Premium Dog Food?

Question

I have asked this before and did not get many responses. I am looking for anyone who feeds their dog wellness dog food from old mother hubbard. Just wanna know how it works for their dogs!! Thanks

Answer 1

I feed my dog Wellness. It's one of the best foods you can buy, totatlly love it. My dog has a lot of allergies along with being high energy and needing a lot of calories. She's on the Wellness Simple Solutions Venison Formula. Last summer her coat fell out due to allergies, but since I switched her onto Wellness(nothing else work...she's allergic to all poultry and beef) her coats great. Everyone who saw her last year continues to comment on how great she looks now. She doesn't need to eat as much since there's around 400 cal/cup and she also poops less, and she's having no tartar build up b/c there aren't as much sugars in it as most dog foods. I love it and so does she.

Oh and I wanted to add...Wellness is a top shelf dog food along w/ California Natural and Innova. Anything you can get at a grocery store is not good, including Beneful. Also Science Diet sucks. Vets only recommend it b/c they sell it in their offices, it is not a high quality. If your dog does well on it I'm jealous, but it is not a good quality food. I consider Purina Pro Plan better. Merrick and Solid Gold are awesome( my dog was allergic to the buffalo and duck in the Merrick and I have no idea what her problem was with SG). Nutro is good for some dogs. Chicken Soup for the Dog is also a good quality.

Answer 2

It's definitely a top-tier food. Not the absolute best, but MUCH better than other things you could be feeding.

The best thing for you, or any pet parent to do when researching a food to feed is do your research.

#1 - Go to an independent pet store, and see what they recommend. Petco and Petsmart will push whatever is on sale, and Grocery Stores won't even care. An independent pet store is in business because the owner has a passion for pets, and wants to make sure their area's pets are getting the best food available to them.

#2 - Follow up their advice with research of your own. Look at ingredient panels, nutritional information, and ask around. Go to a dog park and ask people with healthy looking dogs what they feed. You could also look at the pet food manufacturer's websites, or go to a local dog show and ask the top dogs what their owner is feeding them...

#3 - Ask for samples. Good pet foods will have samples available, for you to try on your dog. Bottom-line pet foods are more pallatable (tasty) for dogs because they spray fat and/or other byproducts that make the food taste good to dogs. Natural and holistic pet foods don't do that, so your dog may or may not like some foods. If one doesn't work, find another good one, until you find a good fit for your dog.

#4 - Talk to your vet. Ask them if this is a good food for your pet. If your dog suffers from food intolerances or itching / hot-spots, stay away from food with WHEAT, CORN, or SOY. These are the big 3 "no-no's" in Pet Food. (I put the vet at #4 because if you go there 1st, they'll say 'Science Diet', which is overpriced crap. Vets get a commission when they sell it, so they push it all the time)

Hope this info helps. Below are a few sites, including Wellness' site, so you can see some of the premium foods out there, and make your own jugdement as to what is the absolute best for your pup. Good luck!

http://www.oldmotherhubbard.com/dogs/wellness_overview.html
http://www.canidae.com
http://www.naturesvariety.com
http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com
http://www.primalpetfoods.com
http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul.com
http://www.naturapet.com/display.php?d=inn-home

Answer 3

I've never heard of Old Mother Hubbard, but if it's NATURAL food, then I'd say you love your dog and want only the best for him. These people who buy dog food either through the grocery store or even their vet would do well to check the ingredients. Even with the best of them (yes, even Eukanuba), they're heavy in grains and use "by-products", including road kill and euthanized animals. (Where do they think those coarse hairs in a sealed bag of dog food come from????)

I feed my dog Merrick...both wet and dry. It has nothing in it that humans wouldn't eat. Real chicken, venison, lamb, beef, turkey, apples, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, blueberries, etc. My dog loves it and I know he's getting food that's good for him. The cans are like $1.50 apiece, but I'd far rather pay more than feed him inferior stuff made by Purina, Eukanuba, Alpo, etc., etc., etc.

I'll have to look for your brand next time I go to the pet store.

Answer 4

Wellness is an excellent brand. They use optimum ingredients and "human grade" quality meat which is very important. Many top sellers still use meat-by-products (be careful of those). The brands which I highly recommend are either Wellness, Canidae, Royal Canin, or Sensible Choice. All my dogs are very healthy and have no health problems, and they have lived to a ripe old age and are still going strong. If you really want to get your dogs healthy, look into the BARF diet (Bones and Raw Food)...I fed my dogs that diet for over two years (alot of work though). I still supplement their diet with treats such as fruits (apples, banannas), veggies (carrots), plain yogurt, cottage cheese (they love it).

Answer 5

I tried it but my dogs did not like it. I was not happy with the results either. My one dog had severe problems on the food so with all things combined I switched foods. A friend of mine also tried it and his dog had problems too. Both dogs could not get use to it.

Answer 6

I decided to switch my dog to a "Premium Food" at almost $50 a bag because I thought he had food allergies and to see if it was better. Nothing changed as far as the allergies, but decided to keep him on the "Premium Food" since I thought it would be better for him. It's was about 2 months as of yesterday. I took him to the vet, she told me he had contracted a bladder infection and skin problems from too much protein, and a spiked urine ph, and told me to switch him back to Beneful pronto. He had been eating Beneful since a puppy, and is now 4 years old. I now have to give him antibiotics every day for 14 days, take a urine sample to them after 14 days, and my dog is feeling like crap from the antibiotics. The side affects of the meds is making him not want to eat. So how do you change his food if he's rarely eating at all! So I would check out these brands very carefullly and keep a good eye of your pet. I am not saying that they are bad, they might work great for most, however not all dogs are the same. I thought this food would be more helpful to my dog since it was considered a "Premuim Food", I now know that my dog would have been better off had I stayed with the $22.00 bag of Beneful! Just a thought.

Answer 7

It is a great dog food.
I do not feed it but it is one of the brands I would consider feeding if I were to change foods.
It is a well balanced food with quality ingredients and it meets the standards of whot I look for in a dog food.

Answer 8

When I buy dog food, I look at the list of ingredients and if the first one isn't meat, I don't buy it. Most of the expensive brands are no better than store brands because the main ingredient is corn or soy. Commercial dog food is a danger to your dog
The truth is the majority of dog food produced today is made with the consumer in mind. The pet food companies focus on us instead of our dogs because profit is their motivating factor and not our dog's optimum health. Commercial dog food generates over 11 billion dollars annually in sales. What most consumers don't realize is that the pet food industry is built on the waste from the human food industry. It's a way for large corporations to take what should be considered garbage and turn it into a profit by putting it in our dog's food. It is not a coincidence that four of the five major pet food companies in the U.S. are owned by large food production companies, we are all familiar with these:

Colgate Palmolive makes Hills Science Diet
Proctor & Gamble makes Eukanuba and Iams
Nestle makes Alpo and Mighty Dog
Heinz makes Gravy Train, Kibbles & Bits and Nature's Recipe

Consumers are constantly being subjected to deceptive marketing and less than half truths by many large companies. They count on our lack of knowledge and our desire to have convenient low cost options to feed our dogs. In many ways they have given us what we want, but it is not what our dogs are designed to eat. It is my sincere belief that if consumers knew the truth about the actual ingredients in their current dog food they would choose differently. None of us would deliberately feed our dogs items considered unfit for human consumption. None of us would continue to put down a bowl of food everyday that only allows our dogs to survive and not thrive. Everyday across America dog owners are unknowingly subjecting their family dogs to waste from slaughterhouses. The list includes fecal waste, toxins, mold, heavy metals, antibiotics and harmful preservatives. The lack of testing and regulation allow our pets to digest these types of hazards day after day. It is both shocking and disturbing to find out what is a legally acceptable ingredient in dog food. Whether you buy from the supermarket or various brands from your vet you can believe that most commercial dog food is riddled with poor and potentially dangerous ingredients. My personal favorite is the animals they use in pet food. There is actually a term for it called, "4-D". This stands for dead, diseased, dying and disabled animals. Then there's the ever popular by-product. Basically a by-product is what gets scraped off the floor after being deemed unfit for human consumption and then used in dog food. This consists of skin, lungs, kidneys, blood, bone, hooves, cancerous tumors, beaks and stomachs. How are these ingredients acceptable? According to the pet food industry, these are perfectly fit protein sources for our animals. I'm certain most pet owners would disagree!

Now that I've completely grossed you out, I can tell you that the best diet for your dog is easy to obtain.
A sample of some homemade diets for an active dog

1 lb. of meat with the fat included
2 cups of cooked cream of wheat
1 1/2 cups cottage cheese
1 hard-boiled egg
2 T. brewers yeast
3 T. sugar
1 T. vegetable oil
1 t. potassium chloride
1 t. dicalcium phosphate
1 t. calcium carbonate
Multi-vitamin/mineral tablet


or

1 lb. of ground meat with the fat included
4 hard-boiled eggs
1 cup cooked oatmeal
1 cooked potato
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup raw carrot
1/2 cup raw green vegetables
3 T. olive oil
2 T. minced garlic
Multi-vitamin/mineral tablet

This is just a small sampling of homemade diets. There are more complete lists in the references listed below. By following the rough guidelines shown with these diets you can substitute appropriate protein and carbohydrate sources as you or your pet desires.

Good luck if you decide to pursue this kind of diet for your dog. He is your friend, your partner, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion
- Anonymous

Answer 9

Never heard of it... I will swear but Eukanuba, I like the price and love the quality.