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Our 2 year old dog has been eating TOTW Bison formula since he was a pup. We just discovered his current bag is one of the contaminated bags. We'd like to just go ahead and switch to another brand. Our dog is a mix breed, german shephard/australian shephard/and many other breeds I'm sure and aroudn 50lbs.
What other brands that have NOT been involved in recalls lately would you recommend? We'd like to stick around $50 per 30lb bag. Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
orijen, merrick Before grain, Solid Gold (though i belive theres a voluntary recal for SG right now not related to the Diamond SC plant issues), Evo, Earthborn, Fromm, Welness Core, Wysong all come to mind. i havent looked into the prices of any of them reacently, but those are all 5 star foods.
Location: ๏̯͡๏﴿ Gwinnett-That's a Civil Matter-County
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I've been using Castor & Pollux for one of the dogs for several years now. At one time I had a round of emails with the owner who was very receptive to my feedback and even sent me some goodies. That dog has done well on that. I am not aware of any recalls. It's a small company , mom and pop type or at least it used to be. Sold at petco and some petsmarts now. Whole foods also has it.
My other dog is on wellness core ocean. It's overkill for most dogs, real high protein, but there are some advantages. The company is receptive to calls and emails about quality. One time they ran a test on some samples I had sent to them when my dogs were on one of their other products. I don't recall ever hearing about a recall but they're growing by leaps and bounds. Now they have some lower priced foods. What I can tell you is the dog that eats it is 26 lbs and only eats about 8/10 a cup a day, and his weight is maintained even with a fairly high activity level. Even with C&P, he was on 1.25 cups a day. So even though it costs more... it's like $65 a bag... you can feed your dog less. They sell this at petco and certain petsmarts as well as certain whole foods markets. Don't buy there tho, too expensive.
You might also check around locally. Some cities have locally made dog foods. Supposedly there is some where I live but I haven't tried it.
I just switched from TOTW to Wellness Core and my dog really likes it. Now - Wellness had a recall too - but just the large breed puppy; Core isn't made by Diamond.
But, Core is also outsourced, just to a different company.
I'm risking it for now; all this switching is exhausting and my dog has other issues.
I feed Wellness Core ocean. It's not as good as it was before they merged with Eagle Pack and changed the ingredients, but my dog is sensitive to a lot of foods and he tolerates it better than most other brands.
Organix from Castor & Pollux is an excellent food, and I put my dog on it after Wellness changed their ingredients, but he was sensitive to something in it, so I put him back on Core. I know several dogs who are doing excellent on Organix. My dog just has a lot of food sensitivities and allergies. Castor & Pollux merged with Merrick last month, so expect them to grow a bit.
Orijen is another very good brand and so is Fromm.
Proctor and Gamble bought Natura, which includes Evo, Innova, Karma, California Natural, Mother Nature, and Healthwise so I'm a little leary about those now, but that's just me.
I just switched my dog from Natures Choice to TOTW because of recalls. When I saw a recall from them ..I thought &^%$! It was not an easy switch for her. I did some poking around and found a lot of companies have recalls. This particular one was a voluntary recall by the company because the food was processed in the same plant but so far no problems have been found with it. That makes me feel better. So for now I am staying with TOTW - just changing flavors.
Orijen is great but I found it to be too rich and can be overkill. My dogs are on Acana (Champion pet foods/same as Orijen) grain free Pacifica. It's very similar to Orijen but with a lower protein content and both my dogs thrive on it. It's not outsourced and completely made in house which is a plus.
Fromm and Merricks before grain are great foods as well and they're slightly more affordable than Acana/Orijen.
I'm using a mix of Grandma Lucy's Pureformance Chicken (a freeze dried food that turns into a wet food with water added) and Orijen. I was a loyal TOTW user, but even before the recall, two of my dogs started to get really gassy on it. Grandma Lucy's would be out of your preferred price range, but the Orijen is great. The former uses all US-sourced, human grade ingredients, and the latter is all Canadian-sourced ingredients.
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