what is the best dried food for dogs?

Question

i ran out of my usual brand so bought winalot complete which she likes but i'm not sure its good for her

Answer 1

It really depends on the dog. No one kind is best for every individual dog.

Answer 2

science diet is not a good brand. Also Iams is a horrible brand too. Winalot is by purina...not very good. Even the brands your vet pushes arent that great because a lot of times they get a percentage of the sales from the food. Look at the ingredients. If it starts with something byproduct or corn meal its not a good food. You want it to start with something like chicken or beef.
Natural balance http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/
and blue buffalo www.bluebuff.com

Those are both excellent brands, and when you feed your dog a healthy food, they dont eat as much because they are getting more vitamins and nutrition. Also when you feed a poor brand they have more medical issues (not necesarily apparent at first) and skin issues arise more.

If you are still wondering whats best....check out petlovers.com. Vets frequent the site and since they arent making money off selling you the dog food they have, will tell you honestly. Pretty much any food from wal mart is not going to be a bad choice.

Answer 3

I've never heard of Winalot.

Wellness and Flint River Ranch are good foods. FRR you can only order over the internet though. Wellness can usually be found at PetSmart or PetCo. I would feed Wellness if we had a PetSmart of Petco within an hour of my house..

ETA: I looked up Bakers food and here is the ingredients list for the adult complete formula-
"Cereals, Meat and animal derivatives (minimum 4% chicken beef and minimum 4% fresh meat in the soft moist kernel), Vegetable protein extracts, Derivatives of vegetable origin (1.1% charcoal in the dark brown kernel), Oils and fats, Various sugars, Minerals, Yeasts, Vegetables (minimum 4% vegetables in the green kernel). Contains EC permitted colourants, antioxidants and preservatives."

Not good.. first off, the first two ingredients in this food are cereals (which are just fillers and of little to no nutritional value for the dog) and meat and animal derivatives (which could be anything off of the animal, feet and beaks, feathers, not just muscle and organ meat). Also it has food coloring in it, which is completely unecessary. A good quality dog food will have a specific meat or specific meat meal listed as the first ingredient (ie, lamb or lamb meal rather than just meat). It is inevitable that most dog foods will contain grains, but try to find ones that contain whole grain rice rather than corn.

ETA: I checked out the Winalot website, and the ingredients list is quite similar to Bakers. I personally wouldn't feed either.

Answer 4

Most of the brands mentioned below are all good brands; but it depends on your budget and the ingredients and the individual dogs needs and what is available in your area!

For instance some of my dogs eat Flint River Ranch; some eat Eukanaba; others eat Iams; and one has been put one Kibbles and Bits mixed with Purina Pro Plan Puppy Food to help him gain weight. It all depends on your dogs needs also. For instance I have some that have skin allergies so they eat Flint River Ranch; one has allergies to soy based foods so they eat Iams and Eukanaba. One has an allergy to Red Dye in foods so they eat Solid Gold.

Look at the ingredients; the first ingredient should be a meat product; and no ground corn or a by product; try to stay away from by-products as they are ground up bones and intestines and feet; etc. Also the ingredients are listed in order by the amount of each ingredient in the bag.

Hope this helps. Also I do not like Science Hills Diet; and FYI most vets only recommend it because they get a commission off of its sales.

Answer 5

Go for a good quality complete. You get what you pay for so try to avoid the really cheap brands. Burns is particularly good, it was developed by John Burns, a vet and has no artificial additives. James Wellbeloved is similar and another good choice. Avoid Bakers, it has a high salt content and the bright colours that make the product look attractve to us can lead to hyper activity in your dog.

Answer 6

I would recommend Nutro.........simply because it is one of the few foods that has no additives or e numbers.

Winalot and Bakers has a truck load of them!!!!

Feeding a dog on an e number free food can calm them down as well.

Answer 7

Try Royal Canin, it's the best you can buy, be carefl with cjeaper brands and the very popular ones as they will make your dog hyperactive and thats true. Royal Canin is not cheap but it is the best on the market, don't forget to always leave plenty of clean fresh drinking water around for your dog esp if feeding them on dry food, you probably know that but thought i would mention it, hope this helps you......

Answer 8

I have tried every brand out there all the way from Science Diet to Eukanuba, Wellness and Candae, but I found Royal Canin and my dogs are doing the best they ever have on any food, Not to mention they actually like it ( which is a small miracle for them). Royal Canin also makes breed specific foods to address each breeds needs, You can check out their website www.royalcanin.us it is very informational.

Answer 9

Winalot is fine. The more you spend the more repeatable the composition the diet shall be from one month to the next. With the cheaper diets there is slight difference due to the costs of the materials on the international markets. Hilss and Iams are prob the best in my opinion, but are the most expensive as well.

Whats important is that your dog likes it, you can get hold of it easily, and that its easy to store and handle.

Winalot should be fine.

Answer 10

depends on the size and age of your animal. also if it stays in or is an outside animal.an outside dog needs more fat in the winter but an inside dog doesnt need to eat quite as much. less activity the more weight it will put on.its just like humans if your not active then dont et as much. but if you work 10 hours aday outside and its cold and your say digging a ditch by hand you would need 3000 calories a day to keep your strength up to the norm.if your dog winters outdoors feed a mixture of dry and canned food. depending on where you live the winter weather can do great harm to a dog.just buy what the dog needs. read what is in the food. purina is for all dogs.they have a formula for older animals too.

Answer 11

You should look at the ingredients and see what they have in them. The ingredients are listed in order of most to least. So if the first one is a meat product then its better than one that has wheat. Speak with your vet if your dog has any special needs. I use Science Diet because its the only thing my picky little Chihuahua will eat all the time.