LindaH

I agree that dog food choices are not clear cut or a simple decision for many. I am lucky that Parker does well on high quality foods barring allergies to a few ingredients.

Not saying you, but a lot of people overfeed high quality foods which causes digestive upsets, gas, soft stools or diarrhrea. Amounts really make a huge difference with better foods. I know when I fed my old mixed girl grocery store purina, her poops covered about 1/5 of the yard and NEVER went away...it was an ungodly mess that only went away when I switched her, at the time, to Canidae.

I don't have personal experience with Pro Plan except that Parker came home on it as that is what his breeder feeds. I switched him to Canidae at that time as I was sold on it with the huge improvement in my older dogs appearance.

One correction here, Beaumont, feed either an "all life stages" or large breed puppy food, not regular puppy food as it is formulated for fast growth. Exactly what one doesn't want with a large breed puppy.

Thank you for mentioning the article!!!

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Rosemary

The first time I tried the Innova, I actually cut back on the amount I fed to the point where Lucky and Ilka (didn't have Leo at the time) both lost weight, but they still had horrible loose stools. The second time, I tried a different formula, but even feeding only 2/3 of the recommended amount gave all three of them loose stools. Leo was still pretty skinny at the time, so I didn't bother feeding it after that one 15 pound bag.

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LindaH

Well heck...disclaimer...

I wasn't referring to anyone that knows what they are doing with dogs or high quality food...BUT...
there are a lot of people relatively new to dogs and/or high quality foods and others that don't know what they are doing, period.

I will say that I hope anyone knows not to switch from craptastic food to high quality cold turkey.....go slowly and over AT LEAST MINIMUM of a week and cut back amounts!:

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http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/best-dog-foods/
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=main

Diet additives and Raw diet information
http://www.dogaware.com/articles/index.html

Sorrelli

I find all discussions about feeding dobes very interesting. I just recently had to do major changes in my dogs diet to get a normal stool. In his case he was on a premium diet of ProPlan and the rice in it was the culprit. Good news, he's switched foods and has a normal stool. Bad news, its corn based. So while I'm now on the lookout for a higher, better food, at least he's back to digestive normal.

vivienne00

I like BARF and my rescue male, Cato, died of lung cancer at 13 1/2 - first half of his life was kibble, 2nd half was BARF.

My Yoda had a maximum prognosis of 5 yrs ("you might even get 5 years out of him if you do everything I recommend"). He turned 5 last month and his current CBC is perfect - absolutely beautiful numbers - been a BARF dog all his life. BTW, the specialist was very against feeding any raw food at all - ha!

Aside from diet, I adhered to what the specialist directed.

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kri57en

I've worked at both Petco and Petsmart before. If you can find something at Petsmart and avoid shopping at Petco, I can guarantee it will likely be at least 20% cheaper (Petco tends to mark everything up attempting to be a "higher end" pet store...) Petsmart sells Nutro, Innova, Wellness and Blue Buffalo - all decent IMO. Petco should have all of those plus Natural Balance, Instinct, and AvoDerm among others. The thing with lower quality pet foods is that they tend to have more fillers i.e. corn. Dogs do not digest corn-it goes straight through them. This means that you have to feed more to get the same level of useable calories and that if you went with a food with less fillers you could feed less, offsetting the increased cost. Note that the kcal/cup does not really tell you much because this includes if the dog WERE able to digest corn and all fillers, unfortunately. You can also try doing half and half. My dog gets half natural balance and half Honest Kitchen, a freeze-dried diet. I must say his gas is SO much better on this mix. I would feed entirely Honest Kitchen, but as a student mixing it with kibble is a little more cost effective for me. I hope this helps :/ let me know if you have any more questions.

Note - most of this knowledge comes from working at an independent pet store where we received nutrition classes. Plus I'm a bio major so I've heavily invested in the science :p

ZeldaRules

I've worked at Petco and Petsmart and I wouldn't recommend any of the foods sold there as any type of decent quality except Instinct. I sent all the customers I encountered to a local pet boutique up the street that sells good food if they asked my insight and opinion. The customers were very satisfied and I was a ninja about it so I didn't lose my job Top nutrition and well-being of the pets was always my sole concern. At least when it came to to the pet owners that wanted to and could afford better quality nutrition, for the rest, I'm just happy they're feeding their pets.

SpecialK

Actually, in my area Pet Supplies Plus has started to carry several higher end kibbles, including Acana and NVI, among others.

I agree with those who have said feed what works for your dogs. When Rowan came home he was on Pro Plan also, and he did fine on it so he stayed on that until he was probably close to a year. But when winter hit he started to have really dry skin and flakes, so I decided to switch him to Taste of the Wild. He was on that for a while and did really well, but with all of the recalls I decided I didn't want to stay with that brand anymore. I switched him to Acana, but as much as I wanted it to work he had loose stools and horrible gas that just never resolved. I am just now finishing yet another switch to Nature's Variety Instinct, which seems to be going well so far. However, if it does not work I am very tempted to go back to the TOTW. Despite all of the recalls, he did great on it and it was even less expensive than the Acana or NVI.

I would love to feed raw in a perfect world, but that has it's difficulties too. All in all every dog is different and unless the food has a dangerous ingredient I would stay with what your pup is doing well on. Doing all of the switching can be a lot of stress and hassle.

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stryker2

Look at Dog Food Reviews and Ratings | Dog Food Advisor at all the foods.
I know Acana has no rice in it. I would go with a Grain Free food. Remember also to feed only good treats.
I would stay away from Corn, Wheat, and Soy. 60% of the Corn today is GMO and a lot of Soy.

Sam1491

I'll also add this list of their "best rated grain free dry foods"

Best Dry Grain Free Dog Foods

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