# Whats your dog food of choice



## ben peron (Aug 19, 2008)

there are alot of different ideas on what is the best food . i am searching for that food that works for me , currently i am feeding a mix of either proplan , barking at the moon , or evo. what do you reccomend and why ?:-s :???:


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## Gillian Schuler (Apr 12, 2008)

I honestly don't think you can recommend a dry food for a dog that's not yours. 

I fed Proplan but my elder GSD had skin trouble with it - changed to Royal Canine GSD 24 and both do well on it. Maybe a cheaper one would do, but haven't bothered to look. Tend to find the premium quality food doesn't work out so expensive because I need less. Also, I regulate daily - less exercise, less food. There are days when they don't get anything:---) 

For between and rewards I give a cheaper dry food "Biomill" probably not supplied in the US. If the younger one gets too much of it, he gets loose stools.

If your dogs are "bright eyed and bushy tailed", keep to what you've got.


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## Chase Mika (May 2, 2008)

I feed both my dogs Orijen and they're doing great on it. I fed my younger GSD Barking at the Moon for about six months and he did great....but he's just done slightly better on Orijen and availability is easier for me.

Personally, I look for a food that has healthy ingredients first. I try to avoid by-products, un-named meats, and filler ingredients. It's been a recent change for me...and mostly due to my younger dog. I've had trouble finding a food that worked for him, and in the process began researching ingredients and different food issues. My other GSD was on Science Diet for a number of years (including the senior formula). I thought she was doing great until I put her on Orijen. She's acting younger now than I've ever seen her act and is extremely healthy. I think the SD senior just had such low protein that it didn't work out for her. I'd never put a senior on one of those low-protein formulas again....wish I could take back some of those years.

Other than ingredients, I look for reputable companies...ideally ones that manufacture their own food and have control over their ingredients and processing.


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## ben peron (Aug 19, 2008)

Orijen what is the protein.carbs. ect...in it where did you hear about it from ?


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## ben peron (Aug 19, 2008)

is that a canadian only product ?


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## Mo Earle (Mar 1, 2008)

We use Proplan also-dogs do real well on it- and can get it locally at the feed store, and at the local petsmart.


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## Gerry Grimwood (Apr 2, 2007)

ben peron said:


> is that a canadian only product ?


I think it is made here in Alberta, but it's about $4 a pound, you can feed raw for less than that.

From their site: "Different from the typical "meal and grain" diets, ORIJEN formulas start from fresh regional ingredients like grain-fed chicken and fresh whole eggs produced on local prairie farms, lake whitefish - freshly caught from the icy depths of northern Canadian lakes, and salmon, cranberries and apples from Pacific coast oceans and orchards."

Almost makes me tear up it sounds so good :razz:


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## Michelle Reusser (Mar 29, 2008)

I also swear by Orijen. Protein 42.0% min Carbs 18% max. Made in Canada but sold all over the world. My dogs didn't get upset when I switched them and their stools are perfect. I give my dogs 2 cups a day with a raw egg on top and maybe some Salmon oil.


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## Gerry Grimwood (Apr 2, 2007)

I was wrong about the price per pound, it's $61.99 cdn for a 13.5 kg bag, so about $2 a lb.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Should this topic be moved to Diet and Health? Anyways...



Chase Mika said:


> Other than ingredients, I look for reputable companies...ideally ones that manufacture their own food and have control over their ingredients and processing.


Natura is one of the very very few "natural" or holistic companies that has their own manufacturing plant (I've visited it up in Fremont, Nebraska in July). I think just about all the others use co-packers as they are tremendously expensive to build and operate. Even Natura has to use a co-packer for their canned food as they are still looking to buy their own cannery.


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## kim guidry (Jan 11, 2008)

I feed orijen to my GSD and I use the senior formula for my yorkie and shitzu. All of them are doing great. It is shipped to my home on a monthly basis, you should have seen the look on the UPS guy when he found out it was dog food.:-o


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## Jeannie Helton (Aug 10, 2008)

I was feeding Wellness and Innova, but was still having loose stool problems with my 1 year old male. I recently did a flat out switch to Evo red-meat about 2 weeks ago, and he is doing fabulous! No more loose stools, his coat has gotten even shinier, eye boogers are starting to disappear, his energy level has increased. I am VERY happy with the results. I've heard a lot of good results with Orijen as well, but I had a fear that fish might have been his issue so I went the red-meat route. Now I am now thinking that he just couldn't handle all the extra fillers in the previous kibbles, even though they were higher quality.

Maybe I missed it, but how old is your dog? Adult or puppy? If still a puppy, Orijen has a large-breed puppy formula, too.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

I feed raw diet here, and if kibble is fed it is Chicken Soup or Innova


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## Jennifer Marshall (Dec 13, 2007)

Raw here as well but if I have to feed anything other than raw it's Honest Kitchen and if I can't feed that even it's EVO or CORE.


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## Ron Swart (Jun 7, 2007)

I switched to Orijen from Solid Gold Barking at the Moon about two months ago after hearing about Orijen. Both of my dogs have no problems with it. I'm feeding them less then I did before. That being said I wouldn't hesitate to go back to Barking at the Moon.

Orijen


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## ben peron (Aug 19, 2008)

ok my dog is about 8.5 months old, and first i want to tell eveyone it is so great to hear everyone's opinion . i really appreciate, it ,. i just wonder if (grain free), or evo or what ever it is , is all that good for them yes they are animals but they have been Domesticated so much is there system correct to handle such high protein. please let me know your opinion about this ?


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## Jamielee Nelson (Apr 24, 2008)

I tend to switch my dry foods every few months between: Orijen, Barking at the Moon and Evo.

They get only about 1-2 cups of dry a day the rest is a raw mix of either: buffalo, chicken, turkey, llama, rabbit or some other game animal and of course the crowd pleaser the chicken necks.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I made the swtich to EVO from Purina Pro Plan and believe it or not, it is costing me less to feed the EVO. The dogs are eatlng a lot less food even thought the food they are eating is more expensive. Of course they are ravenous at dinner time but I had to cut them back because they were gaining weight.


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Nutro Lamb and Rice. I've been feeding 45 working dogs the same product for many years. I don't have problems with allergies, dry skin, or anything like that. The dogs have plenty of energy, it seems palatable, stools are generally small and firm. I just have no complaints. A couple of my geriatric dogs have been switched to a lower protein, but other than that, I just don't have a problem with dog foods.

DFrost


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## ben peron (Aug 19, 2008)

i have been feeding barking at the moon and for some reason my dogs hate it, they dont eat that much of it, so when i go back to my old fav pro plan , or royal canin and whola they love it, any thoughts. or experiances with barking at the moon ?


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Jennifer Marshall said:


> Raw here as well but if I have to feed anything other than raw it's Honest Kitchen and if I can't feed that even it's EVO or CORE.


I do use Honest Kitchen too, especially with the pups since I am still a little wary of all raw for a pup.  

Hey David, I had good results with the Nutro Lamb and Rice too, the place I get it stopped selling it and the next nearest place is 4 hours from me as opposed to the usual 2 hours....ugh. 
I fed that for a LONG time before going to raw.


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## Kevin James (Aug 25, 2008)

raw all the way,...i never have or will feed my dogs dry or tinned dog food,...


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## Michelle Reusser (Mar 29, 2008)

ben peron said:


> i have been feeding barking at the moon and for some reason my dogs hate it, they dont eat that much of it, so when i go back to my old fav pro plan , or royal canin and whola they love it, any thoughts. or experiances with barking at the moon ?


My dog doesn't like Solid Gold Products either. He ate Wolf Cub for about 3 days then wouldn't touch it, by the runs it gave him, I couldn't blame him for not eating it up. My garbage disposal dog got the rest of that bag. I also have the Solid Gold Seameal ( I used to add it to RAW feedings) and my dog developed an allergy to flax.


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## Rachel R Phelan (May 26, 2008)

We feed raw chicken with Innova Large Puppy Breed and plain yogurt, with some veggies. Gotta eat your veggies!!:smile:


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## marta wade (Apr 17, 2008)

I too have a Dantero Mal now over a year old. She loved Barking at the Moon but I found inconsitency with the results from one bag to the next. Usually stool was great, skin and coat fine,energy level too much\\/ However another bag and stool would be loose I would exchange it and stool back to good. After doing that more than two times I decided with the reputation Solid Gold has for not following the laws in CA maybe the food was not as good as the claims. 

I too am looking for a new food. Have her on Wellness Core and not happy with the results. Have done Canidae when she was young did not work for her but know it has been good for others. May have to try Royal Canin again. I had other dogs that did well on it .I know I should do RAW but I barely shop for real food for myself I know I will not give her a good balance if it is not bagged for me.

Good luck in your search.
Marta


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## ben peron (Aug 19, 2008)

congrads marta on your dantero mal , they are awesome very strong working dogs with tons of drive and a very high *intelligence *level, i truly think that the breeder is very correct on breeding quality not producing a mass amount of dogs. i have too had issues with the barking at the moon food and will probably never use it again, it seems that so far the raw and proplan is what i am doing , although royal canine is too a big concideration , and evo too..


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## Jamielee Nelson (Apr 24, 2008)

ben peron said:


> i have been feeding barking at the moon and for some reason my dogs hate it, they dont eat that much of it, so when i go back to my old fav pro plan , or royal canin and whola they love it, any thoughts. or experiances with barking at the moon ?


I said above that I use [email protected] and I like it. My dogs eat it with no problem. But then again they dont get much.... maybe a cup or two at the most a day and the rest is the raw diet.


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## ben peron (Aug 19, 2008)

Jamielee Nelson said:


> I said above that I use [email protected] and I like it. My dogs eat it with no problem. But then again they dont get much.... maybe a cup or two at the most a day and the rest is the raw diet.


i think that is great that your dogs use it and do well on it , but i have heard from alot of others that they vary their formula alot so it is not very consistent......
I think it is very important to give your working dog what their body needs, and from that it is also important that it is a consistant diet....i bought a bag of the [email protected] and it was moldy and the date code said 2009 on the shelf life, kinda scared me to be putting moldy food into my dog, when i contacted the company they dident really care to help.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Okay, a couple things...

Carol, make sure that if you're feeding The Honest Kitchen to your puppies that it is the kind that's formulated for puppies (Embark, I think), because most of their blends are too low in protein for puppies (which is why they are labeled for adult maintenance). 

David, now the current school of thought on senior dogs and high protein is that senior dogs actually may need MORE high quality bioavailable protein because they don't process the proteins as efficiently into amino acids for body functions as they did when they were younger. This can be a problem because they might start to lose muscle mass. This isn't to say they need to be put on EVO or another of the high protein grainless, but a moderate protein level is fine. Dogs (or cats) with renal failure are another story and do benefit from low to moderately low protein levels, especially with low phosphorous. Unfortunately, there aren't any over the counter diets out there that can help with renal disease, so dogs that need kidney diets would be best served with a home cooked diet specially formulated for this condition if you dislike the Hill's or Purina renal diets. 

This is just a heads up for everyone on raw, but I had both Zoso and Fawkes on antibiotics for various reasons recently, so it would probably be wise to make sure you have some kind of agreeable cooked diet (home prepared, canned, or kibble) in case they need to be placed on broad spectrum antibiotics which kill the beneficial flora along with the culprits. This is especially important in dogs that eat meat with salmonella, camphylobacter, E. coli, etc that may not be able to cope with eating raw chicken and whatnot from the raw because the beneficial flora are temporarily gone. I don't this has been documented in raw fed dogs, but this can happen in horses with certain antibiotics because the salmonella can move on in because of lack of competitive inhibition and get salmonellosis, which can be deadly in that species. Plus don't forget your probiotics!


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## Alegria Cebreco (Jul 25, 2007)

I like Solid Gold Barking at the Moon!!! All my dogs have done well on it. Gave them a shiny coat, and kept a decent amount of weight on them (man if I only had that metabolism :roll: ), and I had to feed a lot less than I did on ProPlan.


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