question for dog lovers

Naturapet make a line of food called Innova. One of their formulas is salmon and herring as the top protein. No corn or wheat. Most dogs are allergic in some respects to corn and most commercial foods have a lot of it! We've been using them for years on our pups. The switch came when we were feeding Science Diet lite to my old girl Sophie. I realized that one of the ingredients was 18% peanut shells!!! These higher quality foods are more expensive, but you feed less, and you pick up far less in the yard! We use Innova, but there are a lot of good human grade pet foods out there. Frank and Lily to the left will concur!
 
Adam, great post. I picked up Evo for our boston terrier today. This thread is very well timed. We had planned to switch to a healthier brand, but I had a really tough time picking from the options available.

I went with the chicken/turkey so that I'm not drastically changing both the grain and protein source at once. We've got half of a bag of the old stuff so that he can gradually adjust.

Gary Majchrzak said:
furthermore... I'd love to know the ingredients in those pellets fed to Salmonoids at the hatcheries...
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I refuse to eat farmed salmon, and this is also my concern for the salmon based dog foods (is it farm raised or wild caught?).

I've read that farmed salmon enjoy diets that include mashed fish, fish oil, soy, corn, and chicken manure. The pellets are high in fat and high in toxins. Compared to wild caught, farm raised salmon have high calories, more fat, and less omega 3 per serving by a factor of 2. Beyond the nutritional quality, they have high levels of pesticides, PCBs, and fire retardants (what the heck). One article suggested that eating any more than 1 serving per month of farm raised salmon increases your risk of cancer.

Even wild caught is tricky. Some salmon are farm hatched then released. Farm raised salmon frequently escape (great news for recent consideration given to allowing salmon to be genetically modified). There has also been a lot of press about how common it is for fish to be mislabeled in grocery stores.
 
The labels aren't going to tell you much. They are seldom accurate . One thing the big companies have going for them is buying power. Small companies have a hard time sourcing ingredients. Giants like Purina buy in huge quantities. They police themselves in order to maintain their reputation. Small companies are at the mercy of the marketplace. The FDA is a joke . Pet food companies get away with murder. Luckily, dogs can tolerate appalling ingredients.
 
Okay. So I walk into petsmart to buy the standby purina dog chow. A guy walks up without introduction and gives me a sales pitch to buy whatever designer brand he's pushing. I don't think it was a petsmart employee. He's waayyy too polished at what he's got to say. He seems to be basing his presentation on "no byproducts." I remark "what's wrong with by-products?" I don't think a wolf, fox, coyote or for that matter a housepet dog or human wouldn't benefit from some hair, cartilage and organ tissue once in a while." It really set him aback. He turned tail and started preaching to the next person that walked up the aisle.
I havent' studied the subject AT ALL. Fill me in. I want to know.
What's wrong with by-products?
 
It's all about quality, by products show low quality. Wolves may eat all of that, but I never saw a wolf eating corn or drooling over the bounties of a rice paddy..
 
I don't believe theres anything wrong with byproducts but when that's all they're getting in there diet its not optimal. Commercial byproducts are probably somewhat different from the byproducts I've fed my dogs (tripe, chicken feet, livers, hocks, tails, necks).

For those interested in the raw diet. We tried it and we're done with it. We had 4 farting and burping dogs whos tummies just didn't adapt as quickly as we would have liked. Now its only supplemental raw. More room in the freezer for fish food.
 
teamdulski said:
It's all about quality, by products show low quality. Wolves may eat all of that, but I never saw a wolf eating corn or drooling over the bounties of a rice paddy..
Click to expand...

Is corn and rice considered by product now?

akitareefer said:
I don't believe theres anything wrong with byproducts but when that's all they're getting in there diet its not optimal. Commercial byproducts are probably somewhat different from the byproducts I've fed my dogs (tripe, chicken feet, livers, hocks, tails, necks).
Click to expand...

Are tripe, chicken feet, liver, hocks, tails and neck considered by product now as well? Most of these are sold at Wegman's. The rest are all available at the public market for human consumption. Don't tell anyone else, but most of what you listed have the best flavors for soups and stock... Poor man's food I guess. Wings used to fall into the same catagory. Flank steak as well.... How about bone marrow and the knuckle end of bone? Both wonderful product to cook with. Both available at Weggies. The very term by-product was a marketing ploy to drive up the demand/price of delmonico/ribeye steak.

Mikey (Mag) chime in here...
 
Sophie10 said:
Naturapet make a line of food called Innova. One of their formulas is salmon and herring as the top protein. No corn or wheat. Most dogs are allergic in some respects to corn and most commercial foods have a lot of it! We've been using them for years on our pups. The switch came when we were feeding Science Diet lite to my old girl Sophie. I realized that one of the ingredients was 18% peanut shells!!! These higher quality foods are more expensive, but you feed less, and you pick up far less in the yard! We use Innova, but there are a lot of good human grade pet foods out there. Frank and Lily to the left will concur!
Click to expand...

Beware of any of the foods that Naturapet now makes. It is no longer the same quality foods that it was before Procter and Gamble(the same company that makes Iams amongst others) bought out the company. The formulas have switched and there have been many recent recalls including a recent one on Evo/Innova/California Natural/Healthwise and Karma for salmonella.

I used to LOVE the foods that Naturapets produced and was sad to be forced to switch from a food that was working for my animals. I breed/show bullmastiffs as well as have many rescue dogs in my house so a quality food is very important here.
 
Steve Canyon said:
Is corn and rice considered by product now?



Are tripe, chicken feet, liver, hocks, tails and neck considered by product now as well? Most of these are sold at Wegman's. The rest are all available at the public market for human consumption. Don't tell anyone else, but most of what you listed have the best flavors for soups and stock... Poor man's food I guess. Wings used to fall into the same catagory. Flank steak as well.... How about bone marrow and the knuckle end of bone? Both wonderful product to cook with. Both available at Weggies. The very term by-product was a marketing ploy to drive up the demand/price of delmonico/ribeye steak.

Mikey (Mag) chime in here...
Click to expand...

Corn and rice aren't by products, they just aren't normal foods for dogs, as well as a lot of animals. White rice is filler and has almost no nutritional value. Corn has little nutritional value, is high in sugar, and one of the most genetically modified foods. The abundance of corn in diets of humans and animals is fairly recent and is being linked to health problems.

Wegmans also sells cake. That doesn't mean that it should be my breakfast lunch and dinner for my entire life.

However, I agree with variety, and I agree with challenging the marketing. Terms like organic and by-product don't have a legal standard and are being heavily used for marketing purposes.
 
Domestic dogs came to being living off the byproducts of man. That little Snickerdoodle has such terrible skin allergies is the result of breeding practices. Travel to a developing land and you will see what dogs are suppose to look like; they will eat any and everything. That said our champion Saluki gets much better food than the others, but that is mostly a result of her finickiness; yes, even the oldest breed known has lost its connection to it's canine past.
 
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This thread has kind of evolved into a dog food discussion, so...

My two labs get Purina One Lamb and Rice as their main food. Their diet is supplemented with fresh and/or frozen fruits and veggies. They like apples, oranges, watermelon, pumpkin, green beans, carrots, cantaloupe, banana, tomato. (No grapes, they can be poisonous). Sometimes they just gnaw on the broccoli, but if I tell them to eat it, they will.

It is easier to give them the fruits and veggies in season. So, if our garden has an abundance of green beans, they get those. Apples and oranges are easy. When the bag starts to get a bit old and they aren't as good anymore, I'll chop them up and use them as treats. Halloween is a great time to give them pumpkins.

During and after hunting season, the dogs get the parts of the deer that we don't use. We cook the meat, fat, and gristle, but give them the raw bones to chew on.

Both dogs love scrambled eggs. They get them as a treat every once in a while.


My mother feeds her husky a bagged food made primarily of whitefish and potatoes. If you are interested, I'll find out the brand. She (the dog) does not do well with the rice and corn in most dog food. Whenever my dogs come over and eat some, they get smelly farts though :D
 
I feed royalcanin large breed adult half and half with prepared veggies and brown rice. its 2/3 cup of dog food and 2/3 cup of green beans, sweet potatos, broccoli, and spinach run thru the food processor and mixed in with brown rice, twice a day.
 
reefboarder said:
I feed royalcanin large breed adult half and half with prepared veggies and brown rice. its 2/3 cup of dog food and 2/3 cup of green beans, sweet potatos, broccoli, and spinach run thru the food processor and mixed in with brown rice, twice a day.
Click to expand...

This thread really HAS gone in direction other than it started. My bad as much as the next guy.. oh well, Hope you forgive us all Gary. I don't think you ever really got to the basis of your question. This goes to your feeding your fish dogfood, right?
Ours dog gets 1/4 cup kibble in the morning. Sometimes she lets it sit till the following day. If it's gone by the end of the 2ndvday she may get a bite size carrot as a treat. I bet your fish get about the same amount, only brocolli instead of the carrot, right
 
I used to catch dogfish quite often fishing northern Minnesota waters as a boy. Ive made money putting lots of fish in the boat from Alaska to the Caribbean, and dogfish are as mean and nasty a fish as I have come by.
 
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