[NAGDU] Grain vs Other Food

[Tracy Carcione]

Thanks Marge, that was interesting.  It sure is hard to find foods that
don't have poultry.  Krokus seems to be allergic to chicken, and finding
food without it is indeed not as simple as one would think.
Also interesting that your dog needs some grain, and is doing well with
oats.  Krokus is quite thin, though I think at an OK weight, so I'll keep
your experience in mind.
Tracy


-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Marj Schneider
via NAGDU
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2017 8:22 AM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Cc: Marj Schneider
Subject: [NAGDU] Grain vs Other Food



Hello All,

I don't often post to this list, but thought I would weigh in on this topic
because my experience with grain-free versus foods with grain is different
from others who have posted.

First, I absolutely recommend no one feed a dog food with corn, and
fortunately there are many choices available that weren't around even 10
years ago. Corn is the only grain used in commercial pet food that is
genetically modified and it has been for a long time. Various allergies and
digestive problems can be attributed to it, and I was convinced to
never eat food products myself that include   non-organic corn in its
various forms and to never feed it to my dogs more than 15 years ago. At the
time my Seeing Eye shepherd had chronic ear infections and a holistic vet
suggested corn might be the culprit. There weren't many non-corn foods
available then, but when I switched her food the ear infections went away,
never to return, and I've not had a dog with ear infections since that time,
thanks to not feeding a food with corn.

With my current Seeing Eye shepherd, Fennel, I started off by switching
around among various foods, finally settling on Wellness Core, which is
grain free. Fennel would be very hungry before mealtimes and she stayed
quite thin. I didn't want her under 50 pounds, but it didn't matter how much
I fed, her weight stayed low. When I switched to a grain-containing version
of Wellness, it had more calories, more carbs and she finally got to 51
pounds.

I was happy with that food, but then this spring a veterinary
ophthalmologist found a small lipid deposit in Fennel's right cornea and
recommended that I keep her on a lower fat diet without any poultry among
its ingredients. Anecdotal evidence has shown that in some dogs those
corneal lipid deposits dissolve on a diet without poultry.

The ophthalmologist had no specific foods to recommend, but seemed to think
there were many to choose from. I found that was not the case, though I did
find the Dog Food Advisor and Chewy.com were very helpful sites for doing my
research. Given what I've learned about what ingredients are of nutritional
value to a dog and which are controversial, I knew what I didn't want in a
food, along with the requirement for no poultry.

I settled on one of the Taste of the Wild grain-free formulas with beef,
lamb and pork. It seemed like a good solution, but within three weeks of
Fennel eating that food she had lost 10% of her body weight. After I started
adding significant amounts of cooked oats to her meals her weight bounced
back again and I definitely learned my lesson.

I went back to Chewy.com and the Dog Food Advisor and found a Canidae lamb,
oat and rice formula that is affordable and has more calories per cup than
most other foods I looked at. I'm sure hoping this food will be a good one
for Fennel because the only other choice I found was a similar Wellness
formula that costs considerably more. Once you really look at the
ingredients in these foods, most of them, from affordable to expensive, use
poultry as fat or as one of their meats. The options are more limited than
you would think. If, over time, the corneal lipid deposit doesn't resolve
I'll go back to a grain-containing food with chicken because there are so
many more options.

My point is that while the newer grain-free foods seem to benefit many dogs
from the standpoint of potentially reducing inflammation and providing more
of what they need to maintain a healthy weight, not all dogs will do well on
them, just as all dogs don't do well on a raw food diet. Dogs genetically
predisposed to be thin may need more grain-based carbohydrates to stay
healthy. Figuring out the best fit requires doing homework or at least
consulting people who are knowledgeable and being aware of the ingredients
and how they can impact a dog's health. After all, diet is one aspect of our
dogs' health that we have control over and we should make well informed
choices that will be best for our particular dog.


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