Dog Food

[Lucille]

I have been feeding 'Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul' by Diamond.
I wend to one of those sites that rate foods and it is rated in the upper middle, with grocery stores foods on the bottoms and super premium foods at the top. I also give the dogs raw items a couple times a week.

For those of y'all who have some familiarity with dog nutrition, are grains merely fillers are does the dog derive any use from them at all? The rating sites were saying that grains like rice and barley rate above corn, but that foods that were grain free rated more highly.

[John_E_Dove]

That is what I learned. Grain products are used to fill the dog up and come out in the end slightly digested at best.
Flint River, California Natural, Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold and Wysong are your top choices if you want to feed quality dog food. Mostly meat and veggies

[spike06]

i talked with Stalk about this a few months ago..he said anything with corn is bad..ur best bet would to just feed raw..which is what he does with ollie, and i think he said every now and again he gives him some Solid Gold.

[Lucille]

Thanks Spike. I had heard that about corn, something about allergies. I'm curious though as to why some of the other grains are rated good or bad if they are filler only?

[zsanorah]

The issue with feeding raw is its not necessarily a balanced diet (sounds strange i know) Nutro Natural and actually petsmarts store brand are both great foods. Be very careful about the dog food labels, companies are required to list items according to volume, so what they can do to cut down on how much corn "Appears" to be in their food is do something like "Beef, corn, chicken byproduct meal, corn grits, beef byproduct meal, ground corn, lamb, carrots, whole corn kernels...." ect and you just have LOTS of corn..by different names. beware.

[LukaTisus]

Canines need a certain amount of plant protiens and whatnot in their meals too. Most predators do, considering they would usually get it from the prey's gut content, were they wild and taking down their own food. There's a food they sell up here, called 'Go! Natural', best dog-food on the market up here, currently. There's another called EaglePack or something, the ingredients are mostly meat, vegetables and a small amount of fruit, with very little, if any, fillers.. dunno if they have a website, but the dogs around here that're eating it have super-healthy coats in comparison to dogs that're fed the Pedigree, or Iams diets..

[jbt123]

Corn is bad. I used to work at PetSmart a few years back when the corn filler scare came about. Apparently corn used for filler in dog food got some type of black mold growth and they used it for filler in wet dog food, and it killed hundreds of animals.

Grains are good for aid in digestion. They're "roughage" for the intestines to help keep them regular, just like people. They don't really gain much nutritionally but it helps in other areas.

Just a tip: if your dog is sick and throwing up (such as if it's nervous on road trips) feed it steamed white rice and it will calm their stomach.

There is a frozen dog food sold at most PetSmarts...I forgot what it was called but it's mostly meat as well, and supposed to be very good for your dogs. However, it's very expensive stuff! Plus, it's good to give your dogs a vegetable diet. My grandparents dogs will eat raw carrots, apples and bananas for treats.

[spix14]

In my experience Solid Gold is a very good food. It's a bit expensive but it is a good alternative if you don't want to go the raw food route.

[Lucille]

You are here in Houston, where do you get your Solid Gold?