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Originally Posted by PitBullMommie1206
Science Diet Adult Original Dry Dog Food
http://www.hillspet.com/hillspet/products/productDetails.hjsp?PRODUCT<>prd_id=84552444176061 6
Taken From Text:
Canidae All Life Stages Dry Dog Food
Canidae® Pet Foods: All Life Stages: Dry
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Oh, and I meant to explain why I highlighted certain ingredients red or blue.
In the Science Diet, I highlighted "Chicken" in blue because obviously, chicken is a good thing to have in a dog food. It's also good that it's the very first ingredient. Personally, when I'm looking for a good quality dog food for my 3 dogs, I would rather see chicken meal than just chicken though. I'll explain why in a minute. I highlighted "Ground Whole Grain Corn" in red because corn is just a cheap filler that a lot of dog food companies use. Dogs cannot digest corn, corn has no nutritional value to dogs it just makes them feel full faster, so they end up not getting the amount of nutrition they really need. Corn also causes my dogs to have horrible gas, and cheap fillers like corn cause
all dogs to poop more.
Because corn can't be digested by dogs, it just comes right back out. The cheaper the food, the more poop you have to clean up.
Now, for "Ground Whole Grain Sorghum" I didn't highlight it in red or blue because I had no idea what it was
, which is normally not a good thing. I did just look it up though and it is not a good thing. I should have highlighted it in red. The feed value of grain sorghum is similar to corn. It is grown mostly for a feed grain for livestock. I highlighted "Ground Whole Grain Wheat" in red because that is not something that is necessarily good for dogs. Dogs are primarily carnivores, they don't need a lot of grains and stuff like that. Not to mention, dogs more often than not have allergies to wheat. Wheat is just not something I want to see in a dog food that my dogs eat. And finally, I highlighted "Chicken By-Product Meal" in red because it is nasty, plain and simple! Chicken by-products are ground parts from poultry carcasses such as feet, heads, feathers, intestines, necks, undeveloped eggs, etc, etc, etc, and can include any rendered material. As I said before, when it comes to something like chicken, or any other whole meat (Besides beef because more often than not, dogs have allergies to beef.), I personally prefer to feed my dogs a food that has a lot of specific meat meals, such as chicken meal, turkey meal, lamb meal, etc. But, adding "meal" to the end of any by-products or non-specific meat does not make it any better.
In the Canidae, I highlighted "Chicken Meal" in blue because chicken meal is a great thing to see in a dog food. It is not a by-product or a non-specific meat such as poultry, and it's not beef. And again, I like that it is chicken meal and not just chicken. Of course, chicken is a good thing as well, but I prefer to feed my dogs specific meat meals. I have heard a lot of people say that they don't want to feed their dogs foods that are made with ingredients like chicken meal because they assume that is like chicken by-product, but that couldn't be farther from the truth! Basically, chicken meal is the chicken after it has been baked so it is clean and doesn't have all of the water in it. Here, this website explains it really well...
Chicken Compared To Chicken Meal by Sean L Breaking News
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Chicken meal is simply chicken that has been baked to remove bacteria and other toxins. Chicken is simply pure chicken.
What people dont know about chicken, is that it is made mostly of water. If a label on a bag of dog food says %60 whole chicken, that is quite misleading as that does not take into account how much of that %60 of chicken is left after baking it to remove unwanted substances!
When the label on the bag says %60 of chicken meal, your getting more of the chicken because the product has already been baked to remove unwanted affects such as bacteria.
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Anyway, moving on..lol
.. I highlighted "Turkey Meal" in blue for the same reason I highlighted "Chicken Meal" in blue. Same thing, it is a specific meat, it's not a by-product and it's not beef. "Turkey" and "Turkey Meal" are both great things to have in a dog food. For "Brown Rice" and "White Rice" I didn't highlight them blue or red because they are great and they aren't horrible. They are grains which as I said, dogs wouldn't naturally eat much of, but they are not a grain that a lot of dogs have allergies to either. As far as grains go, I definitely do not mind feeding my dogs a food that contains rice. And I highlighted "Lamb Meal" in blue because yet again, it is a specific meat, it's not a by-product and it's not beef.
I also wanted to talk about a few other common, nasty ingredients that are found in many, if not most, of the more popular, lower quality dog foods. The two ingredients that disgust me the most would have to be by-products and animal digest. I already explained why I won't feed my dogs a food that is made with by-products, but I wanted to explain why I don't like animal digest as well.
Animal digest, is in my opinion, the
worst thing to find in a dog food! Animal digest is the dry by-product of rendered meat. During rendering all "usable"
animal parts, including fetal tissue and glandular wastes, are heated in vats and the liquid is separated from the dry meal. The meal is covered in charcoal and labeled "unfit for human consumption" before processing it into pet food!
A few other things that I would never want to see in the list of ingredients for a dog food would be "Meat By-Products", "Poultry By-Products", "Meat", "Poultry" or "Meat Based". As far as the "Meat By-Products", "Poultry By-Products", "Meat" and "Poultry", of course, the by-products are horrible! But, it's the non-specific meats that I'm talking about here. I won't feed my dogs a food that isn't made with specific meats, as I have already said a couple times. Anything that says "Meat By-Product", "Poultry By-Product", "Meat" or "Poultry" is definitely a poor quality food. Oh, and like I said, adding "Meal" to the end of any of those ingredients doesn't make it any better. When a dog food says "Meat Based", again, that is non-specific meat which is not good. And a labels that says "Meat Based" may also include blood vessels, tendons, organs, and other parts of the rendered animal.
I don't think a lot of people realize that it is really worth the extra few bucks to go ahead and buy their dog a good quality food. I'm not saying that you were/are feeding your dog certain foods because they coast less, I'm just saying that I feel a lot of people will choose their dog's food based on the coast of the food. Or the coast will at least play a big part in what food they chose to buy.
When someone buys their dog say a $10-$15 bag of poor quality dog food, because of all of the cheep fillers and other nasty crap they have in these foods, their dog will have to eat a lot more than it would with a good quality dog food to get the amount of nutrients it needs. That means their will be more poop and the dog will go through the poor quality food much faster than it would with a good quality food. Not to mention, with a lot of the crap that is in these poor quality dog foods, dogs can end up with stomach aches from having gas, they can end up with skin/fur problems from allergies to certain things in the food, or they could get sick and possibly even die from eating a food that is made with by-products that contain cancerous or diseased tissue that could contain parasites!
Now, say you go ahead and spend the $22 for a bag of good quality food such as Canidae (We pay about $22 for the Canidae we buy), your dog will get the amount of nutrition it needs without having to eat nearly as much food, your dog won't be eating all of the cheap fillers and it won't be eating all of the nasty stuff like by-products, animal digest, etc.
Okay, I guess that's enough about the ingredients! lol!
If you couldn't tell, I tend to get worked up over this.
I am
very picky about what I feed my dogs after learning what I have learned about the ingredients in dog foods, and it just bothers me how these dog food companies are legally allowed to completely lie to people when it comes to their products! I wish I could tell every pet owner on earth that they really, really need to look into what they are feeding their companions!
These popular dog/cat food companies would be put out of business by the companies that actually make good quality foods if people knew the truth about what they are feeding their pets! IMHO, it is horrible that these companies can actually tell people, through commercials and on their products, that their foods are good for animals when they definitely aren't!
Anyway, I am so glad that you are considering switching your dog to a good quality food!
I can guarantee you will see a huge difference in your dog once he gets adjusted to his new food! Oh, and I read that you were concerned about the amount of protein in the Canidae Lamb and Rice. I am not an expert on any of this by any means, so I really couldn't tell you about the protein and how it would effect your dog. I would think you would just have to try it and see how everything goes.
There are plenty of other foods out there, good quality foods, but the foods that in my opinion are as good as Canidae all have the same amount of protein as Canidae. For dogs with food allergies, some other excellent foods are Wellness Simple Foods Solution Rice and Duck or Rice and Venison (
All Natural Dog Food - Simple Food Solutions - WELLNESS®) and Natural Balance Potato and Duck or Sweet Potato and Fish (
Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance® Dog Food). However, all of these foods, the Canidae Lamb and Rice, both of the Wellness foods and both of the Natural Balance foods have a pretty good amount of protein, They all say no less than 21%.
Another wonderful food is Innova EVO, it is also good for dogs with food allergies, but it has
a lot more protein than the other foods I have mentioned. I think it has something like 40something%!
Again, I'm not an expert on this, but I would think your dog would do just fine with the protein. All 3 of our dogs are terriers/working breed dogs (American Pit Bull Terriers), so they are already pretty high energy dogs to start with, but they do like to sleep on the sofa with me while I watch some TV, or they will nap while I'm doing stuff around the house during the day. They are laid back half of the time, and ready to play the other half. So, it's not like they are bouncing off of the walls 24/7! lol!
When we switched our dogs to Canidae, we saw so many huge changes in them, all good changes. But, they don't have a lot extra energy really. They are definitely healthier over-all than they were on Beneful and on Iams, and appearance wise they have changed a lot, they look noticeably healthier and happier, but their activity levels have stayed about the same. We do walk our dogs quite a bit though, so maybe we just don't notice that they have more energy because they are burning all of that extra energy everyday?
Our dogs get 1.5-3 hours worth of walks a day, normally. If I remember correctly, you said you own a Lab, right?
I have owned a Chocolate Lab and a Black Lab, and they both had about the same amount of energy our 3 APBTs do, if not more! lol!
I know every dog is different, even dogs of the same breed, but I would think as long as your dog is getting the proper amount of daily exercise, the extra protein wouldn't be a big deal.
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Feed what is right for your dog
