"It Changed His/Her Life!"

This forum was my eye opener.  I was feeding Beneful and thought it was ok.  I just thought dog foods were *mostly* the same.  I knew Kibbles and Bits wasn't good, but even then I didn't think it was really bad.  I thought we were doing ok with the Beneful b/c the vet and the trainer knew we were using it and didn't mention anything (I realize know that they probably didn't know much more about nutrition then I did, or they didn't feel it was their place to tell me what to feed) and it looked (bad/kibble appearance) nice and the commercial made it sound so nice, plus it was Purina.  They've been around forever so I felt comfortable with them.

The first day I was on here I read a bunch of posts talking about how bad Beneful was and I felt awful.  At first I was kind of in denial....after all my dogs are find and they've been eating it.  But then I realized I should just take the information for what it is and get something better for the dogs.  The dogs are now on Canidae and things are going really well.  I made a post awhile back raving about how Blaze has energy now when before she just layed around.  I still don't think my dogs looked or smelled *bad* before, but they deffinately look and smell (longer between baths) *better* now, and the eye boogies have almost disappeared.

This forum was my eye opener too - when we got Wesley I fed Nutro, that was what my in-laws fed their dog and I didn't know any better...  Then I started reading the nutrition threads and I realized that Nutro was not the best choice, so I switched to TWO.  Then, I decided that no dog (or any other pet) should eat only processed kibble, so we moved to one meal a day TWO and one meal a day homecooked (the meat in the homecooked is raw).  Ultimately, I would love to go to more raw, but Wesley is a gulper and will still guard some super high value items (like a raw bone or the like - we are working on it...) - so until I feel that I can supervise him closely enough to make sure he is eating it safely, and take it away from him if he is not, we will have to wait on that...

My in-laws' eyes have been opened as well - about a year or so ago, their 8 year old cocker was diagnosed with cancer.  The doctors were able to remove some, but not all of the tumors and the decision was made that further conventional veterinary treatment was not a viable option.  When he was diagnosed, I came here to get information for them on the cancer diet for Kobi.  Kobi has been on the cancer diet (home-cooked and carb/grain free) since and is doing great.  His cancer is progressing and it is terminal - but it is progressing slowly and he feels wonderful and is eating with gusto (this is a dog who always only picked at his kibble).  My MIL is convinced now that feeding foods that are not the best and over-vaccinating pets has a lot to do with the insanely high rate of cancer - it is very hard for her to feel like had she known earlier, her beloved dog might not be sick...  But, she knows that he is happy and feels good now and to see how he trimmed down and has so much energy, is something she will have even after Kobi goes to the bridge...

Before going on-line the only thing about pet food you could read about was fliers handed out by Nutro Reps at the local Pet Store. So learning how to use the INTERNET and finding a food called Eagle Pack that no local stores sold and being able to have it delivered to the front door by UPS..   Started using Holistic Select and finally got a dog that ate every kibble in her bowl and at the same time solved a lot of bowel issues.