[nagdu] New Dog food

Raven Tolliver ravend729 at gmail.com
Sun Sep 1 16:19:14 UTC 2013


Hi Daniel,
I have gone through several dog food switches, and for the last
switch, I poured days and hours of research into making my decision. I
returned home with my golden last June, and fed him Iams Lamb and
Rice, which is what the school feeds their dogs. After a bit of online
research, I discovered that this was not a high quality dog food.
Personally, I could not possess that knowledge and continue to feed my
dog that food, so two months later, I switched him to a grain-free
diet -- Acana Pacifica. I wanted to feed him grain-free to reduce
stool volume. The larger the stool, the less nutrients your dog is
absorbing. This year, I decided to change dog food again back in July
because I: (1) noticed that my dog was getting chronic ear infections
on his diet; and (2) noticed that the price of the food was slowly
increasing. Below is the process I used to research and find the right
dog food and dog treats for my golden guy.
First, I researched which ingredients are poor quality and high
quality. An excellent website I found is:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Report_pet_food_ingredients_2.html
On that page is a list of ingredients, their quality rating, and what
they mean. There are also links to other lists of excellent and poor
quality dog food ingredients.
Next, I researched what constitutes a good diet for a golden retriever
because that is the breed of dog I work. A website that provides
excellent guidelines is:
http://www.yourgoldenretriever.net/best-food-for-your-golden-retriever
I would use most of these guidelines to make my decision on a dog food
I fed any adult dog, not just goldens.
Then, from the first two websites, I made a table with a yes column,
which listed the ingredients that are must-haves, and a no column,
which listed the ingredients that are no-nos. Some of my requirements
are: grain-free, must have multiple probiotics, first two ingredients
must be sources of meat, no selenium yeast, no sodium, and no meat
meals (excluding lamb meal) or meat by-products. I also wanted to feed
my dog a fish-based recipe since most fish ingredients are high
quality, and fish-based recipes are not as likely to include chicken
meal, which is a common allergy for dogs. I also did not want a dog
food brand that had been recently recalled.
>From there, I set a price range, which was $40-62. I wanted to pay at
least ten dollars less than the price of the previous food,, and did
not want to cheap out since generally, the less a dog food cost, the
worse the ingredients are.
I then started searching on chewy.com for my dream dog food. Wellness
Core grain-free Ocean Formula was what I came up with. For dog treats
I give Stewart Pro-Treat Freeze-Dried Beef Liver primarily, and
Dogswell Veggie Life Vitality Chicken & Sweet Potato for a higher
value treat. I also give my golden a quarter cup of pear twice a week
since pear is high in fiber.
As you can see, I put a lot of thought and research into switching dog
foods. This is not an easy decision, and it should not be made
lightly. I hope this helps.

-- 
Raven




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