**DOG FOOD - The Owners Tell All**

In order of usage (as I learned more about dog food)

(Ginger Only)

Purina One - Ginger would only eat bits and pieces. Tried this for a few weeks, and couldn't get enough in her. OK energy, OK coat, but itchy. Lots of poop, soft.

Iams Small Chunks - Liked it ok. Coat looked bad. Itchy itchy. Lots of poop, normal.

Bil-Jac - Loved the taste. Itchy itchy. Coat dull and dry. Again, lots of poop, between normal and soft.

Nutro Natural - Liked the food. Coat OK. Itchy. Licked paws a lot, chewed feet and legs. Energy OK. Poop good - consistent, medium sized, not too smelly.



Chicken Soup - Dogs loved the taste. Had to feed alot though, for a premium food. Lots of poop. Nice poops, but lots and lots of it. Slightly duller coats, energy fine though. Wound up not being enough bang for my buck.

Wellness - Have used Super 5 Lamb, and Senior. They all did great on these -- until the formula change. Their poops were solid and compact, not very smelly, coats fine but not fantastic, energy to spare. Ginger was a little itchy, the others were not. With the formula change several of the dogs had diarrhea, and there were several things added that Ginger couldn't have with her arthritis.

Canidae Platinum - Ginger and Zippy only. Loved it. Fantabulous coats. Great for helping Zippy with his UTI's. Tons of energy, poops small, and twice a day on schedule. They did great on it. Would use it again.

Canidae All Life Stages - Dogs love it. Will become a permanent part of my rotation. June, Bree, and Nick. Tons of energy, fantastic coats, great poops. No itchies, dogs smell really good. Don't seem to run too hot on it - good overall food. Plenty of bang for my buck - decently calorie dense.

Eagle Pack Duck and Oatmeal - Dogs love it. EP will most likely remain a part of my rotation. Zippy does really well on it. A little more poop than Canidae, but doesn't smell particularly. No itchies, dogs smell good. Coats are nice. Not as calorie dense as I like, and I have found myself having to feed more to keep weight on my hard keepers. Overall a good food though.

California Natural - Lamb & Rice - Using this right now for June (suspected allergies). She's doing well on it. Nice poops, great coat, plenty of energy. Haven't used it long enough to say more.

Next on my list to try: EP Fish, Innova EVO red meat, and TWO Ocean Blue.

Raw - for Ginger now. She's doing great. Coat looks the best it ever has, arthritis is under control, and she has enough energy to keep up with the puppy. Teeth are fantastic. I like home prepared better than commercial raws, but I do find the commercial ones helpful in a pinch (or if you have someone else feeding). I do like the Nature's Variety medallions and patties.

ORIGINAL: ddbsr4me

Everyone keeps talking about Kirklands Lamb and Rice, which I would consider, but don't know if a Costco in my area......and I am somewhat skeptical since it is made by Diamond, I believe (I think I read this in another post....if I'm wrong, I apologize).

 
Where are you?  I just moved to PA and we have one here but I hadn't heard of it in NY.  I've gone into Costco and looked at the ingredients and it really seems like a good food.  I'm considering rotating it in for a bag when I'm thru my gazillion pounds of Canidae, or at least maybe getting some of the canned to mix in.  It is SOOO much cheaper, but yet still good.  I also have heard it is made by Diamond, and not sure how I feel about that, but it will be a few months before I need dog food so I will decide then.

Nicole - I live in Kansas, about 45min to an hour from Kansas City KS or MO.  I'm sure there is probably a Costco in KC but I don't know where.....the Diamond thing also is concern for me. It sure would save me some money though, and seems like a decent enough food.

Has anyone fed Kirklands with good results??

Purina Dog Chow/ Kibbles and Bits/ Ol' Roy - Kimo and Meeko were very smelly and had a greesy film on their coat that would stick to your hands. The coat itself was coarse and brittle. The stools were very, very stinky. They were overweight even though they got quite a bit of exercise and they layed around a lot more than two large, working breed dogs should.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nutro Large Breed Puppy- Maddi had large, soft, stinky stools. At 4-6.5 months, she'd only eat it if she was really, really hungry or if I added warm water to it. Her coat was okay.
 
Innova- At 6.5 months, I switched her to Innova and used the puppy feeding guidelines that Glenda sent me. For a while, she thought it was the greatest, but then didn't like it all that much. She would, however, only go one feeding without eating. I don't remember the exact date, but sometime last winter, I got a bad bag of Innova that led to Maddi throwing up every 2-4 hours. Her eyelids also got really droopy. I had to switch to something else. I am now feeding Innova again because it's the best food for the price. On it, she has a nice, shiney coat with good energy and Innova's famous small poops.
 
Eagle Pack Holistic Fish- I really, really loved this food but I could not longer afford it (after the fiasco with the inhaler). Maddi looked lovely on it (shiney coat, great consistancy) and she had good energy. Only problem was I had to feed her 6 cups compaired to Innova's 3.5-4 cups. When you have a picky eating, low appetite dog like me... getting her to eat the extra is a chore. Only other problem was she consistantly had softer, larger poo even if she hadn't eaten much.
 
Supplimental Raw Homecooked- Fabulous although sometimes I get runny poo. Her coat is amazing since I started doing this with the Innova. It has also kick-started her appetite. She'll eat her Innova with nothing on it or anything special which, before the raw, would never have happened. Poo is extremely tiny. However, raw takes up a lot of space in the freezer and is usually a bit more expensive (especially if you go organic). If I had a big freezer, she'd probably get it as often as I could afford to buy a bunch of meat and make up her meals.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to post your food experiences. This has been an absolutely wonderful thread and I hope that it has helped many people that have questions about certain foods. If there is anyone else that wants to add to this, please do!
 
This thread should be a sticky, so we can always have it for reference! []

Gee, I guess my three dogs must have something of cast iron stomachs.
 
Floyd was on IAMS Puppy when I got him. He was four years old but they were trying to put weight on him. Got the nickname Fa$ty Floyd.
 
I've always topped with home cooked or canned. The kibbles I've used that no one has had problems with are Chicken Soup, Innova, Natural Balance, California Natural, Merrick. Canned same companies. One doesn't like Innova.
 
All dogs had normal blood and urine work.
 
Enter Mast Cell Cancer. Floyd got three Grade II tumors in a period of two weeks. I don't think these were caused by his food, but I consulted with a holistic vet. We now feed a mix of 1/2 frozen Primal or Prarie with 1/2 home cooked. The goal is a lot of variety in protien sources and fruit/veggies as possible. They get one or two meals a week of Honest Kitchen or Innova kibble with Merrick canned. They also get a multi, glucoasmine/MSM/chondroitin, fish oil & yogurt. Floyd gets CAS Options & Transfer Factor.
 
Blood/urine work on all three was absolutely excellent, and no more Mast Cell tumors. I don't know how much diet and supplements have helped, but I won't go back.
 
Pricey but worth it to me. I just hope my car is exceptionally long lived.

Where to begin . I've gone through so many different brands and qualities of food I can't even remember them all.
 
I started my first puppy out on
 
Maxximum Nutrition - it was supposed to be like Purina One but actually had better ingredients and was more affordable. At the time I was unemployed and a single mom so this was the best I could do and I thought I was doing pretty darn good.  Half the time he'd eat it , half the time he wouldn't. I didn't know anything about pet nutrition other than you had a feed a dog food for it to live and it was better to feed a food that listed a meat as the first ingredient.. PERIOD ! Not even sure about coat, smell or anything else because I just thought everything was "normal".
 
BENEFUL - looked pretty good when it first came out. Pretty pictures on the package suckered me in just like it does anyone else. Believe it or not I DID study ingredient lists...but I tried to choose the best out of what was there. I didn't even know about holistic foods. I even thought I was doing so great by feeding the salmon formula. I had never heard of any of the brands we talk about here. I thought a Super Premium food was Science Diet or Royal Canin or Eukanuba ( which , by the way, I fed my cats for years ).
At that time the thought of spending $15-$20 for a bag of dogfood was OUTRAGEOUS !!! I thought the $12.95 I was paying for 35 lbs of Maxx Nutrition was hefty. OMG... I was SUCH an idiot.
 
OLD ROY - made the mistake of buying this once. He wouldn't touch it... now I know why. He was obviously smarter than me at the time.  I did however buy the small foil packets of food to mix in w/his kibble. He seemed to really love those.
 
PEDIGREE -  I actually thought I'd taken another step up in quality here.  I was feeding dry and canned mixed in. He liked it but his coat was nothing to brag about and for some reason... selective memory maybe.. I DO NOT remember anything about his stools at all except that they were PLENTIFUL.
 
MISC. GROCERY STORE FOODS:  I knew nothing about keeping a dog on one food and used to switch foods on him all the time. He used to throw up constantly and get diarreah. I was so naive then I thought it was because he just had a sensitive stomach. I had no idea that all this switching around was probably causing it.
 
Enter a new dog .....
 
Ok...I start this dog off on Pedigree, don't know what he was eating before. I only kept the dogs on this a week or two. By some miracle... having a new dog in the house made me go to PetsMart where I began going through the various petfoods looking for something that seemed better but that I could afford ( so I thought... I don't know why I didn't think I could afford a decent food. I was making more money then than I do now ).
I looked around for hours and hours and after reading bag after bag after bag , decided on a bag of
NUTRO something or other.  They ate it but didn't particularly care for it. At the time I still didn't know anything about coat condition or any of the topics we discuss here. 
 
Then I got ANOTHER dog that was a puppy so went on a search for puppy food. I tried the Nutro puppy and it smelled HORRIBLE and she wouldn't touch it. Smelled like codliver oil... ugh. I couldn't even stand to open the bag.  When I bought that... I decided to buy the big dogs a bag of ....
 
AUTHORITY HARVEST BAKED - they DEVOURED it like they'd never eaten before. I thought the ingredients were pretty good. I still didn't know that holistic super premium foods existed ...YET.  Unfortunately this gave the dogs explosive diarreah and I called their CS and they advised me to return the food for a refund which I did.
 
NATURAL BALANCE ( Duck & Potato ) - dogs were iffy about it... smelled weird and I didn't feel good about eating it. Called CS, found out it was rancid, returned it for a refund. In the meantime  I found
 
BLUE BUFFALO - I thought the ingredients were superior and felt really good about getting something really healthy for my dogs. They liked it and ate it.. they weren't particularly crazy over it. It didn't seem to have any kind of aroma and being as dogs eat by scent... it was probably much to 'blah' for them.  In the meantime CS at
 
NATURAL BALANCE sent me another bag of food. This one smelled awesome and the dogs woofed it down readily.  By this time I'm noticing that all of the dogs coats are getting nice and full , they're no longer smelly and are not having any digestive or bowel problems.   But... I get yet ANOTHER rancid bag of food from Petco and so I give up on the NB altogether and go back to  Blue Buffalo while I research some more.
 
This is where I hit the internet and start finding a plethora of information. I am so amazed at what I find I am surfing  this thing every spare minute I have.  I probably have investigated and learned more information in the last year than I did the entire 5 yrs I went to college.  All of a sudden Im just thirsty for knowledge and I take in everything I can about kibble and raw and homecooked in addition to info about vaccines and other health related issues.
 
The first food I come across online in my quest for knowledge about pet nutrition is
FLINT RIVER RANCH . Sounded really impressive and I was determined to buy their Trout and Sweet Potato formula until I noticed it was $50+ a bag.  WOW... I thought...$50 for DOGFOOD ??? But the more I read, the more I realized that you DO get what you pay for. You want quality ingredients and optimum health for your pet ? You have to pay for it because those cost money. It's a simple deduction.
 
So I keep searching and searching, in my online adventure into the world of pets somehow I end up on Dog.com and then into the forums. This is where the real education began when I started hearing about all the other foods. So... one by one I start looking up every single food and I copy and paste all of the ingredients so I can compare them.  Then I find sites about things like Ann Martin's " Food Pets Die For" and numerous other pet food industry horror stories.  At this point I can't believe how deceived the general public has been by the petfood industry Giants and how naive the majority of consumers.. myself  formerly included, are !!  OMG... how we swallow all that crap they feed us hook, line and sinker !!!  It almost made me throw up and actually it still does every time I see a bag of anything less than human quality petfood go into someone's shopping cart. All I can think of is POOR UNFORTUNATE DOG
 
So... more and more research and I come across the Timberwolf Organics website.  That was it. I found my food.  I carefully compared it to every other high quality kibble available.. ingredient by ingredient and hands down in my opinion there is NO food superior to it. Comparable, maybe.. superior  ? Definitely not.  So.. my dogs and cats have been on this since last year and the results I've seen are so amazing they astound me.
 
TIMBERWOLF ORGANICS ( all varieties ) - no doggy odor.. sweet, fresh smelling skin, coat and breath. Clear eyes.. no more crust and weeping.  Small, firm , odorless, infrequent stools... YAY !!!  Absolutely beautiful coats... softest I've ever felt, can't keep my hands off of them. My cats coats improved 100% and feel like silk. All are so shiny it's almost blinding.  They still shed but  I have breeds that are known for being heavy shedders and having double coats. Their teeth are pearly white, temperaments are good, energy is way up.  They all used to have chronic yeast infections , ear mites and problems with fleas. Those are now NON-EXISTANT and have been for almost a year now.  All of my neighbors comment on how beautiful the dogs coats are and cannot believe they don't smell and feel so soft and clean.  The ones with pets have switched over to TWO as well after I gave them some basic nutrition information. They also are amazed at the results they're getting.
 
As for other foods :
 
Dog Food Rolls :   PET BOTANICS... aka PUPPY CRACK.  They go beserk over this and the ingredients are better than Red Barn and Natural Balance. I have a 5lb roll of this onhand at ALL times.  They LOVE it shredded in scrambled eggs. Find it at PetsMart.
 
Canned :
 
Solid Gold - all formulas including Green Cow ( makes them fart)
Merrick - all formulas
Eagle Pack - all formulas
Canidae Platinum - All formulas
Natural Life - Chicken and Lamb
Artemis - Beef, Lamb, Chicken
( my cats get California Natural and Innova as well )
 
Homecooked :
  Lots of fish... salmon, trout, mackeral, whiting, mahi
  Liver, gizzards, chicken , turkey , beef, buffalo , lots of fresh fruits and veggies.... whatever is on sale or in season and sometimes canned.
  Dairy... yogurt, cottage cheese, cheese, eggs
  Misc:  peanutbutter, olives
 
RAW :  chicken wings, turkey necks, lamb ribs, pig ears,  green tripe,  beef shortribs, oxtails and the occasional  marrow bone. They get RMBs every other day and rec bones 1x /wk
 
TREATS:
 
Old Mother Hubbards : Bits and all flavor biscuits
Cloud Star : Buddy Biscuits ( all flavors )
Blue Dog Bakery: Pnutbutter & Molasses cookies
Health Pro:  Apple & Oatmeal biscuits
VitaLife : all flavor biscuits
California Natural : biscuits
Wagon Train Chicken Jerky Tenders ( they LOVE these... find  them at Sam's Club....2.5 lb bag for $11+ )
Ginger Ridge spice cakes
Anything else that's holistic, organic and has yummy sounding ingredients. I also bake my own  treats from organic grains and seeds , dairy , fruits, veggies, meats and cheeses.
 
WHEW... am I done ?? I sure hope so !!!  I am totally satisfied with my dog's diets at this point I don't think they could do any better unless they went totally raw/homecooked which will probably happen somewhere down the line when I can really afford to take the time to get it together.
 
I have to get up for work in 5 hours !! [&o]
 
 

Thank you all so much for taking the time to post your food experiences. This has been an absolutely wonderful thread and I hope that it has helped many people that have questions about certain foods. If there is anyone else that wants to add to this, please do!

This thread should be a sticky, so we can always have it for reference!

Twin- this has been a wonderful idea. I love this thread and check back often to see what others have said! []   Fantastic resource for all of us!!  Thank you for starting it!

Rose has tried quite a few different foods, but I'll list the few main ones she was on the longest.
Diamond Professional-I still recommend this to people who want Ol Roy price with better quality.  Rose didn't do too bad.  She had coat problems, but she has a poor coat in general.  Poop wansn't too bad and she didn't really smell.
Eukanuba Lamb and Rice-She did well on this food, still not too much of an improvement in coat.
Bil-Jac Select-My favorite so far!  Small, firm poop that has no smell at all.  Her coat is much better(but still poor quality for a Parson).  She never has a problem eating it. 
I would like to try some others so that I have a back up or I can rotate.  But, I have no intentions of fully changing from Bil-Jac.

started out with innova puppy in 2000.  Never had firm stools but my two loved it (some scratching)
went over to hund n flocken. they ate it but lost interest on and off and i was throwing out a lot
of uneaten kibble plus my one developed anal gland problems from soft poop
m/millenia was after that and the kibble was so small Lucy would gag on it--it also made them gain a lot of weight.
The poop on m/millenia was erratic (one good, the next bad)
Then I thought I would try a more basic food: Nutro Nat choice chicken/oatmeal.  They loved the tase and got mad at me after I switched again but the itching and diahrea went on and on.(Sunflower oil allergy in one)
Then went to dick van patten: one liked/one hated.
Chicken soup:  much better but poop a little soft
diamond naturals is the best so far.  It doesn't have the fruit or vegetables but the itching/soft poop gone.
on a little kibble, I add cooked ground meat or finely minced meat from our dinner or cottage cheese and some steamed vegetables, but this is our base or if I feel motivated, I will cook up some rice and meat with olive oil and add some veggies for the week and voila, they think this is the best.

What a fascinating thread!

I have a gang of rescue Pugs, who will happily eat anything I give them.  I joke that their motto is "eat first, think later".  So, palatability isn't a factor here.  My Skye Terrier is slightly more finicky, but not too bad.  He prefers the tried and true - no changes.  Here is our kibble history:

I had fed Pro Plan (the Turkey & Barley formula, which I don't think it made any longer) for about 12 years.  My dogs did fine on it, and I recommended it to anyone who would listen.  This was really before any super premium brands became available.   About 3 years ago when I began learning about SP brands, I was resistant - kind of the "aint broke/don't fix it" mindset.  However, two years ago (thanks to this board!) I finally gave in.  The selection in this area was very limited (still is, although getting better) and I tried Chicken Soup.  My gang loved it, and they had nice coats, but I had an unusual amount of illness happen while on that food - UTI's, URI's, ear infections.  Plus funky poops.

-California Natural was next, I had to drive an hour to get it.  They did "fine" on it - nothing amazing, nothing bad. 
-Then Eagle Pack became available in our area, so I decided to save on gas and time by switching.  I tried the chicken, and unfortuantely it didn't go over well.  Weird, mucousy poops, itching, dirty ears and face folds. 
-Next, Natural Balance Duck & Potato.  They all did wonderfully on this food, the best of any I have tried.
-Decided to try Canidae this past spring, for variety.  Itching resulted!  I tried to order the Chicken/Rice variety from our local feed store, but they ended up ordering the wrong thing and I got tired of dealing with them.
-Switched the Wellness Fish & Sweet Potato over the summer.  They seem to do better on 1 protein/1 carb foods.  They really did fine on this food, though I wasn't loving the ingredient list and the low meat content, plus it was constantly out of stock at the feed store.
--Now, back to NB Duck - it's nearby, always in stock, they do fabulous on it. [sm=wink3.gif]
Other 'stuff' they get includes yogurt, cottage cheese, canned food, canned fish, eggs, beef or chicken, pumpkin, homecooked stews.... (not all at once, of course).  Commercial treats I use are mainly the Innova Eva treats  (my dogs go NUTS for them) and Cloud Star Buddy Biscuits.  They get raw marrow bones to chew as well.

Ah well, it seems that this IS a safe nutrition thread to post on.....
 
Thor and Sheba started on Purina Large Breed Puppy (the breeder fed P[:'(]digr[:'(][:'(]) per the vet. My yard looked like I was running horses in it the poops were sooooo big.  Then came idog and I finally found something decent in Royal Canin....and I sooooo wanted Innova.  About the time I started the RC I also started homecooking.  Petco in my area finally started carrying Innova and they've been on that for 2+ years.  I did try TWO...think it was the venison or bison.....horrible poops....big, dark and soft.  This is a big deal when one has to clean up after SIX german shepherds....our Innova delivery got screwed up so I picked up a bag of Canidae, all life stages and they LOVE it...great poops, eat with gusto, coats are good, skin is good, etc.  So, I actually pushed back my delivery date to give Canidae a good trial....we MIGHT stay with it for awhile.  They certainly do well on it so far.

For the Siberian puppies we started with Science Diet- diarrhea, then  Wellness -Diarrhea (very bad).  Solid Gold was very good. Canidae was the cure.  But now, 8 mos later the female won't eat it.  But she will eat things like roast beef, chicken etc.  So, I had some Science Diet and she ate it as well as the male,( he will eat anything though, so..)
 
Pretty sure, as someone said way earlier in this thread, that they need variety.  Also,  I am pretty sure that growth spurts will make an animal seek out other sources of nutrition to fulfill their growth needs.
 
It sounds like , on this thread that there are a great deal of dogs with allergies to grains of different kinds/ and perhaps other things.  Great to share this info.
 
I am not staying with Science Diet, but had a sealed small bag of it and thought I
would give it a try.  Once the SD is gone we will go back to Solid Gold.

ORIGINAL: cyclefiend2000

amelia:

when we got her we werent sure what she was being fed, so we made a cold turkey switch to...

blackwood 2000. she did well on it, but after a few months started having diarhea. we switched her cold turkey again to...

nutro natural choice chicken meal, rice, and oatmeal (for sensitive stomach dogs). she did ok on it. fur was a little dull and dry. when we adopted sydney, we decided to try her on blackwood again. this time...

blackwood 3000. she has done very well on it. her fur is soft, poops are acceptable (no runnyness, and fairly small).

sydney:

again we werent sure what he was getting from the shelter so he went cold turkey on....

nutro natural choice large breed puppy. he wasnt on it long enough to really tell how he would do. we just got a small bag, and when it was gone switched him to....

blackwood 2000. he has done well on it. his fur is soft and his poops are fairly small and firm. he has been on this since february.

both dogs seem to be getting tired of the blackwood though. i think we are going to switch them pretty soon, but not exactly sure what we are going to try.

we now have both dogs on blackwood 3000. plus we have been giving them some canned food in the evenings. not much though. i bought a few cans of blue canned food. they liked it and it didnt seem to change they amount or consistency of their poops. when it ran out, i bought a case of innova (in the green can). they like it even better than the blue, and poops are still about what they used to be.

we are still considering switching the dogs to a different kibble, but we have a free bag coming up if we stay with the blackwood so we are for a little while longer. as for the canned food, i think we are going to be consistently trying different brands for a while just to add some variety to their meals.

ORIGINAL: dogslife

Once the SD is gone we will go back to Solid Gold.

which variety of solid gold have you tried? i would like to try our dogs on either the wolfking or barking at the moon, but it is hard to find around here.