Since pet food recall, should I say good-bye to commercial pet food forever?

Question

I have had some of my friends tell me to just feed my 5 year-old Siberian Husky cooked meat and rice with powdered doggy vitamins, but who has the time for all that? I noticed that the dog food that I was paying extra for was the same as the storebrands sold to Petco and PetSmart...

However, with this pet food recall scare, I'm wondering if I should bite the bullet and just devote a day a week to cook up the meat and rice for him??

-OR- are there other more holistic dog foods I can buy?

Answer 1

Check out Flint River Ranch dog food, it's made with all FDA approved HUMAN grade ingredients. Their web site is frrco.com read up on it as a dog trainer and long time dog owner I highly recommend it.

Answer 2

If you feel you don't have the time to specially prepare your dog's meals, don't rule out store-bought pet food just yet. It is important to look carefully at the ingredients of pet food before deciding which one to switch to. You want something holistic, so a premium pet food that uses whole meat rather than meat meal and is free of additives/fillers is ideal. You would find these at pet stores and not supermarkets. I've always been happy with Addiction pet food. They have a website: www.addictionfoods.com

Answer 3

Home cook for your dog. I have home cooked for 1 1/2 years now. I feed him cooked regular ground beef, some small pasta shells or rice and cooked green beans and carrots.
He also gets multivitamins that I get from the vet. Figure out how many calories he is eating now to maintain his weight.
Buy an electronic scale at Canadian tire. It will tell you calories,carbs, fats etc. Feed pieces of apple, banana's, watermelon or pear for treats. (no grapes-toxic).Buy a bunch of "glad" containers to freeze meals. It is the best thing you can do for your dog. I laugh when I watch these pet forums and people are arguing about which is the best food to feed.
These people have no idea what they are talking about. They are label readers. Do you trust that what is on the label is really in the bag. I would rather spend time making his food, that way I now what he is really eating. Best of luck.

Answer 4

First off you shouldnt be scared away from using commercial foods. This doesnt happen very often. The pet food companies have regulations that they have to follow and get the food tested. Normally anything that would be in the food that would be harmful would be found through this testing.
They should be able to find out what happened and correct it pretty quickly. That is how this recall got acted on so quickly.

Answer 5

You need to buy him dog food so he has a well rounded diet. I suggest a high quality dog food, like Candidae. It is recommended by many dog experts (behaviorists, trainers, etc.).
You won't be able to find it at a store like Petsmart. You'll most likely find it at a nature pet food store or some other small pet supply store in your area.

Answer 6

A little truth about some of whatr you buy. there are many brand names of dog foods out there. Many of them come from the same factory and are produced for a chain store or another company. Purina is the largest dog food producer in the world and many of the brands you pay extra money for because of the advertising are from that company.

Purina has been in the animal food business for well over 100 years. The USA regulations of pet food is much higher than it is for the food you eat.

The recalls are done to keep bad products out of the market. Buy a well known brand that has a good reputation. I always buy purina for muy cats and dogs. Never had any problem with them.

Now that I live in SE Asia I still buy purinas. Yes Purina is a big seller here because it is a good product.

Answer 7

Meat by products could be anything from any kind of animal. Usually from a rendering plant that takes in any diseased, dead or dying animal of any kind. Some of these are even roadkill. Euthanized animals, ect.

They are now listing it as meat meal so that you don't realize what your feeding your dog. Same as the cheap commercial stuff that most of you won't feed your dog.

Answer 8

Like you i am considering just making my own dog food and either freezing it or refrigerating it. Look on some answered questions in recipes for some good dog food recipes! I don't think it would cost any more to make them some food and maybe we could make up recipes for ourselves. Dogs love liver and they can eat egg yolks.

Answer 9

There are some good foods out there, so if you really want to feed commercial, you'll be able to find a healthy food. However remember that there can be a recall with any food.

Meat and rice isn't a balanced diet, and your dog shouldn't have to rely on a pill to get the rest of its nutrients.

You can feed a healthy raw diet. This includes raw meaty bones, for example chicken leg quarters, organ meat, and some muscle meat.

I feed my dogs a raw diet, they get chicken leg quarters as the main part of it. They are easily obtainable for a good price. They do get other types of meat on a regular basis, such as turkey and beef, depending on what's on sale or what freebies I get. They also get raw eggs, shells and all a few times a week. Loads of nutrients there.

Raw bones are ok to feed, cooked bones pose a problem. Raw meat is full of nutrients, and your dog is designed to derive nutrients from raw food sources. Cooking meat kills nutrients, dogs also aren't very well designed to get nutrients from cooked foods. They can, but the get much less from them, and have a harder time getting them.

As far as cost, I was able to cut my dog food bills in half when I started raw feeding.
I'm giving you information on feeding raw diets, as well as finding a high quality commercial food.

By the way, I usually buy in bulk, it only takes a couple of hours one or twice a month to divide out daily meals for my dogs. I then simply take out the next day's portion the night before for one dog, my other dog gets his frozen. He is a "power eater" and frozen food slows him down a bit.

Nothing you find at a grocery store is going to be a good food. High quality foods can be found at large pet store chains, or online. A couple of foods I like are Nutro Natural, Innova, Innova Evo and Cannidae.

There are other high quality dog foods. Here's how to spot them:

A high quality food will have little or no fillers such as corn, wheat or soy. These aren't very digestable for dogs, and are common food related allergens. Since you were seeing corn meal in the first few ingredients, those are not high quality foods. Foods list ingredients by content, with the ingredient it contains most of at the top.

A high quality food will not contain BHT, BHA or Ethoxyquin, these are all chemical preservatives that have been linked to cancer.

A high quality food will not contain by-products of any kind. Meat meals are ok as long as the source of the meat is listed, such as Chicken Meal.

A high quality diet should have meat as at least the first ingredient., and be made from human grade ingredients. Foods that don't use human grade ingredients often get their ingredients from less than desirable sources, such as meat from animals that were diseased, or euthanized.

There is another diet option other than dog food. Some people choose to feed a raw diet. This involves feeding the dog raw meaty bones and organ meat. However it is not as simple as throwing a couple chicken bones in a bowl everyday. If you wish to feed this type of diet, do lots and lots of research first. Switching to this diet without knowing what your doing can lead to nutritional problems for your dog. I'll give you some links as a starting point in research if you are interested in this type of diet.

http://www.willowglen.com/barf.htm.........

http://www.bestfrisbeedogs.com/diets.htm...

http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html.....

http://www.rawfed.com/myths/index.html.....

http://www.rawdogranch.com

What's Really In Pet Food
http://www.api4animals.org/facts?p=359&m...

Answer 10

I'm really thinking that the raw diet is the way to go. Although it's time consuming I really don't see a better way and my babies are really worth it.