Dog food

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mbcijim

Member
Mar 10, 2008
419
Schuylkill County, Pa
When my dog (Labrador) was a puppy I fed him Eukanuba (top end) dog food for the first year or two. Then I graduated to the cheapest dog food. Now he turns 11 next week and a month ago my vet wanted me to get him on a senior food (Purina One). It is more expensive about $26 for the large bag instead of $12-$15. He's been on it now for a month or so. I swear that my dog has WAY more energy than he did on the cheap food. I've been very, very surprised at the change I've seen. He's not overweight, just starting to get old, arthritis for the last 3-4 years.

Has anyone else seen this in their dogs?
 
We've always fed our pups the expensive stuff (Solid Gold - Wee Bits), but they're practically microscopic so they each eat 1/2 cup a day total. They're bonkers, very healthy at 7-8- we will see what the next few years brings.
 
I notice the difference with my cats. I always feed them the best I can buy locally. Spending an extra 15/month on cat food for me isn't a big deal when you consider the cat may live longer if it eats well, have less health problems, be more happy, and I especially noticed it makes their fur so much more shiny and healthy looking.

Here's a good site for info about dog food.
http://dogfoodanalysis.com/

A lot of the top brands vets recommend are actually very bad for them (Science Diet).
 
We always fed our dogs table scraps. Ol' Roy dog food and we poured the grease from cooking over their food. Labs all lived to be 14 & 15 and 2 Hounds lived to be 16. Did have 1 hound die at 10 or so but that had more to do with the UPS truck that hit him. I know and have read all the info about how bad it is for them but we kept them well exercised until the end and never had any health issues other than death of old age.
 
Well I know this is about dog food but since Hass mentioned it . . . what do folks feed their cats for "good food." I've always just fed them the cheap stuff in the past . . . but I would be willing to spend more if it makes a difference.
 
We've seen such changes in all of our dogs and cats... they are more sensitive to diet than most realize. One of our dogs got constant bladder infections for over a year, until the vet said, "Are you on a well?" Turns out our water was somewhat higher in minerals than most, and was giving puppy crystals in his urine that caused infections.

Eukanube and P1 are examples of premium food, but there are others...
 
Hass said:
I notice the difference with my cats. I always feed them the best I can buy locally. Spending an extra 15/month on cat food for me isn't a big deal when you consider the cat may live longer if it eats well, have less health problems, be more happy, and I especially noticed it makes their fur so much more shiny and healthy looking.

Here's a good site for info about dog food.
http://dogfoodanalysis.com/

A lot of the top brands vets recommend are actually very bad for them (Science Diet).

Great analysis/reviews!
 
I've fed my lab Diamond Lamb & Rice since he switched over from Diamond Puppy. He's solid muscle and his coat looks like chrome. It does cost more than the 'Ol Roy at Wallyworld, but I think it is worth it.
 
lukem said:
I've fed my lab Diamond Lamb & Rice since he switched over from Diamond Puppy. He's solid muscle and his coat looks like chrome. It does cost more than the 'Ol Roy at Wallyworld, but I think it is worth it.

I would love to see a picture of your shiny silver (chrome) Lab!! ;-)
 
We adopted our Aussie when she was 1 yr old. Kept her on the "cheap stuff" for awhile. Decided to try a "superior" dry food and we seemed to notice a difference. Didn't tell the vet anything and on her next visit (she was on the new food about 7 months)he asked if we had changd her food as he saw a dramatic difference in her coat and skin.
 
Eatonpcat said:
lukem said:
I've fed my lab Diamond Lamb & Rice since he switched over from Diamond Puppy. He's solid muscle and his coat looks like chrome. It does cost more than the 'Ol Roy at Wallyworld, but I think it is worth it.

I would love to see a picture of your shiny silver (chrome) Lab!! ;-)

He doesn't show up on camera anymore...due to the shininess. ;-P
 
lukem said:
Eatonpcat said:
lukem said:
I've fed my lab Diamond Lamb & Rice since he switched over from Diamond Puppy. He's solid muscle and his coat looks like chrome. It does cost more than the 'Ol Roy at Wallyworld, but I think it is worth it.

I would love to see a picture of your shiny silver (chrome) Lab!! ;-)

He doesn't show up on camera anymore...due to the shininess. ;-P

Now that is one shiney pooch!!!
 
I feed my shepherd Nutro Max, and my mix dog the same before she passed last year (worst day of my life so far). The shepherd is on a sensitive tummy diet, but they have lotsa options. Its "good" cause the first ing. is meat, normally its grain or something they don't normally eat in nature....fairly cheap too.
 
mbcijim said:
He's not overweight, just starting to get old, arthritis for the last 3-4 years.

The Eukanuba Large breed boasts natural sources of glucosamine and chonroitin sulfate, two popular ingredients rumored to help with arthritis and joint pain. Our hound dog is 5 1/2 and has been eating the large breed since she graduated from the puppy food. You might want to give it a shot.
Good luck.
 
Yuengling also helps with my joint pain, you might want to give him some of that as well. ;-P
 
Hass said:
I notice the difference with my cats. I always feed them the best I can buy locally. Spending an extra 15/month on cat food for me isn't a big deal when you consider the cat may live longer if it eats well, have less health problems, be more happy, and I especially noticed it makes their fur so much more shiny and healthy looking.

Here's a good site for info about dog food.
http://dogfoodanalysis.com/

A lot of the top brands vets recommend are actually very bad for them (Science Diet).

I looked at all the so called higher quality brands available locally and that link says they're all junk.

My dog is still alive and appears healthy?
 
Are there long term studies out there showing that a large number of animals actually lived longer by eating one type of food vs anything else?

If there is a credible source of that sort of study, I haven't seen it which is why I'm asking.

From what I've seen, It appears to be like choosing between Castrol motor oil, Mobil 1, Pennzoil, etc. There are a lot of opinions on which is better, and mixed results with each, but not much in the way of hard facts supporting long term success.

With the exception of our current cat, the cat's / dog's we've had since childhood were fed food based upon what coupon was in the flyer weighed against how well they ate it. 4 dogs / 1/2 dozen cat's later, all either lived to their expected ages or else met a non-food related demise.

Our current cat was an adult when we took her in. With the first food she drug her hind-end on the one carpet in the house. I wanted to kill her then, the wife persisted we could teach her otherwise. After trying and trying to fix the problem with "behavioral management strategies" I asked her to change the food. Few months on the new food and add the bi-weekly puke around the house to the rear dragging. Cat's life expectancy is diminishing quickly at this point. The next switch has been trouble free of either problem since 2008. I would assume, that the lack of these other troubles would mean that the food is agreeing with her more and I would suppose better for her. It certainly is better for her in regards to my thoughts of her.

This experience certainly isn't a scientific study, but we are still living under the same roof which means something to me. Take from it what you will.

pen
 
From what I hear, Cosco carries it's own high quality dog food for a decent price. I try to look for a food with real ingredients and avoid corn, soy, additives. I also feed mine raw butcher bones, and my 11yo girl has great teech.
 
Hass said:
I notice the difference with my cats. I always feed them the best I can buy locally. Spending an extra 15/month on cat food for me isn't a big deal when you consider the cat may live longer if it eats well, have less health problems, be more happy, and I especially noticed it makes their fur so much more shiny and healthy looking.

Here's a good site for info about dog food.
http://dogfoodanalysis.com/

A lot of the top brands vets recommend are actually very bad for them (Science Diet).

++++ 1 (or 10, or something)

Dogs, being omnivores like us, are a bit more tolerant in diet, but still can't help but benefit from better food. Cats are "obligate carnivores," meaning their systems are set to operate on nearly exclusively animal protein. Very few vets even seem to be aware of this. The mass-market pet food industry is better than it used to be, but still it's shameful how much useless and potentially even harmful garbage is put into the food. Cat food is loaded up with grains they can hardly digest and can't get nutritional value from. And people wonder why their cats are obese.

Hill's (and Iam's) used to be a fairly high-quality food, but then they sold out to one of the big conglomerates, which completely changed the formula, and the quality went right down the drain. I wouldn't feed it to my cats.

For serious info about cat nutrition, www.catinfo.com is a cat vet-run comprehensive site on the subject.

Oh, geez, I could go on for hours on the subject of the pet food industry. Anybody who's switched cat or dog to one of the high-quality premium foods you can't even get in the supermarket remarks on the change in their animals' coats, which is very much an indicator of overall health vigor. My vet always marvels at the glossiness and plushness of my cats' coats. And they hardly shed at all.
 
mbcijim said:
When my dog (Labrador) was a puppy I fed him Eukanuba (top end) dog food for the first year or two. Then I graduated to the cheapest dog food. Now he turns 11 next week and a month ago my vet wanted me to get him on a senior food (Purina One). It is more expensive about $26 for the large bag instead of $12-$15. He's been on it now for a month or so. I swear that my dog has WAY more energy than he did on the cheap food. I've been very, very surprised at the change I've seen. He's not overweight, just starting to get old, arthritis for the last 3-4 years.

Has anyone else seen this in their dogs?

Your vet should have told you this, but glucosamine makes a huge difference in both preventing and relieving joint deterioration and pain in older animals. I've personally seen the frankly nearly miraculous effects of it in one of my animals, and now I have both my relatively young cats (7 and 5) on it as a preventative. Dasuquin is the brand my vet recommends. Check it out. They make doses for both cats and dogs.
 
The reviews on that page are based on pretty sound nutrition calls. Cheap dog food from China has been shown to contain fillers like sawdust (not kidding), or to contain lead or melamine. Don't assume it's all safe if they "let them sell it in a store". They also sell Happy Meals for kids and there's no law about feeding them MacDonalds every meal either.

On top of all that- as others have noted, critters health will respond to food choice. We went from... I don't even remember- maybe Science Diet to something better and our dog's skin issue cleared up right away. I take their health pretty seriously
 
firefighterjake said:
Well I know this is about dog food but since Hass mentioned it . . . what do folks feed their cats for "good food." I've always just fed them the cheap stuff in the past . . . but I would be willing to spend more if it makes a difference.

Jake, the primary trouble with the cheap food for cats is that it's half carbs, which they can't digest properly and ends up either going to waste or to fat. Check out this site, www.catinfo.com, which is the most comprehensive treatment of cat nutrition I know of.

You want as grain-free a food as you can find, for one thing. I feed Innova Evo canned, which is closer to the raw diet cats ought to have but which most of us can't manage, than any other. Another good one but much more expensive is Wellness, which also has some grain-free varieties. These carbs get put into a lot of otherwise very good cat food (Felidae is one, California Natural another, Wysong, and there are others) because pure protein is hard to make into a (necessarily cooked) food that holds together in a can and isn't slop. Dry food is always higher in carbs, and correlated with urinary tract problems particularly in neutered male cats, for reasons nobody's been able to really figure out.

Cat nutrition is harder to figure out because they're not ominvores, like dogs, and nobody wants to bother putting money into studying it seriously since cats haven't the commercial value working dogs have. So it's more of a crap shoot, so to speak. Still, we do know some things, and most commercial cat foods don't conform to what we know.

If for no other reason, bear in mind that the horrible melamine poisoning a few years ago that resulted in a terrible number of unnecessary pet deaths was from a completely unnecessary ingredient -- basically, flour -- bought cheap from unscrupulous Chinese sources by mass-market pet food makers to make the cat food look more appealing to *human beings* and not for any reason relating to animal needs. Not a single one of the premium makers use this crap and none of them were involved in that disaster. That alone is reason enough, IMO, to pay the extra $$ for the good stuff.
 
Adios Pantalones said:
The reviews on that page are based on pretty sound nutrition calls. Cheap dog food from China has been shown to contain fillers like sawdust (not kidding), or to contain lead or melamine. Don't assume it's all safe if they "let them sell it in a store". They also sell Happy Meals for kids and there's no law about feeding them MacDonalds every meal either.

On top of all that- as others have noted, critters health will respond to food choice. We went from... I don't even remember- maybe Science Diet to something better and our dog's skin issue cleared up right away. I take their health pretty seriously

Bravo. Well said.
 
Blue Vomit said:
Yuengling also helps with my joint pain, you might want to give him some of that as well. ;-P







my Rott will only drink German beer go figure
St Bernard strictly a whiskey drinker
 
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