Continued from above.
AGAIN: I DO NOT OWN THIS LIST NOR DO I MAKE ANY CLAIMS TO IT.
AGAIN: I DO NOT OWN THIS LIST NOR DO I MAKE ANY CLAIMS TO IT.
My parents feed their two Tollers a combination of chicken necks and cottage cheese. One of them kept having to get tumors removed, but they stopped showing up shortly after the switch to a raw diet.
I'm thinking of getting a CBR if I can find a pet-friendly residence when my lease here runs out. I'll probably feed raw if I can learn enough about it to make sure I do it right.
We feed raw. I do this with both my dogs and my cats. I switched back in 2007 after getting tired of watching animal after animal come through our clinic doors in organ failure because of a lack of caring on a food company's part. My dogs eat a mixture of beef, turkey, chicken, venison and anything else I can get my hands on. I actually make my cat's food. I purchase free range rabbits from a local farmer. I dispatch and clean them and then send them through a American Eagle meat grinder (bone in). In the 3-4 year we've been feeding raw, I've not only watched two cats diagnosed with IBD become completely non-symptomatic, I've also stopped having to perform dentals on all dogs and cats (their teeth are pearly white) and have stopped dealing with 90% of allergies (I still have one dog who is allergic to grasses/molds/clover and goldenrod and he flares badly during Oklahoma summers).
For anyone who is wanting to do research into your pet's food, start with the internet. There are many places online that rate foods based upon their ingredients and contents. Those of you who are recommending science diet should think back to 2006-2007 and the thousands of animals that were killed by tainted foods (regulations which have NOT been changed by science diet). I've worked in Veterinary Medicine for 10 years and no longer recommend many of the commercial diets which are commonly sold in vet offices---I see no reason to recommend a food product that sends a pet to the hospital instead of prevents it.
This is a great place to start: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/
For those of you who are ingredient readers, you should make sure that whatever food you're feeding has at least 2 proteins listed as the first 2 ingredients. High quality food will lack fillers such as corn, wheat, soy, etc. You will also want to ensure that your foods do not contain any preservatives known to cause organ failure and death such as ethoxyquin and BHA/BHT.
Remember, the FDA states that in order to receive approval to be fed to pets the food must "be able to sustain a pet"--that literally means just keep it alive. It says absolutely nothing about thriving. You'll do best by your pets to put in the foot work and know what is going into their body.
I don't mean to sound rude but I'm just curious, have you looked at a bag of science diet? Do you know what they put in their foods? Since I do this every day, I'll show you what I mean:
This analysis is for Science Diet Large breed adult:
Ingredients (all those with concerns are in bold, see below):
Whole Grain Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, Soybean Meal, Animal Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Soybean Oil, Chicken Liver Flavor, Flaxseed, Iodized Salt, Dried Chicken Cartilage, Choline Chloride, Vitamin E Supplement, vitamins (L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Taurine, Potassium Chloride, minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), L-Carnitine, preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid, Phosphoric Acid, Beta-Carotene, Rosemary Extract.
To top things off, this product is mainly corn. Dogs cannot properly digest corn. Corn is the #1 cause of allergens in dogs. So, you're paying for poop and potential allergies with this food. This is seconded not by a real protein...but by a meal of by-product (wings, legs, inards, heads, feathers, etc). Science Diet isn't even putting whole MEAT into this food. They follow this up with soy meal, which is a cheap filler. It has been placed on the confirmed list for a cause of canine allergies. They also add soybean oil in, for good measure. And, to be fair, they add chicken cartilage in the food...not like it does a lot for pets, but we'll be fair and at least show for the record that they did put it in the food and, indeed, it came from chickens.
The rest of the food is additives and preservatives. They even add taurine in, which dogs do not need (they can manufacture this amino acid on their own) and salt (too much of which will cause kidney problems).
If science diet is your choice, that's cool. But I think it's fair to give a real assessment of what they put in their foods. So few people turn that bag around to realize they're paying for filler and very little, if any, real animal product.
We're hardcore raw feeders right here. It's not just you.
Iams Large Breed ingredients:
Chicken, corn meal, ground whole grain sorghum, chicken by-product meal, ground whole grain barley, fish meal (source of fish oil), chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols, a source of vitamin E, and citric acid), dried beet pulp (sugar removed), dried egg product, natural chicken flavor, potassium chloride, brewers dried yeast, salt, flax meal, sodium hexametaphosphate, calcium carbonate, vitamins [vitamin E supplement, ascorbic acid, vitamin A acetate, calcium pantothenate, biotin, thiamine mononitrate (source of vitamin B1), vitamin B12 supplement, niacin, riboflavin supplement (source of vitamin B2), inositol, pyridoxine hydrochloride (source of vitamin B6), vitamin D3 supplement, folic acid], choline chloride, minerals [ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, manganous oxide, potassium iodide, cobalt carbonate], dl-methionine, l-tryptophan, glucosamine hydrochloride, rosemary extract. (http://www.petco.com/product/2229/Iams-Large-Breed-Adult-Dog-Food.aspx)
Did you know?
It might be better to feed a different food and supplement with a real joint supplement like glucosamine chondroitin. Glucosamine works best on joints when used in conjunction with chondrotin. Iams is being cheap and making it *look* like they're using a good product, but they're not. And such a small percentage is probably not helping any pet in the long run, most especially a pet who is predisposed or already symptomatic of dysplasia or another form of joint issues.
Moreover, if you read the ingredients the amount of glucosamine they're putting in this food is 350 ppm (parts per million). A 50# dog needs about 500-1000mg of glucosamine chondroitin per day. This food, sadly, only contains TRACE amounts of the product they're bragging they use...
This is what I mean when I say that a company's advertisement needs to reflect what's actually in the bag.
I concur. Royal Canin is a better food than many (and much better than the above mentioned Iams for glucosamine chondroitin) but it's not necessarily any better than some other foods as far as ingredients. I also still includes things that are not great. Perhaps going through and analyzing the ingredients one by one might help...soy often causes allergies (funny, because RC says they're focus on the skin aspect of the GSD who tend to have some sensitivities in that department) and a lot of the food is filler.
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