High End Dog Food

+6 for Blue Buffalo Wilderness for 5 pugs and a German Shepherd.

Coats are gorgeous... nice stools... happy dogs.

My dog has hated every high end food I have tried. I just today switched from Beneful to the Stop and Shop store brand. He finished his bowl so quick I seriously wasn't sure if I filled it. Hopefully he sticks with this food. At 4 years old, I shouldn't be having to change his food every few months.

I feed orijens to my lab and golden retriever. Each dog weighs sixty pounds and they eat less than four cups a day even while training to be gun dogs. If your dog is not that active I would suggest acana which has less protein.

My Brittany gets Diamond Hi-Energy blend. He likes it well enough. I am happy with it. He can hunt for days on end and he I have to run him for thirty minutes a day or he drives me nuts...
Has some filler but it works great and he looks and runs great! The price isn't bad either.

Ran into allergy issues with our Jack Russell mix and had to get him off grains....

Tried Canidae and then Taste of the Wild...both left him with stinky breath and body odor.

We now have him on Back to Basics (Turkey) and he LOVES it...smells are gone too.

A question right up my alley...

Read these links, then go from there.

http://recipes4gourmetdogs.com/2011/08/worst-dog-food-brands/

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=betterproducts

http://members.petfinder.com/~CA469/files/DogFoodRatings.pdf

Corn is the worst...

http://www.rchumanesociety.org/_files/How_Diet_Affects_Behavior.pdf

I have met trained and rehabilitated many dogs that had specific behavioral problems that were made worse by corn product in their feed.

Ideally, you want to read the ingredients list. Just like with human food, the ingredients at the top of the list comprise the greatest proportion of content. You want to start with a REAL protien. Chicken, Bison, Beef, etc. Stay away from protein meals (chicken meal, chicken by product meal for example) as a first ingredient. These are somewhat acceptable farther down the list of ingredients, but not at the top. Stay away from corn products. Some dogs have wheat, soy, or white potato allergies as well.


Stay away from dog foods that do not list the caloric rating per cup of food. Buy a dog food with a caloric rating, then use this table

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-feeding-tips/dog-food-calculator/


to determine the proper amount of food to feed your dog...

We do rescue, boarding, boarding training, and long term medical boarding (long term illness/injury rehab). We typically carry 7-9 different brands/types of dog foods depending on the needs of our clients/boarders.

A few of our favorite dog foods

Taste of the Wild Bison Formula: A high protein food suitable for high activity level dogs, and hybrids. This may be to rich for many low to mid level energy domesticated dogs...

Blue Buffalo Wilderness: an excellent food for most dogs, again this is a high protein food and may be to rich for some dogs

Solid Gold and Canidae are great as well.

For some medical fosters with sensitive stomaches, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lovers Soul Light formula.

Hope this helps...

Sorry for the long post

mudminnow said:

I feed orijens to my lab and golden retriever. Each dog weighs sixty pounds and they eat less than four cups a day even while training to be gun dogs. If your dog is not that active I would suggest acana which has less protein.

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x2 for Acana. We used to feed Hills Prescription Diet, then tried Kirkland for the cost but the dog pooped WAY more and her coat went down hill, now switched to Acana and love it. It's also made an hour from where I live so I can support the local economy.

I had my dogs on Blue Buffalo large breed and would rotate between the chicken, lamb and fish each time I had to buy a bag. My Newfie had skin allergies that would come and go so, after some antibiotics that didn't work, I switched to Innova. Both dogs like it and their coats look awesome.

We mixed in what they had left of their old food with Victor GF Ultra Pro. They went right for it. Granted, these dogs will eat dirty socks...

The only change we've seen so far is that they don't lick their paws anymore. In our quest for better food, we learned that obsessive paw licking can be caused by food allergies.

Zuljin said:

We mixed in what they had left of their old food with Victor GF Ultra Pro. They went right for it. Granted, these dogs will eat dirty socks...

The only change we've seen so far is that they don't lick their paws anymore. In our quest for better food, we learned that obsessive paw licking can be caused by food allergies.

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My dog licks anything obsessively, but in his case it's clearly an anxious behavior.

I give him Blue Buffalo Life Protection, though I'm aware that, while it's a step up from stuff like IAMS, it could still be better. Wish I could find something better that's easy to find/buy around here, without costing twice as much as I already do. I'd pay maybe 50% more for something really good.

Zuljin said:

We mixed in what they had left of their old food with Victor GF Ultra Pro. They went right for it. Granted, these dogs will eat dirty socks...

The only change we've seen so far is that they don't lick their paws anymore. In our quest for better food, we learned that obsessive paw licking can be caused by food allergies.

Click to expand...

Paw licking can be attributed to any type of allergies. Both my dogs obsessively licked their paws in the late spring because the crazy pollen we had this year in dfw. I'd give them a Benadryl and they'd quit and once the pollen was gone they stopped completely.

In your case it sounds like the food, though.

It's ragweed season and my little guy is rubbing his face all over the carpet and furniture. It looks hilarious, but the poor guy can't even scratch himself properly! He literally gave himself a cataract by kicking that side of his face all the time. Sometimes it sounds like he's even hurting himself as he whines while doing it.

Benadryl helps, but it obviously doesn't completely do the trick as he still scratches a fair bit... just not quite as much.

And then he gets dry skin in the winter which also makes him itchy, but at least I can do something about that. He even gets an oatmeal bath every time he gets groomed.