Dog food?????
13 Jun 2008
What to look for in dry dog food that’ll be best for your puppy? and he’s a great pyrenees 3-month old.
What are the highest quality brands to get?
What to look for in dry dog food that’ll be best for your puppy? and he’s a great pyrenees 3-month old.
15 Responses
2008 Jun 16
Natural Balance is a great dog food. Check out their website. Biljack is also good. Go to your pet store and ask for sample packs. They usually have lots of these.
2008 Jun 18
corn-free, preferably grain-free.
Canidae, Blue Buffalo, California Naturals, Natural instinct Raw, Wysong, Solid Gold, Innova Evo are some examples of good brands.
2008 Jun 22
Look for a premium brand made for large breed puppies, as these are optimum for normal growth. Good brands include Royal Canin and Science Diet. Purina ONE is also good. Basically, stay away from store name brands or generics–they use very inferior ingredients.
2008 Jun 23
Canidae All Life Stages -www.canidae.com/
Purina One and Science Diet are NOT good foods..
Purina One is a grocery store food.. Science Diet is just as crappy. Pedigree is a garbage food.. Stick with the good ones.. Forget the Kibbles N Bits.. Beneful, Ol Roy and so on.. All Purina products are crap, and Iams/Eukanuba are right up there in the garbage pile as well.
2008 Jun 23
I breed Airedale terriers which are too a large breed dog and I like Perigree brand for large breeds. Their shoo-shoo seems to be firmer with this brand than any other I’ve tried in the past.
2008 Jun 23
What you want to look for is that you have three sources of protein in the first five ingredients listed on your food. Like chicken, lamb, turkey, beef, fish. Any food that starts with a veggie isn’t as good.
2008 Jun 26
Innova Evo is the best quality and then Canidae. You want as few fillers as possible. Fillers are things such as cornmeal, rice, wheat, or other grains. Innova Evo doesn’t contain any by-products or fillers and Canidae only contains Brown rice.
2008 Jun 27
a holistic brand is what you want & it is not recommended to feed large & giant breeds puppy food at all. right to adult is much safer for the joints & growth platlets.
2008 Jun 28
I already aswered a similar question to yours in the link above, you can view it there. Its somewhere to the end of the question.
2008 Jun 28
Wellness ,Core
Innova, Evo
Eagle pack holistic select
Merrick
Canidae
All these foods are made with human grade ingredients. None contain Wheat, By-products or corn.
How to grade your dog’s food:
Start with a grade of 100:
1) For every listing of “by-product”, subtract 10 points
2) For every non-specific animal source (”meat” or “poultry”, meat, meal or fat) reference, subtract 10 points
3) If the food contains BHA, BHT, or ethoxyquin, subtract 10 points
4) For every grain “mill run” or non-specific grain source, subtract 5 points
5) If the same grain ingredient is used 2 or more times in the first five ingredients (i.e. “ground brown rice”, “brewer’s rice”, “rice flour” are all the same grain), subtract 5 points
6) If the protein sources are not meat meal and there are less than 2 meats in the top 3 ingredients, subtract 3 points
7) If it contains any artificial colorants, subtract 3 points
8 ) If it contains ground corn or whole grain corn, subtract 3 points
9) If corn is listed in the top 5 ingredients, subtract 2 more points
10) If the food contains any animal fat other than fish oil, subtract 2 points
11) If lamb is the only animal protein source (unless your dog is allergic to other protein sources), subtract 2 points
12) If it contains soy or soybeans, subtract 2 points
13) If it contains wheat (unless you know that your dog is not allergic to wheat), subtract 2 points
14) If it contains beef (unless you know that your dog is not allergic to beef), subtract 1 point
15) If it contains salt, subtract 1 point
Extra Credit:
1) If any of the meat sources are organic, add 5 points
2) If the food is endorsed by any major breed group or nutritionist, add 5 points
3) If the food is baked not extruded, add 5 points
4) If the food contains probiotics, add 3 points
5) If the food contains fruit, add 3 points
6) If the food contains vegetables (NOT corn or other grains), add 3 points
7) If the animal sources are hormone-free and antibiotic-free, add 2 points
8 ) If the food contains barley, add 2 points
9) If the food contains flax seed oil (not just the seeds), add 2 points
10) If the food contains oats or oatmeal, add 1 point
11) If the food contains sunflower oil, add 1 point
12) For every different specific animal protein source (other than the first one; count “chicken” and “chicken meal” as only one protein source, but “chicken” and “” as 2 different sources), add 1 point
13) If it contains glucosamine and chondroitin, add 1 point
14) If the vegetables have been tested for pesticides and are pesticide-free, add 1 point
94-100+ = A 86-93 = B 78-85 = C 70-77 = D
2008 Jun 29
All the dog food that buterfly_2_lovely said are good for any dog. And please don’t feed him any puppy food. It has way to much protien(sp?) in it that can accually hurt his joints and create problems later in life.
Also all food that Kimbee J said aren’t as good as you think!
2008 Jul 02
I used to work for Nutro when I was like 15 years old, and in my opinion they are the one of the best. Anyway, working for a high quality dog food company taught me alot. Here is what you Don’t want (which is 99& of the foods out there):
1.) Avoid ALL food that has corn meal or wheat. Look at the ingredients, it is usually at the top. Corn meal has no benefit whatsoever to your dog. Basically, its a filler. You know how you go to the buffet and you always say “gosh, I sure feel full already?” Well its because they use alot of starch in the food to make you full quicker and eat less. Same concept for the corn and wheat fillers in dog food. If you find a quality dog food with real meat and no corn fillers, your dog will have atleast 30% less waste (which mean less poo clean up for you, yay! LOL) and they will be soooo much happier and healthier with a shiny coat.
2.) Make sure the meat ingredients are REAL meat and not byproducts. Byproducts is what is mostly used, and that is basically the neck, bones, and garbage parts of the animal that are thrown away after packaging meat for humans to eat. Yeah, gross stuff. No good.
There are a few top of the line dog foods out there. But mostly NOT. Even science diet and those brands are high priced but use byproducts and corn fillers. Just remember those two points are your basic measure for a great food.
HAVE FUN WITH YOUR PUPPY
2008 Jul 03
Congrats on your puppy! I too have a Pyr, they are just the greatest!
Innova or Innova Evo and California Natural are my favorites.
As mentioned, anything all natural- nothing with ‘by product’ or corn or wheat. By product is not actual meat and corn & wheat are fillers. You may see beet juice listed an ingredient and that is bad too.
2008 Jul 03
Get something that is all natural. Nothing from Petsmart or Petco, they claim to be natural and good for you, but they are all made by the same crapy companies. Go to a specialty dog store. Merrick dog food is good, and California Natural. It depends on what area of the US you live in. We live in the DC area and it is filled with fru fru pet shops that have high quality food.
2008 Jul 06
Highest quality food is that you make yourself. Raw diet or BARF.
Works miracles.