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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Recommend your dog food ....
I know this is random but I just read the posting about the Nutro dog food and this is the food our trainer recommended for our lab boxer mix... I know I should have done my homework but I assumed (I know I should never do that), that he knew what he was talking about. Can anyone recommend a reasonabled priced dog food for a large breed dog, she is 82-85 pounds now and just celebrated her second birthday on September 11 thanks ladies.
Re: Recommend your dog food ....
I honestly think it depends on your dog, and where you can get your dog food at. My rule of thumb is that whatever the grocery store offers is typically not a good product to feed your dog. *Purina, Ol'Roy, etc, Proplan, even Science Diet which people generally bought because it was endorsed as a 'Veterinary Recommended' product...but those vets were paid to endorse it and isn't all that great.
Every dog has different tastes, but I found this website to be helpful : http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
We feed our dog Canidae-All Life Stages. which is a 5-star rated food. I haven't found the 6 star rated foods hardly anywhere in my local pet store, so that's why I went to the 5 star lists. I chose canidae for the ingredients and its availability several of the local pet stores.
Innova, Wellness, Canidae (also offers a feline variety called Felidae), Merrick brand foods, etc are all good foods.
http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/22184909.aspx
Link from a similar thread not too long ago.
We use a variety of Purina Dog Chow, Purina One, and Beneful.
I don't understand this. Do you not eat things the grocery store sells?
I was feeding Nutro and found it to be much better than Iams. Fluffy has itchy skin and was using one of their sensitive formulas but they had trouble getting some of the ingredients so they stopped making his formula. I switched thenm to Natural Choice. It was expensive but didn't improve his skin so I went to Eukanuba. I didn't know that it's a not a very good food for the price though. I'm going to see what my vet thinks of Chicken Soup for The DOg Lover's Soul. Dumb name but it gets excellent ratings and it's the same price or cheaper than Euk or Nutro! I've also heard that Costco's brand is made by Diamond and it's very hightly rated but not too expensive.
(I know it sounds like I bounce around with foods but I've had them for over 7 years!)
I will ditto all of this.
I always buy our food at Complete Petmart, because they carry high quality foods. Grocery stores, and most of what Petsmart has is corn based. From my experience, when feeding "grocery store brands" to dogs, they poop more and are more hungry. Sure they might inhale the food, but it's because 1) they are so hungry because the food isn't sticking to them and 2) the food companies use certain flavors to entice the dogs. But, unfortunately carry little to no nutritional value.
Most vets will recommend Eukanuba or Science Diet, however the same company that makes those dog foods ALSO endorse a lot of "nutritional" training in vet schools. Go figure right?
You can check out the website www.dogfoodanalysis.com to see what foods are rated what. You want to feed between a 4-6 star food, notice how most grocery brands are 1.... maybe 2 starred.
I learned very quickly with two dogs over 75+ lbs to feed a higher quality food. After cleaning up all of the poop from the Iams or Eukanuba, you realize that spending a little more for a higher quality food is SO worth it.
GL!
FWIW- Nutro USED to be a much better food about 2+ years ago. It's just more recently that it's declined. We now feed Taste of the Wild, which works well for us and seems to be a bit less expensive. I believe it's 5-6star(depending on the kind you get). I also like it because quite a few local stores carry it (Newtown Feed, Bethel Feed and Supply) so I can support them, but is also available at Tractor Supply in case we need it while out of town or last minute.
As a sidenote, I love Newtown feed for my pet needs. They will order anything you can think of (toys, treats, sweaters, etc) and are very reasonably priced.
I use Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and Rice Formula.
My dog had excess shedding which was found to be related to a very common but underdiagnosed problem, food allergy.
My doggie is allergic to Corn (which is found in all Iams products).
The main thing you want to get is a food that the first two ingredients are meat products, not a meat and then a grain or something like that. Most vets and boarding places don't recommend the best foods, I'm not sure if they get kick backs from different companies. Check this website out, it's very helpful (and not biased). Often if you buy better and more nutritious food, you don't have to feed as much quantity (the crappy food you have to feed more to get the nutrients needed but with high quality food they don't need to eat as much to get all the nutrients needed).
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
We feed our dog Innova Puppy. It's a 5 star food (out of 6). A general good idea is to stay away from 'grocery store' brands. These are ones like: Iams, Purina, Eukenuba (sp?), etc.
The better quality foods may be more money per bag, but they are cheaper over time since you feed your pet less than the foods with lots of filler. It also has an impact on their poop (tmi, lol).
This is totally different. The standards for dog food are much different than that of food for people. If you don't care if you eat a ton of processed foods and things that are unhealthy then I could see how it wouldn't matter for your dog (I'm not saying this is true for you). If you are someone who wants your dog to be a little healthier and eating better food and ingredients it's important to do research.