do business. I'm just a little leery of a company that gets almost all of its pet food products manufactured in China.

 

[tmth]

Like someone else said- www.dogfoodanalysis.com is the best way to look up commercial dog foods.

My boy doesn't get dog food. I feed him RAW- Prey model style. Muscle meat, bones and organs. He eats primarily chicken, lamb and beef.. and green tripe. But he also gets venison, antelope, and even fish on occasion... it all depends on what's easily available. Treats are bully sticks, raw meaty bones and dried liver.

RAW is great. My dog loves his food, he has clean white teeth that do not require brushing, a very clean, glossy coat that has little of that "dog" smell, he's full of energy and what goes in to his body comes out in very little packages- meaning he's actually digesting most of it. My 105 lb Great Dane mix has smaller sh!ts than a 40 lb pit mix I know, who eats bottom-of-the-barrel purina.

Dogs don't digest grains--> "Dogs do not possess the necessary enzymes in their saliva or in their stomach to break down the cellulose in plant matter. If the cellulose cannot be broken down, the nutrients within the plant matter cannot be utilized. Furthermore, when faced with the digestion of plant matter, the dog's pancreas is taxed because it must produce the necessary enzymes to deal with the starches and carbohydrates present in the matter."
Digestion rates between raw and kibble are very different- raw is fast, because its much easier for a dog to process.
If you've got questions about raw, www.rawfed.com and www.rawlearning.com are useful for information.

 

[Alaskan_Toaster]

Canidae.

http://www.canidae.com/?gclid=CMqovuTutp8CFaM45QodLhgb3A

Been using this for several years, through several dogs. Digestion is good (less left "behind"), good coats, never a problem with energy. Also good to see it got a 5 star rating...... :razz::razz:

 

[shutter2ride]

the opposite here - my dog was doing fine with Canidae until last year when they changed their formula and things went to crap (literally). He like many other dogs I know couldn't adjust to it. A really bad move from Canidae as many moved on and are now happy again with e.g. Premium Edge or Healthwise.

Been using this for several years, through several dogs. Digestion is good (less left "behind"), good coats, never a problem with energy. Also good to see it got a 5 star rating...... :razz::razz:

 

[Olive and Sarie's Mom]

I've found to be very useful

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/

The past couple years I photograph all the products for "Dogswell"
http://www.dogswell.com/
My New Luci loves the treats and Roxy last meal was several handful's
of treats as her meal (had to put her down Wednesday due to cancer)
last week I just finished photographing 33 bags. sometimes I end up with new sealed bags, I send those to Iraq for the service dogs

GL

:-( Sorry to hear of your loss...
We use Honest Kitchen. It's been great smaller poops and less frequency of them. The only problem is that I have seen the neighbors dog try to eat it, I usually pick it up, but he was pretty interested (he-80 lb. Lab, us-10 lb. Jack Russell) as it came out of the "chute". Ewwwwww:vomit024:

 

[What The!]

the opposite here - my dog was doing fine with Canidae until last year when they changed their formula and things went to crap (literally). He like many other dogs I know couldn't adjust to it. A really bad move from Canidae as many moved on and are now happy again with e.g. Premium Edge or Healthwise.

I agree. My GSD couldn't handle the new formula after they switched. A friend of ours suggested Taste of the Wild and Chewy's never been happier. Great quality food at a decent price.

We use Royal Canin for kibble along with Canidae snap biscuits. Doesn't seem like the quality in the snap biscuits changed.

 

[ExBamaGal]

Fairly new here but thought I'd respond with what we feed our pups. Currently we have a Great Dane and a Jack Russell. We also have a dane foster and a little Chiweenie foster. Until recently, our pack also consisted of another dane and a Rat Terrier along with 25+ fosters over the last four years.

All of these dogs have been fed Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul adult formula without any issues what-so-ever. We did try Canidae for a brief time (had a contact that could get it cheaper for us) and after our first bag they changed the formula. That didn't go over so well so we went back to Chicken Soup. We also tried RAW for several months. All but one of our dogs (female dane) did FANTASTIC on it and if I could, that's what we'd still be feeding now but our female just didn't take to it well at all.

So, I vote for Chicken Soup!! Or RAW

 

[MDSPHOTO]

We're a fan of Blue Buffalo. No fillers and the dogs love it.
http://www.bluebuff.com/

Ditto. Our puppy loves BB! The first ingredient is deboned chicken, not some chicken meal or by-product.

 

[beledi]

We're a fan of Blue Buffalo. No fillers and the dogs love it.
http://www.bluebuff.com/

I have a Greyhound, a Schipperke, and a Border Collie on Blue Buffalo and they do quite well on it.

 

[jazzy007]

My wife would argue, & I agred with her, home made is the best, & our "kocker" (I know how to spell, tool won't let me spell it right :roll, who is with my wife for 9 years, couple years before we married 3 years ago, is lucky enough to have home made diet.
Our lab-x, who is with me for 5 years, is on "California Natural", part of Natura, since she was a pup. According to "California Natural", it has the shortest ingredient list of any dry pet food. They also explain in detail on each & every ingredient they used.