Dog Community

Does your dog love it?

Posted : 6/9/2006 9:34:04 AM

OK. Here's my first question post for y'all!

I've had my GSD/Husky mix for almost 7 years now. We rescued him from the shelter at 6 weeks old, and he was my first "child". He's well trained, well mannered, and SO tolerant. Anyway, I've always tried to feed him well, but apparently I wasn't doing that great of a job.

He's always eaten regular "premium" foods (Iams, SD, ProPlan, Authority, Diamond, Nutro, and most recently Bil-Jac), and has always been a picky eater. I feed him 2 cups of food a day, and often he doesn't even finish it in a day. He's always been a perfect weight, 50lbs on the dot every vet visit. You can see his ribs when he runs full out, but not when he's being his usual lazy self! I do worry about him being too thin, but vet says he's perfect.

Anyway, he's loving Bil-Jac food. The site promised all this fresh meat products, and no added fat, etc. Timbre licks his bowl CLEAN twice a day. Now I see the ingredient problem with the food, and realize he can be eating better food for the same high price. For those that feed Holistic natural food like what y'all recommend, how do the dogs take to it? I mean really, fish and oatmeal formulas? Crying

Timbre's also always been sensitive, and I just worry about upsetting his almost 7 year old system. Would it be a shock to switch him over? So, I guess the question is, do any of you have picky eaters that totally dig into any of these holistic foods? The puppy I'm not worried about, he's a little hoover. Besides, I think he was on a food like that when I got him. It was small little round kibbles that looked very grainy. Hubby said the bag was orange striped, but didn't get the name of the food[8|]. Thanks in advance!!!

cyclefiend2000

Posted : 6/9/2006 9:45:14 AM

we tried amelia on a catfish and potato formula and she would eat it, but she didnt love it. most of the holistic dog foods though have the same protein sources as other dog foods (ie, lamb, chicken, duck, etc.). they are just made from better quality ingredients and without so many fillers.

most of the fish based foods i have looked at for amelia is because she has a sensitive stomach and fish doesnt seem to upset it as much as other protein sources. right now she is on a lamb & rice formula and has done well with it. before she was on a chicken and oatmeal food and it worked ok too.

jeano

Posted : 6/9/2006 11:12:31 AM

Every dog is different. I feed Sofia a very high quality food with human-grade ingredients: Fromm Salmon a la veg. Silly name but very good food if you have a very active dog. Your dog sounds like he is inclined to be a free-feeder (Sofia is) if he could be. He probably can't with the hooverpup around, but Sofia is half husky too, and maintains her weight beautifully. Your dog sounds like his weight is just right, too, by the way.

My landlord's dog passed away and left some Solid Gold food that he said his dog really didn't like, despite it being a very high quality food as well. I find it very grainy. Well, after six months went by suddenly Sofia thinks Solid Gold is GREAT! (I'd used it in her kong just for a change.) The down side? HORRIBLE stinky gas! Which is also very common when you switch foods.

Sofia got diarrhea on Nutro Lamb & Rice. She did excellent on the chicken version of Eagle Pack. But all dogs are different. I think Eagle Pack is a great choice. If your dog sheds and gets irritated skin this time of year (husky thing) I really like the salmon Fromm. It's alleviated a lot of the skin itchiness for Sofia.

jensw

Posted : 6/9/2006 12:25:12 PM

Anyway, he's loving Bil-Jac food. The site promised all this fresh meat products, and no added fat, etc. Timbre licks his bowl CLEAN twice a day. Now I see the ingredient problem with the food, and realize he can be eating better food for the same high price. For those that feed Holistic natural food like what y'all recommend, how do the dogs take to it? I mean really, fish and oatmeal formulas?[:'(]

I have a chow hound, so I don't really have issues with Roscoe loving or not loving a particular food. But, fwiw, here are my thoughts.

1) Even if he doesn't like Innova, for example, as much as Bil-Jac, so what? If you had a child, would you allow her to eat chicken mcnuggets and soda pop every day because she loved it so much? No, you'd make her eat healthier food, right? And she'd learn to eat it just fine, even if she put up a fuss about having to eat veggies and milk initially.

2) Roscoe ate Science Death and Iams when we adopted him. He ate it just fine - devoured the kibble, in fact. I'd have said he loved it. He was upgraded to a truly good kibble and, now, a raw diet. He won't touch the SD and Iams when it's offered (as a sample at a pet fair, for exaple). He won't take "bad" treats, either (milk bones, dollar tree snacks, etc). It's almost like now he knows how much better the good stuff is, whereas he didn't before. It's kind of like when you get used to eating truly healthy foods and then go back to McD's, it's sorta gross. You recognize the grease, salt, fat and unconsciously reject it.

Just my [sm=2cents.gif]

jeano

Posted : 6/9/2006 1:38:05 PM

Thanks Jen, I wanted to express that but couldn't find a tactful way of doing that. [

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A dog will snarf up as much beef fat as you want to offer.....and then have an attack of pancreatitis and die. [:@] So yeah, you can't really go on how fast the dog eats!

Mary Thomas

Posted : 6/12/2006 4:28:41 PM

I had really bad skin problems last summer with my lab/husky mix, not helped by living in FL. Like some of you, I thought I was feeding good food (Nutro) but switched to Eagle Pack Fish & Oatmeal and I noticed a huge difference in her skin. She has never been a big chow hound, but she seems to like the EP just as well as the Nutro lamb and rice. Put it this way--she didn't eat it all the first day, but by the second day she was hungry and ate the whole bowl. I add a little canned EP too--sort of smells like sardines. She really loves that...