[nagdu] new dog food...

[Sherry Gomes]

Hey Dan,

I try to feed my dog a high quality food. Here are some of my requirements.
I'll start by saying I would have preferred a grain free diet--dogs in the
wild don't eat grain as a rule--but my Olga couldn't handle that. So, here's
why and what I look for.

1. meat is the first ingredient in the list of ingredients. Dogs need meat
and if it's not the first thing on the list the food is likely to have a lot
of corn or fillers.

2. no corn or wheat in the ingredients. Corn isn't necessarily very
digestible for dogs, not really great for humans either come to that, and
it's really more a filler in dog food than having any nutritional value.
Wheat can also be hard to digest and many dogs have allergies to corn or
wheat.

3. I stay away from a lot of fillers, like soy and meat byproducts, beet or
tomato pulp. It's just filler and not necessary for the dogs.

A good friend of mine is a dog food expert, and I've gotten all my knowledge
from her as well as following up and reading about dog nutrition. The food
my girls eat does have avocado in it, but it was the only food Olga could
handle without eventually having diarrhea. Other than the avocado, the food
pretty much has lamb and brown rice. I think this food does have some of
that tomato pulp in it, but as it was the only negative ingredient, and the
food Olga can eat consistently without being sick, I take that. If I get
another guide dog after she retires, I'll try the dog on the grain free diet
again, because I still think it's the most natural food outside feeding raw
that I can find. 

One frustrating thing for me is that I can't find a senior dog food with
lamb and rice. Every food I've looked at for senior dogs--my retired girl is
twelve and a half--has chicken in it. She's eaten lamb all her life, and I
don't want to switch her to chicken, but I think the regular dog food might
be a little much for her system. Senior dog foods also often have a lot of
fillers in them, another reason I haven't looked too hard for something. But
if I found a quality lamb and rice senior dog food, I'd switch the old one
to that.

By the way, nothing wrong with chicken dog food, or beef or any of the other
available meat sources. Olga and Bianca, and the two dogs before them just
couldn't handle the chicken based foods, so it's been lamb and rice for my
dogs for about twenty years.

Sherry

 

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cindy Ray
Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2013 9:04 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] new dog food...

Dan, I can't remember why yo are seeking another dog food. I feed Iams
MiniChunks for Adult Dogs, or something like that. I feed it because that's
what The Seeing Eye was feeding and I could see no reason for changing it.
If he gets too fat, I'll have to do something else. The food is easy to get,
it is moderately priced, and the dogs here all thrive on it. So I have no
scientific reason for feeding my dog what I'm feeding him.

Cindy Lou

On Aug 31, 2013, at 10:00 AM, "daniel" <gutz2020 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey guys, I know dog food has been a hot topic on the list lately. I wrote
> to the list a while back asking about suggestions for a food to feed
Irene.
> I heard natural balance a lot along with a few others. When I went to the
> vet he suggested purina.has anyone used purina and liked it? Also, could
> yall tell me why yall use the foods yall use? I'm trying to find a good
one
> for Irene but I just don't know what to look for.and there's so so many
> options out there.aaaaaahrg!!!!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dan.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> nagdu mailing list
> nagdu at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
nagdu:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/cindyray%40gmail.com


_______________________________________________
nagdu mailing list
nagdu at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nagdu:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/sherriola%40gmail.com