Good brands of dog food?

[Becki]

Now that we've moved, I will be buying the dog food and I'd really like to get the dogs off of this generic crap theyre on now. Does anyone know which brands are good (and somewhat affordable)? Claudia is getting super chubby, so shoud I go with a diet type food? Scrappy will be eating it too though so I'm not sure if that will work

I'm looking into the Chicken soup food that Jade mentioned but that may not be very available/affordable so any other reccomendations would be much appreciated!

[Jade]

Really what you should look at are the first few ingredients in any pet food. Stay far away from by-products, corn in the first few ingredients, BHT/BHA, Ethoxyquin, and collective feed terms.

I also like Flint River Ranch as well as the Chicken Soup one I posted. http://www.frrinc.com/

[pammiedrew]

I had to put my dogs on Nutro. Which is just as good as the Vet stuff. They have Lite too. My dogs eat Lamb and Rice only.It doesn't have all the crap in it that the cheap stuff does.My Vet was happy to her that my guys were on Nutro. I figured she would have something to say about it, but she said that was a good brand. Of course you can only get it at a pet store. To me it has worked well with my over weigh Basset Hound and Chihuahua. But this is just me,my basset is allergic to meat so I had to get lamb and rice. It is my favorite.And they all like it.

[DirtySouthChins]

Well our dogs are all on Pedigree (small bites), it has done them wonders and it is cheaper.... Our Vet says this works great for our dogs, their fur is nice and shiny, their health is great, and they don't get overweight.... Now I know most won't approve of this food, because it is store bought, but we have tried, Iams, and eukanuba and science diet when they were younger, and it didn't do them justice so I got tired of spending alot of $$ to find the right food and went with pedigree and they have been on it for years now, and works for them
P.S. not to mention we can get a 50 pound bag for $16 at Sam's Club

[Jodi]

For puppies I use Eukanuba puppy small bites.

For adults doggies I've always used Proplan Lamb & Rice. We've had good luck with it and the dogs coats all seemed to be shiney. I think it's about $20 for a 40lb bag.

Good luck in choosing...there are so many brands that sometimes it can be overwhelming trying to choose! But I agree with everyone else - your best bet is to look at the first few ingredients.

[Dena]

I use Nutro also, specifically NutroMax Natural which is chicken and lamb. It costs $25 for a 35 or 40 pund bag (can't remember which). They have lots of diffent formulas. My old boss from the petstore rescued a greyhound. He put his dog on Nutro and used a suppliment (Nupro - not the same company) and he swears by it. Nutro also has less fillers than many other foods and keeps the poopies firmer and less of em!

[Laurie]

My dog is picky. She has been on Science Diet small bites for a couple of years. I switched over to Nutro. I found it at my pet store and they also have a punch card where you buy so many bags and get one free.Its the chicken meal rice and oatmeal for sensitive stomachs.
I was told the poopies would be firmer too!

[Becki]

Thanks everyone! Today is the day we've all been waiting for...new dog food shopping day!

Hopefully we'll come home with the miracle food, so then do we need to wean the dogs to the new food or just switch? Keeping in mind that our dogs eat anything and everything. Thanks again!

[Jade]

Definitely wean them. Use the same technique you would with the chinnies!

WOW. I just looked at the Nutro products and am definitely impressed!!

[BrendaLynn]

I have had really great luck with Purina Dog Chow. I know it seems like a lame food however it has kept many of my families dogs healthy, trim, and satisfied for very long lives.

My sister's Rottweiler and mine wouln't eat anything else and Weilly is 12 years old. Very old for a Rottie. (she's still going strong)

[Candycane]

I also feed my dog Nutro. He has a thyroid condition and seems to do well on the food. However, if I could, I would switch him to Innova. I know that it is a bit more expensive but I have just switched my cats over and the difference is amazing!! Their coats are fuller and more shiny and my IBS cat has great stools.

[Becki]

Sheesh, this is tougher than I thought! Really, just about anything is better than the food they were getting, but once I got started I'm obsessed with finding the best I can afford So we went to Walmart....they have 2 huge isles of dog food, so I figured they'd have lots to choose from (sounded like a good idea at the time, I dunno what I was thinking). So I spent about an hour flipping 40lb bags of dog food around trying to find the ingredients and lemme tell you, some of the brands I thought would be good SUCK! Going with the 'anything is better than what they have' theory, I wound up with a bag of Ol' Roy...it looked to be just about the best there...not that that's saying much. And then something I never even considered happened! They WOULDN'T EAT IT!?!? Our dogs will eat a piece of lettuce if you drop it on the floor...thier favorite treat is to sneak into the animal room and eat chinchilla turds and yet they won't eat the food I bought!!! So, I was looking at petco and petsmart online and I'm going to go get some Nutro ASAP. I think I'm going to go with the Nutro Max Natural. Ol' Roy...in the garbage...

There are a few vet techs on another board I go to who say that Ol' Roy is about the crappiest excuse for dog food there is. Your dogs must know

We use a locally made stuff that is sold nationally, I think it's called Buckeye premium or something close to that. It's not the highest quality, but it's acceptable and our female who's been on it since she was taken off puppy food is at a healthy weight with healthy coat and such. Our dog we've had for a few months now who needs to lose some weight is doing good on it too.

[Becki]

Ok, we finally wound up with Nutro Natural Lamb and Rice... I'm pretty happy with it ingriedient wise and price wise ($30 for 44lbs plus my petstore friends employee discount). AND, more importantly, the doggies like it, woo hoo! I'm trying to switch them over slowly, but my dogs have this habit of taking a mouthful of food from the bowl and carrying it off to eat it...not so bad before, but now when they put it down to eat it, they pick out the Nutro and leave most of the old food on the floor
If anyone's curious, here's the ingriedient list;
Ingredients
Lamb Meal, Ground Rice, Rice Flour, Rice Bran, Sunflower Oil (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of natural Vitamin E), Poultry Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of natural Vitamin E), Natural Flavors, Rice Gluten, Dried Egg Product, Dried Beet Pulp, Potassium Chloride, L-Lysine, Dried Kelp (source of Iodine), Salt, Choline Chloride, Zinc Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, Taurine, Ferrous Sulfate, Ascorbic Acid (source of Vitamin C), Biotin, Copper Proteinate, Niacin, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement (source of Vitamin B2), Vitamin A Supplement, Glucosamine Hydrochloride, Chondroitin Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (source of Vitamin B6), Thiamine Mononitrate (source of Vitamin B1), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (source of Vitamin K activity), Calcium Iodate, Folic Acid.

Any of you food experts know what Tocopherols are? It said a natural source of vitamin E...natural, and a source of vitamins, so I wasn't too concerned with it but still curious.

[Jade]

It's a form of preservative, basically different types of oils and anti-oxidants the body uses, including Vitamin E (I could give you the technical definition but it'd be pointless). It's MUCH better as a preservative than BHT, BHA or Ethoxyquin and is my preservative method of choice.