Dog Food Alert

you know it's pretty tough on a dog to change food all the time, I'm guessing you deal with soft poop and puke more often than you should have to.

you should find a good food that isn't made with all fillers, and stick to it, even when you do change food it's supposed to be a gradual change.

 

x2...Blue Buffalo gave my lab teh shits so bad. Like I said before, if you have a boutique pet store near you, they usually have tons of brands that are all natural hippie food for your dogs. Tractor Supply also carries Taste of teh Wild and 4 Health. Both are suppose to be pretty good food.

Back to China though. Its not just Dog Food, we imported drywall that had asbestos in it, killed some people, some toys had lead paint and other shit killed some kids. They have 0 standards on their products.

 

I had to ease my lab into the blue. 1/4 mixed in with the food she was getting ,then slowly increasing it by the week. Now she shits nice cigars all the time
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The stuff is definetly pricey.

 

As some others have already said, consider making your own dog food/treats. All of my friends who have dogs do this, and they have some of the happiest and healthiest pups I’ve ever met. Plus, you know exactly what’s in it.

I would also urge you to stop buying dog food, and for that matter ANYTHING else at places like Walmart and Costco. I deal with these and other mass retailers everyday at my job – it shouldn’t be any surprise that they’re all about cheap, cheap, cheap. They lowball all their vendors, which it turn forces the vendors to turn to China (and now Bangladesh/Vietnam; apparently China’s cost went up a few pennies – oh noes!) for cheap materials/labor.

Buy only what you really need, and buy it from local stores (preferably USA made... If you can even find it anymore) for a few cents more so manufacturers don’t have to do this as much. Remember, we survived before these mass retailers came along just fine. Maybe with less cheap plastic shit in our homes, and without an entire closet devoted to a bulk toilet paper reserve, but we did it.

 

I feed my greyhound natural balance vinicen and sweet potato. And wet noses dog treats. Been buying the wet noses in bulk on Amazon. She loves them. They are organic and made in the US. http://wet-noses.com/

 

I used to work for a vet who made me so mad because she would tell the staff Science Diet is basically Pedigree in fancy wrapping, but sell it to customers like it was manna sent by God. Of course there were lots of dishonest things and poor medical practices that happened at that place, which is why I didn't work there for long, and why my dog has a new vet.

Anyway, I honestly can't remember the brand my dog is on, she's still living with my parents (she might end up being their dog, she's happy there). But it's fairly pricey and at times hard to find food because puppeh is allergic to corn. And corn is in $&@*^% every dog food.

When I finally figured it out and started slowly switching her to the new food, first night I diligently mixed in 1/4 new food and 3/4 old food, only to find she did not eat a single piece of the old food, she picked out the new kibble and only ate that. After she did the same thing on the second night I just threw the rest away and put another 3/4 scoop of the new food in her bowl. She wasn't phasing in her diet, so why bother? Pretty sure she understood her old food was making her feel bad.

And her treats are homemade. After the melamine dog treat recalls several years ago where this plastic product was contaminating Chinese-made dog treats and killing dogs, my mom started baking dog treats for our dogs.There are some great natural/organic recipes out there for treats to help with digestion and bad breath, etc.

 

We were feeding my hound mix Iams - large breed because we didnt know any better. We thought Iams was a premium food. After reading a bunch of threads on TW we decided to switch him over to the Kirkland brand which is rated the same as blue and is 1/3 the price.

 

never buy anything you put in your mouth if its from China

 

my dogs only get blue buffalo. i get the lamb formula. all of these. they are probably not perfect, but its made in the US and they dont use grain in their foods. great danes dont have the longest life span and im not going to make it shorter just so i can save a few bucks at walmart. i never give them any bones that dont say MADE IN THE UNITED STATES... never.

 

We buy Taste of the Wild. Top rated food and less expensive than many others.

 

anyone that doesn't feed their pets dog food ? I mean I know some people probably think "oh its just a dog" but I think the poor animal probably gets sick and tired of eating the same nasty dried kibble, and can food ?

I know they cant eat everything humans eat but cant you like spice up their diet with an occasional steak or some kind of treat ?

 

x2
My pup was sick with Kennel cough when I first adopted her. Wouldn't really eat. Was on a canned food diet for about 4 months.
switched her to Nutromax dry...she was "meh" about it and took a very long time for her to adapt to dry food.
Tried Eukonuba (sp?) to try to get some weight on her. She didn't really like that either.
Tried some Healthy science or what not and she also didn't like that too.
One day I grabbed some Pedigree small breed while walkign through staters and she eats that stuff no problem.
Def going to read through Chris' link he posted for a healthier dog food. 1 star for little Mayday doesn't make me feel too good.
She is a Mutt...but damnit do I love her and want her to live a long healthy life

 

When we got our Lab we took her to petsmart. Their puppy plan is pretty decent. But some of the vets on staff were fucking terrible. Id ask about dog food and "oh yeah theyre all the same" "oh your dog is sick let me run this test thats not on your plan that cost $150 and you need this medicine bla bla bla" They did have 1 vet I really liked, but it was a lotto pick to see who they would stick you with.

I was in Northern Michigan for a while this summer and the small local vet was kind of a hippie, but she was the most knowledgable and willing to spend a ton of time with us. Banfield, its hi, bye.

 

YUPP!
Same thing around here. The small "mom/pop" style vets are more than willing to spend hours with your dog...

Def been to the -give me your money$$ and shove this pill down your dogs throat vets before...

 

I have owned and competed German Shepard's for years, and I have never prepared any food other then whole/raw food, commercial pet food is not regulated and all of my dogs have been extremely healthy.

 

My monsters get Merrick Before Grain buffalo. Its a 4 star I think if I can remember correctly. We tried alot of the 4 and 5 star foods until we were able to get both dogs on the same food. They love the stuff and it isnt too expensive and a big bag lasts them along time since they dont have to eat as much.

 

^^^^^THIS!!!!..........but good luck finding products that aren't. even old U.S. companies have shifted, out of sheer profit potential. bought some organic broccoli from costco recently, thinking organic was good, then read it was from china......wtf? now buy locally, though more expensive............

 

I feed my dog Taste of the Wild, its good stuff

 

It's a crapshoot. My brother had a GS mix, that dog once ate 3lbs of fertilizer and was fine. My lab shits her brains out if she has a milkbone. Our Chihuhua could probaly live off styrofoam. That lil guy is a cockroach. I had a catahoula leopard that got sick off everything as well. The Lab was from a breeder, my brothers dog was from the pound, the catahoula was from a guy who bread his dog once, and teh chihuhua the mall! (inlaws bought him!) So I dont know why some dogs have such bad allergies.

 

any websites with suggestions or info on that? Ive heard of people doing this