What is the best dog food?Today dogs still require a balanced diet, and the best dog foods provide a lot of different ingredients, carefully supplemented with all the required amino acids (protein), fats, and carbohydrates, as well as essential vitamins and minerals. A high quality diet of 80% dry food is recommended. Commercial foods are far superior to diets composed of ingredients found in our kitchens. Ask your veterinarian for the best-recommended food for your dog.Also, our pet lovers here at the Pets Forum have given their input on what they have found to work best. I have edited them for spelling, punctuation and space, I did not change the content. Here are the responses:
Dtkaty - Nutro (Natural Choice) b/c it's the first dog food I've bought in 25 yrs of having dogs that keeps the coats shiny & healthy looking, my dogs love it, it's affordable, no allergic reactions to it, and no preservatives that could cause allergies, and it has good stuff in it. As far as I know no inhumane animal testing has been done for this product.
annellis - Nutro and Pro Pac, the latter I got at a feed store...highly digestable.
glaserberl - Flint River. All natural, oven baked, human grade ingredients.
Shboom - I use the Wellness brand dog food. I trust the Wellness company to let me...the consumer know if there is ever an ingredient change. Wellness is a baked, not extruded dog food that contains no animal by-products, animal fat, wheat, corn, soybean or dairy products. Wellness is high in Omega 3&6 fatty acids.
joepyeweed - When I feed kibble I feed Nutro - but mostly we feed raw meat and raw bones. Feeding raw is becoming more prevalent as more people and their dogs are seeing the benefits.
rachelacey - Innova Senior and Wysong canned.
DebbieP - I cook for my dog, she always has meat such as ground beef, turkey, pork, etc. with rice, broccoli, cheese added occasionally. Sometimes the rice is substituted with noodles of some sort and there are other foods added sometimes. I started doing this for her because she is such an itchy dog and this has helped.
Cynthia - Read the labels on any dog food and shoot for 30% or greater protein. Since dogs aren't carnivores, they need fruit and veggies too. Cooked spinach, pumpkin, bananas, kale, tomatoes, broccoli, peas, carrots are all good and can be given as treats or mixed with their kibble. Rice, cottage cheese and yogurt are good for them too. Toxic foods are grapes, raisins, onions, garlic, chocolate.
Cindy and Mocha - My dogs receive a combination of Home-cooked food and human-grade Premium food. "Human-grade" means fit for human consumption. Specifically I prepare a homemade concoction that I'll call a "stew" and combine it with a dry kibble called California Natural (made by Natura Pet). I also supplement my dogs' diet with a coat oil supplement that I prepare myself, and a powder supplement that I also prepare myself.
If possible, when selecting a dog food, look at the first 5 ingredients of the product. Ingredients are generally listed from highest quantity used to least. Avoid products that list corn (and corn products) in the first five ingredients. Also, I try to select a food that uses human grade meats and NO meat "by-products". By-products, for example, in chicken would be beaks, claws, heads, etc. A by-product will never be as nutritionally sound as the original product itself.
Entered by Michelle_S_PhxAZ