Can any vets or animal techs give me advice as to what the best and worst dog foods are?

Question

I've seen literature stating that some of the top brands aren't what they seem and want to know if anyone knows the real deal...

Okay, okay, anyone who knows dogs not just vets! Also, what I read says that some of the ingrediant lists are amiss so anyone else readind the same please answer also...

Oh sh*t, you know I meant reading...

Also, I've done the reading on "bad" and "good" ingred. and know what to look for; just need to know who to trust...

Answer 1

You should not be asking VETS for nutritional information. Vets sell one of six brands of food: Science Diet, Royal Canin, Walthams, Eukanuba, Medi-cal or Purina. NOT ONE of these brands of food is actually good for your dog. Vets receive little to no training in pet nutrition but are paid a lot of money to endorse a companies food.

Mass market foods and vet foods are all basically the same low grade foods. Companies like Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Purina, Pedigree, Royal Canin, etc ALL use fillers and by-products and chemical preservatives. Take a look at a couple of the following foods and then look at Innova which is by far the healthiest pet food in the world.

Here are the ingredients of Iams, Science Diet and Purina
Iams:
-CHICKEN
-CHICKEN BY PRODUCTS (the feet, feathers, beeks, undeveloped eggs, ograns of dead, disease, or dying animals)
-CORN GRITS (low grade filler with not nutritional value, causes skin irritations)
-CORN MEAL(more low grade filler with no nutrition)
-FISH MEAL (undetermined type of fish)
-DRIED BEET PULP (undigestible filler)
-DRIED EGG PRODUCT (egg shells or those unfit for humans)

Sience Diet (this is the vet prescribe diet)
-BREWERS RICE (rice fraction)
-CHICKEN BY PRODUCTS
-CORN GLUTEN MEAL
-PORK FAT (dogs do not digest pork)
-CHICKEN LIVER (contains high levels of toxins)
-preserved with BHA/BHT (this is a CHEMICAL preservative proven to cause cancer)

Purina:
-CHICKEN
-BREWERS RICE
-CORN GLUTEN MEAL
-POULTRY BY PRODUCTS (they don't specify what type of meat)
-WHEAT FLOUR (no nutrition, common allergen)
-BEEF TALLOW (low grade fat for flavouring, no nutrition)
-CORN
-WHEAT GLUTEN (the startch from the wheat)
-FISH MEAL (unspecificed source)

So, I'm sure that you can see now that all three of these foods have pretty much NO nutritional value and have those disgusting things that you were talking about like chicken feet, corn, wheat, and on and on. Most surprising, and an area that I am really trying to educate people on, is that vets are still prescribing these low grade foods. Science Diet has cancer causing chemicals in them so WHY ARE VETS STILL PRESCRIBING THEM....the answer is money.

So, here is where you need to look for food that are actually good quality. I am a pet food nutritionist and I will only deal with Natura Pet Foods - Innova, California Natural and Karma because they are the healthiest foods in the world. Here are the ingredients in Innova:
-TURKEY
-CHICKEN MEAL
-CHICKEN
-POTATOES
-EGGS
-BARLEY
-CHICKEN FAT
-RICE
-HERRING
-SUNFLOWER OIL
-APPLES
-CARROTS

Notice the difference? Pet food companies are required to list ingredients in the form that they are put in the foods. Natura uses ONLY whole fresh, human grade foods. And because they are not like companies like Iams who spend a fortune on advertising, they foods actually cost the same price AND you feed less because they use high quality, digestible ingredients that don't just go in one end and out the other!!!

So, if you are serious about feeding the best quality food possible then you need to seriously realize that the big name, mass market companies all use low grade products in their foods to cut costs. Innova Dog Food is the absolute best for your dog. You can find a store near you the sells it by going to their website (www.naturapet.com). They have some excellent resources on the site as well. You can compare different brands of foods, find out what is meant by all those ingredients and read testimonies from other users.

If you cannot find Innova near you here are a few brands that are similar in quality: Wellness, Merrick, Eagle Pack Holistic, Fromm, Evolve, and Canidae. Each of these companies has a website so just "google" them for more info and to find a store near you.

Good luck and just use common sense. If you want a healthy dog, feed them something that sounds good enough for you to eat!! Animals are just like humans, they stay healthy by eating properly and exercising.

Answer 2

This is true. Marketing does not equal quality, as seen in the case of Beneful, which is a HORRIBLE dog food marketed as a "smart, healthy, organic choice".

Read my response and others with it in your mind that there is no "best" dog food. Every dog is different, so you can have the highest quality ingredients in the world, but if your dog doesn't do well on it, it's not a good food for your dog.

To find a good food:

Don't buy anything that is available at a grocery store. This may include Iams and Eukanuba. These were premium foods once upon a time but that is no longer the case. PetSmart/PetCo carry some good food, some junk food. Independent pet stores tend to carry just the good stuff (exceptions to all of these... still do the research).

A very a couple of very rough guideline to tell a foods quality: Look at the first five incredients on the label (ingredient labels list ingredients from Most to Least, by weight).

1) Look for whole ingredients, like "rice" instead of "ground rice", "rice flour", "brewers rice". If there are a lot of fragments, they would have shown up at the top of the ingredient list if they hadn't been disingenuously broken out into individual components.

2) First ingredient in the list should be a meat source, and there should be at least one other meat source in the top five.

3) Watch for by-products. Although well-handled by-products can in fact be healthy for dogs, most companies that use by-products are basically using leftovers not fit for sane consumption.

4) Corn tends to be a cheap filler, and is not particularly healthy for dogs. I can't think off-hand any good foods that have corn high in the list. Can't swear to this one without a little research, but heads up.

5) Avoid foods that use some kind of "animal" part or even "poultry" part instead of specifying "beef" or "chicken". This is a sign that they're using whatever is cheap and on hand, or that the quality of what they're using is so low that they don't even know what it is.

6) Skip right over anything with sugar, artificial colors or flavors, or anything with a sprayed on coating to make the food more palatable to the dog.

Most grocery store foods fail on one or more of these; Beneful fails on all of them, if I recall correctly. Some of the foods sold in veterinary clinics also fail on some of these items, so just be alert. Just as a note, vets do not, on the whole, tend to be nutritional experts. This is the case with human doctors too -- they have their specializations, and they just can't know everything, as amazing as they are.

For excellent, well-respected nutrition information, I highly recommend subscribing to Whole Dog Journal, a montly newletter (12-14 pages?) with holistic health information and an annual review of dry and wet dog foods. I've made dramatic changes in my own diet due to what WDJ taught me about reading labels.

Answer 3

Are you looking for a medical food? Or just a good food available in a pet store? Your biggest job when you are shopping for food for a furry friend is to read the ingredients. You can ask a vet about the nutritional needs, and then do your reading. You want to look for good quality ingredients. Remember, if it says a meat first (for instance - chicken), it might be first on the ingredient list, but they measure it pre-cooking... so by the time it's cooked, all of the water has left and you only have a tiny bit. Look for meat by product meals. These are usually the most mineral and vitamin rich parts of the food animal, like organs. It's cooked, concentrated and ground. Some are better than others for different results. Lamb, venison, fish, and rice are all good as long as your dog doesn't have any allergies.
Good luck

Answer 4

A good food will have meat or fish as the first ingredient and a carbohydrate (such as sweet potato) as the second.

Having a dog with food allergies I have had to do quite a bit of label reading. You would be surprised at how many foods do not actually have any meat, and are full of fillers.

I feed Natural Balance Venison & Brown Rice Formula. I have a 75 pound dog and buy one 17 pound bag about every 5 weeks. Plenty of nutrition for my VERY active dog.

Other good brands that I have seen include Wellness, Evo, and others.

Answer 5

The best dog food has meat listed as the first ingredient on the label.
Corn is a cheap filler and should not be near the top of the list of ingredients

Answer 6

Check out www.spoiled-rotten-pets.com
Look under the Paton portion of the web site.
It has a place to rate the food you feed and also tells you about what shoud be in the food.
They also sell dogs food and have some of thebest food available today.
Also look at whole dog journal they too rate food and do a great job if it. The ones the recommend are some of the best also.

Answer 7

what country are you in

Vets receive very little, and in some cases NO training on nutrion, food brands, and ingredients.

you need to be familiar with ingredients

bad chemical preservatives are BHT and BHA
good preservative is Vitamin E (tocophelophous) which is more costly

some common allergy causing ingredients are CORN, WHEAT, SOY (which even causes behavior problems), PORK, and BEEF

a cheap filler is By- PRODUCTS (beaks feet feathers snouts) it is preserved with a chemical pesticide ETHOXYQUIN which isnt listed on the lable because it is considered part of the by -product but is banned for human use.

any food sold in grocery store or wal mart is bad
SOME foods sold in pet food places are bad too - you need to check the ingredient list yourself
if you see alot of commercials for a food you can be sure its low quality because they are paying for commercials not paying for quality ingredients

a good food has a meat source listed first - eg CHICKEN MEAL, LAMB MEAL or TURKEY MEAL... however stay away from "MEATMEAL" as this can be any animal that died and was rendered that day....

HUMAN GRADE MEAT is also a good thing... and "ALL NATURAL"


some bad ones are - ALPO, PURINA, PEDIGREE, IAMS, SCIENCE DIET (paid for vet endorsement so the price is inflated), EUKANUBA (owned by the same company as Iams, both used to be good but now are dumbed down and linked to cruelty testing on animals), KIBBLES N BITS (terrible stuff) etc...

some good ones are - NUTRAM (canadian) ACANA(canadian), Wellness, Innova, Chicken Soup,