WHY?

Food, Fitness and how to keep them healthy.

Postby katiek0417 » May 10th, 2006, 10:00 pm

JennKBM wrote:Very interesting! How long did you have the dogs on the type of food, if you don't mind me asking?

I can honestly say, that I did notice a difference from the Diamond, to the DVP when I switched, but by looking at pictures and such I honestly can't see that HUGE of a difference. They eat a hell of a lot faster, seem to enjoy it much more, and it doesn't have all the fillers Diamond had. There was so difference in my poop scoop duty.. The difference isn't so much in the amount of poop, though it is a little less more so in the horrid smell of the poop which I appreciate much more being I'm the one shoveling it!! :D


My lab definitely poops ALOT less...and the smell isn't nearly as bad...
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Postby pocketpit » May 10th, 2006, 11:02 pm

Very interesting! How long did you have the dogs on the type of food, if you don't mind me asking?


They are still currently on it, and it's been between 2-3 months now. Like you I think the poo smells less awful and there is a bit less of it than before. I will continue to feed it until I'm out of my current supply and then re evaluate what they'll be eating from now on.
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Postby msvette2u » May 10th, 2006, 11:35 pm

gf turtle wrote:

A few years ago when I was having money troubles, I was buying "broken" bags (ones with holes in them) for cheap. I was sometimes able to get big bags of Innova for about $10 which really helped. But often I ended up with Premium Edge and other brands. You do what you gotta do...


That's what we do too. We don't get some of them, the really yuk brands and we skip Iams too because IMO it's no better than Purina. If I'm going to buy that quality I am not going to spend $30.00 a bag to do it!!
I seriously had a lady ask me not long ago what we fed our dogs, their coats gleam in the photos I take. I think she was insulted when I told her we buy the ripped bags at half price :oops:
They are so healthy - nobody has been ill, the only vet visits are for injuries (seldom) and rabies shots (required by law). Copper is the only one with health problems and his, I am positive, is genetic. Plus we didn't get our hands on him until not quite two years ago and his teeth were horrid :shock:
Let me just say this - you can think what you want about how we feed our dogs but we've saved way more lives than the 5 we own right now. All of them were rescued from the kill shelter except Lambie and I'm not 100% sure what her fate would have been but I know what the others would have been.
We have Kona and her babies, who are fed on donated food from Kaye's shelter (right now it's Sensible Choice Puppy from Royal Canin), and we've rescued 30 dogs or more over the past not quite 5 years. And we couldn't have done that buying Timberwolf, as much as I'd love to feed the "top of the line" food.
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Postby Magnolia618 » May 11th, 2006, 12:16 am

I'm far too tired to respond to this entire thread right now, but I just want to add that raw feeding is CHEAP!!!

Maggie eats a pound of meat a day. I rarely spend more than $1 per pound on meat. I bought chicken for .39 cents a pound the other day.

39 cents times thirty. That is less than TWELVE DOLLARS A MONTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Yes, I do spend more than that, but not much.
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Postby turtle » May 11th, 2006, 2:27 am

msvette2u wrote:
gf turtle wrote:A few years ago when I was having money troubles, I was buying "broken" bags (ones with holes in them) for cheap. I was sometimes able to get big bags of Innova for about $10 which really helped. But often I ended up with Premium Edge and other brands. You do what you gotta do...


That's what we do too. We don't get some of them, the really yuk brands and we skip Iams too because IMO it's no better than Purina.



Yes, Yvette, that's a good point. I was criticized a bit at the time for buying broken ripped bags but the savings made it worth it for me. My dog did just fine on those foods.

I remember something I thought quite interesting that you had posted back on the old ARC forum. You said many of the shelter dogs that came into your shelter did better on the cheaper foods. It was like the high quality foods were just too rich for them. Their systems were used to eating very little food and much of that food was garbage, so it sort of shocked their systems if they got a rich food like Innova. Makes sense to me...

It's all relative when you think about it. Each person has a different situation and each finds what works for them. I only have one dog and now that my husband is working again, I can buy the TW and supplement with raw. But if things got bad again, well I'd be looking for broken bags and feed the better ones of those. I doubt highly that I would ever feed Ol'Roy or Purina, but in a pinch, Premium Edge is not too bad!

And yes, you can find raw for pretty cheap if you look for it. I bought chicken quarters recently for 19 cents a pound, it's hard to beat that price! And we ate some of them too. LOL, I got some really nice veal osso bucco bones for cheap because they were expired and we had a couple of them for dinner! I was not planning on that, but hubby wanted to try making it and since you simmer them for a long time, we tried it. Yummm, they were good. And Fremiet did not complain that we ate her food...
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Postby babyreba » May 11th, 2006, 9:01 am

I dunno, my parents feed Nutro dog food to their 14-year-old Golden Retriever, and that was a huge improvement from the Pedigree they used to feed him. He's as healthy and happy as can be. And I don't try to convince them to change his food anymore, though I did a few years back.

I tried to convince them to try to feed him Wellness and he ended up with colitis. Since then, Jupiter has remained on Nutro, and I think he's doing great on it. I won't even try to tell them to feed something different, as the dog is happy and healthy. Healthier than my Reba, who is the same age and gets raw and Wellness.

I personally don't want to feed my dog Nutro, but it agrees with their dog, and he's happy, so it's their business.

When I was a kid our dogs used to eat Gravy Train (gag) and those weird moist burger packets! :o
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Postby Jenn » May 11th, 2006, 9:04 am

I'd imagine those burger packs would cause some major gas! :shock:LOL!
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Postby Magnolia618 » May 11th, 2006, 9:16 am

I dont think I will ever understand why people wouldnt want the very best thing possible for their dogs. :|

My boyfriend is probably about to get a rottweiler from the shelter. I will be living with him for the summer with Maggie and Trey. I dont know how comfortable he would be with feeding the dog raw. He is still learning about it, but he is very interested in it. He asked all kinds of questions the first time I bought chicken with him.

Doesnt it make them mean? Can they eat the bones? Are you sure it's ok?

Now he just laughs his ass off every time we pass the meat section in shoprite and I say "Do I have enough dog food?"

He doesnt know about dog nutrition, so I am going to buy him a big bag of Canidae. Its not the very best, but its cheap and the dog should do good on it.

I agree that alot of people dont know better, or they just dont care. Two friends of mine have saint bernards. I believe they feed them Beneful. No matter what I say, it wont change their minds because their dogs look "fine" and have nice coats. They think that my feeding raw is gross, pretentious and probably unneccesary, EVEN THOUGH they do know that it is better for the dog.

I guess people find what works and they go for it. I'm not going to say that just because people feed low quality food, they are bad pet owners. Almost every person I know feeds crap. I think it's disgusting!

When I worked at the feed store, a mother and daughter came in and wanted me to help them because their dog was having diareah. Turns out that they fed Alpo. I must have showed them every bag of feed in the store and they were all too expensive. No matter what I told them, they didnt want to pay more than $15 for dog food. I finally got them to VERY reluctantly buy a $20 bag of diamond (which I'm sure they never ever did again) but their dog liked Alpo canned food and nothing could convince them otherwise. Finally they said "Ok, I'll buy this bag of dry food, but I am going to keep him on Alpo canned because he likes it and I will pray that the diahrea will go away. That should work."

Yeah. SUUURE!!! :rolleyes2: Pray! That will fix your poor dog's bowel movements!
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Postby Magnolia618 » May 11th, 2006, 9:24 am

babyreba wrote:I dunno, my parents feed Nutro dog food to their 14-year-old Golden Retriever, and that was a huge improvement from the Pedigree they used to feed him. He's as healthy and happy as can be. And I don't try to convince them to change his food anymore, though I did a few years back.

I tried to convince them to try to feed him Wellness and he ended up with colitis. Since then, Jupiter has remained on Nutro, and I think he's doing great on it. I won't even try to tell them to feed something different, as the dog is happy and healthy. Healthier than my Reba, who is the same age and gets raw and Wellness.

I personally don't want to feed my dog Nutro, but it agrees with their dog, and he's happy, so it's their business.

When I was a kid our dogs used to eat Gravy Train (gag) and those weird moist burger packets! :o


Ha! We fed Gravy Train too! Probably Alpo, or whatever was cheapest. When I was little I used to beg my mom to buy the "good stuff" which was either the kind with the most colorful bag, or the really good stuff... Purina! lol

This is going back probably 10 years ago. We didnt know ANY better. We had no idea that what we were feeding probably killed both of my dogs at the time (one died from diabetes and the other from cancer).

My point is, if you know that there is better out there, why not do what is best for your dog? Yes, you might have a healthy dog on low quality food, but I know tons of "healthy" people who smoke and eat Mcdonalds every day.
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