[lexluther18]

I will be honest and say I have had dogs pretty much my whole life (I am 33) and since I was a kid till now we have always bought food from the grocery store. I recently purchased a Boxer puppy from a very well known breeder in the region I live and paid a lot of money to get a high quailty dog. The breeder started to educate me on the different foods and why some are better than others. I have been researching this topic online and all I can say is WOW!!!! I never really thought there was much of a difference in foods until now. I feel bad for feeding my dog/s this junk food over the years. I have only had the puppy for three nights. The breeder used Canidae but I can not find this. So I thought, hey Iams seems to be a good food............ WRONG!!!!! I haven't opened the bag yet because I still have some of the Canidae form the breeder. What is good from Petsmart. I have one local to me. If nothing is good there, I will really have to investigate where I can get better food. Thanks for your help.

Lexluther18--

 

[RawFedDogs]

I'm not a kibble feeder so I can't help you with brand names but I can help you with what to look for. Dogs are carnivores. Carnivores eat meat and have no dietary need for carbs. Find a food that has the most protein and least carbs and that will be your best food.

The protein percentage is listed on the bag. Carbs are not listed but to determine the carb content, start with 100 and subtract the protein percentage, fat percentage, water percentage and what you have left is carbohydrate percentage. Most dog foods are close to 50% carbs and thats just way too much. There are reasons for carbs in kibble but none of them have anything to do with your dog's health.

For the closest thing to perfect diet, you might look at my web page listed in my sig. Good luck on your search.

 

[rannmiller]

The best foods at PetsMart are Blue Buffalo and ByNature. You want real meat (not by-products), no corn, wheat, soy, preferably no gluten. No animal digest is also nice too.

Other great brands that aren't at PetsMart can be found on our "Top 5 Dog Foods" thread. Good luck!

 

[LabbieMama]

Congrats on your new puppy. Many top-quality dry dog food brands are available for sale over the Internet and can be delivered right to your door -- if there is no other way for you to get them. Pet Food Direct offers decent discounts to its regular customers. Some kibble manufacturers (such as Show Bound Naturals) offer a discount on the food when you pay shipping and can arrange for the food to be delivered to you on a monthly basis if you wish. I'm not sure if this is helpful info for you but I thought I'd give it a shot. Best Wishes.

 

[ILuvLabs]

RawFedDogs: Thanks for info on figuring carbs......never seen that before. Really handy info to have. I hope you don't mind if I pass that on.

I spent a lot of time last year researching commercial foods & founds lots of good websites to help in making a decision. I started to home cook as the recalls kept going on & on & on.......I was afraid to feed anything other than what I cooked. So now I use a tad of kibble & the rest is humommie's good cooking (?).....

Here are a couple of websites:

The Pet Food List. Pet Food brands, manufacturers, products, ingredients, sources, cat, dog, food.

The Dog Food Project - How does your Dog Food Brand compare?

HTH

 

[BoxerMommie]

From PetSmart there's really just Blue Buffalo and By Nature, however if you have a PetCo, they have Wellness, Natural Balance, and Solid Gold which are all great foods. I have 2 Boxers and I started with Canidae when my boy was a puppy but had to switch when they changed their formula as he has an allergy to gluten so I now feed Natual Balance Lamb Meal and Brown Rice and Duck and Potato. They've done well on both. I would suggest going to Boxer World (Boxerworld.com - Welcome to Boxer World - The Ultimate Dog Resource!) and joining the forums there as they are very knowledable at food as well and all are Boxer owners. Unfortunately Boxers can be very gassy dogs, so food is extremely important for them in that aspect as well. You'd be surprised where you can find high quality foods. So I would choose 2-3 that you like and then go to their site and see where it is sold near you. If you want to continue with Canidae (it's a good food) then visit their site and see if anywhere near you sells it. Same with any of the others. Good luck!

 

[Ellen]

Food Confusion

Hi, I just joined the chat because I also have been really confused about the best food. I have a golden and a Mini Aussie. The cats are on Innova, but that was too rich for the golden. I just got the Whole dog jounal and they are saying Natural Balance Nutro pass, they are also at Petsmart. I order on line if I can't find the food.

Ellen

 

[BoxerMommie]

Hi, I just joined the chat because I also have been really confused about the best food. I have a golden and a Mini Aussie. The cats are on Innova, but that was too rich for the golden. I just got the Whole dog jounal and they are saying Natural Balance Nutro pass, they are also at Petsmart. I order on line if I can't find the food.

Ellen

Natural Balance is not at PetSmart, and Nutro is a really crummy food (I will have to disagree with WDJ). I wouldn't personally feed Nutro. And Natural Balance and Nutro are 2 separate companies (kidn of sounds like you are thinking they're the same) and Natural Balance is sold at PetCo but not PetSmart.

 

[Ellen]

Sorry forgot to put the and in between. That shows you how often I go to Petco or Petsmart. One note on the Canidae. I had my dog on Canidae, worked fine until the company changed ingredients and moved manufacturing to Diamond. My dog got really sick, the dogs are now on Nature's Variety Prairie and doing fine.

 

[BoxerMommie]

Sorry forgot to put the and in between. That shows you how often I go to Petco or Petsmart. One note on the Canidae. I had my dog on Canidae, worked fine until the company changed ingredients and moved manufacturing to Diamond. My dog got really sick, the dogs are now on Nature's Variety Prairie and doing fine.

Yes this happened to many dogs on the new formula, however it does still work for some dogs. if it is working for the puppy (since puppy is already on it), it is still a good food even with the formula change, so as long as puppy doesn't have any tummy upsets or allergies to anything in the formula, it's a good food and no reason to change if it is sold locally unless it's just a personal choice.

 

[ILuvLabs]

I sent an email to WDJ when they rated Nutro as one of the good dry foods. I was surprised & a bit disappointed in them. I included a link to consumer affairs & all the posts about animals getting sick. A lot of people depend on WDJ for their recommendations which is why I got so upset.

It appears a lot of dogs didn't do well after Canidae changed it's ingredients. They claimed it was a minor change but apparently a lot of dogs didn't think it was that minor.

I believe SG has been made at Diamond for a while. Last year I thought about switching until I found out where the food was made. That did it for me.

This is just my personal opinion.......everyone has to do what's best for their animal.

Hannah was having problems with just about every dry food & I spent so much time & money trying to find what worked for her. It finally came down to home cooking with a little bit of kibble mixed in & that has worked for her.:biggrin:

 

[BoxerMommie]

Oh boy oh boy yeah Canidae's change, contrary to what they say, was NOT minor. It went from a gluten free food to a food with gluten adding barley and millet, adding peas, tomatoe pomace, changing their named fish meal (Herring) to an unnamed fish mean (ocean whitefish), yeah it was actually a pretty huge change ingredient wise. I got fed up with them and their "I don't care" attitude and them trying to spin it as a positive change when it wasn't, however if it was a food that my dog could still eat I would probably purchase it, it's still one of the more reasonably priced foods for what it is, however with gluten allergies he can't have it anymore and I had to find something different. It's funny because anybody who can read and decipher ingredients will know it was NOT a minor change and yet Canidae really holds onto that little bit of knowledge swearing up and down that it is. Ugh!

 

[lexluther18]

Thanks for all the help. I returned the Iams and bought Blue Buffalo. I also just found out there is a Petco only about 10 miles from me house in a retail area that I also visit often. I never know the Petco was there. My question now is do I feed her the Blue Buffalo or should I get the Wellness, Solid Gold, or Natural Balance? I think I will try the Blue Buffalo and see if she likes it. It seems to be a pretty good food.

Boxermommie- thanks for the BoxerWorld idea, I will join and check it out this weekend.

 

[BoxerMommie]

Thanks for all the help. I returned the Iams and bought Blue Buffalo. I also just found out there is a Petco only about 10 miles from me house in a retail area that I also visit often. I never know the Petco was there. My question now is do I feed her the Blue Buffalo or should I get the Wellness, Solid Gold, or Natural Balance? I think I will try the Blue Buffalo and see if she likes it. It seems to be a pretty good food.

Boxermommie- thanks for the BoxerWorld idea, I will join and check it out this weekend.

Personally of the 3 as long as she doesn't have any allergies I would go with the Wellness. IMO it's a better quality food than the BB and it's around the same price. Also, through PetCo if you buy 10 bags you get 1 free (not at the same time, they keep track for you) and Wellness may offer a frequent buyer program too. I use Natural Balance and for every 10 bags I buy I get one free through PetCo and then one free through Natural Balance so I buy 10 and get 2 free and when they're $38.99 PER BAG that's a nice savings for me! PetCo offers the buy 10 get 1 free on all of their foods there.

Good luck!

 

[rannmiller]

I think they sell Blue Buffalo at Petco now so at least you can get the buy 10 bags there on that too if you do decide to stick with it. That one has the cold-formed vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and probiotics so they're supposed to retain more of their potency that way I guess. If anyone has any opinions on that, I'd love to hear them!

You also have to keep in mind that most things at Petco run $3 to $10 more expensive than most places. Ugh, I like that they're trying to move towards more all natural but still.

 

[BoxerMommie]

I think they sell Blue Buffalo at Petco now so at least you can get the buy 10 bags there on that too if you do decide to stick with it. That one has the cold-formed vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and probiotics so they're supposed to retain more of their potency that way I guess. If anyone has any opinions on that, I'd love to hear them!

You also have to keep in mind that most things at Petco run $3 to $10 more expensive than most places. Ugh, I like that they're trying to move towards more all natural but still.

Actually in my area, they're about $5 a bag cheaper than anywhere else (including the mom and pop places) for Natural Balance and Wellness both. There's a reason that I get my Natural Balance there and it isn't because of the buy 10 get 1 free, it's that PLUS they're the cheapest in my area. It was $7 more per bag for it at the place I used to buy Canidae and it was $5 more for Wellness, when I checked out a couple of other feed places/boutiques same thing so I went with PetCo.

Probiotics in foods tht are cooked are wothless so I wouldn't base my food on that. Get the food and add your own probiotics so you know exactly what is in there IMO.

 

[rannmiller]

Wow! PetCo is actually cheaper than somewhere else? In Reno they're the most expensive place to get anything besides frozen rats for my snake. It's good to know they're at least a little better elsewhere though.

 

[BoxerMommie]

Wow! PetCo is actually cheaper than somewhere else? In Reno they're the most expensive place to get anything besides frozen rats for my snake. It's good to know they're at least a little better elsewhere though.

Well the price I pay for my dog food is the same price as their website. Yep, they're at least $5 cheaper than the 3 other places that sell it in my area, in some cases as high as 8 bucks cheaper depending on the store, plus they do the buy 10 get 1 free. Yeah I don't buy from them because I love the store I buy from them because they're the best deal all the way around.

 

[Catahoulagirl]

I quit feeding BB because my dogs wouldn't eat the life source pellets. Found them all over the floor Looked like little rat pellets everywhere. I asked others who fed it and they said the same. The BB rep told me to collect them all and water them down and leave them for the dog to eat. Ummmm NO! I've switched over to Merrick Before Grain and Merrick Turducken. They also get Honest Kitchen a few times a week. All my dogs are now eating the same foods and thriving.