odnarb wrote:Why are the starches bad? Potato is in a lot of foods, and the dogs seem to do well, so I'm curious.
I'd been feeding Canidae for years. The Bull Boys do great, and Harry did "OK." He wasn't skeletal and unhealthy, but he was thin and had cow pie stools. His stools had been fine on Eukanuba, but I'm sure it was the beet pulp. I couldn't bring myself to keep feeding that, plus he was needing 10-12 cups a day just to maintain. I tried other "better" foods only to just have him to worse. With the Canidae he didn't do terrible, so I stayed there for a while.
With some skepticism, I tried him on Evo. For the first time, he has nice stools, and is finally not looking like a starving half-feral Jackal. I'll be watching his bloodwork carefully. I'm still skeptical of the Evo, but he is doing well, so I'm not sure what to think.
I did feed TWolf for a while, and he did well on that. But, it seems that the local places that carry it have trouble keeping it in stock. Several times they ran out, and didn't get more before I needed it. Harry doesn't do food changes well, and I just couldn't take the risk of not having the food I need when I need it.
I didn't forget LOL...
It took me some time to go back and look for the info I had on potatoes in dog foods and I found some of the links I had about it were now dead.
But I'll post what I have:
http://www.doglogic.com/food.htm
Take a look under "Dangerous Veggies", I will copy & paste below:
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~~The nightshade plants contain an alkaloid steroid called solanine. The foliage & unripe fruit contain dangerous levels of this steroid. The ripe fruit are the least toxic part of this family of plants but may be deadly under some circumstances. Solanine is also found in potato sprouts and the green spots on some potatoes. Sweet potatoes and yams are totally safe.
A toxic dose of solanine will manifest itself by creating severe digestive upset, trembling, weakness, difficulty in breathing and/or paralysis. Before using potato tubers as food remove all eyes/sprouts by digging them out of
the tuber. Never use any form of nightshade foliage/fruit/tubers as forage for livestock.
Potatoes gain their green color and solanine concentration from being allowed to be exposed to the sun while drying after harvesting.
Solanine inhibits the formation of the collagen that makes up cartilage. It is highly recommended that anyone/thing who suffers with any form of joint ailment stop ingesting all nightshade plants. To avoid any type of 'growing pains' as the vet called Pano and joint dysfunction, especially if predisposed, avoid all consumption of nightshade plant material.
I contacted the chemist in Utah involved with the production of Ace Hi Lamb, Rice & Potato dog food after discussing a Pano problem with a former Wellpetter and he was not aware of the solanine situation. He stated that they procure their potato products from various locations -primarily from fast food chains as unfit for human consumption. These included all potato waste, as he put it, such as eyes, skins, etc. They are/were legally allowed to state that the dog food contained potato but neglected to state on the package that it was unfit for human consumption or exactly what parts of the potato were involved.
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Yeah, I'd be scratchin' my head too about Harry... I don't like EVO and I'd certainly monitor him when he's on it. But maybe he's such a calorie burning machine that he can take the high protein better than other dogs? How about his litter mates, what do they eat and how well are they doing on the food?
Since he does well on the TW, maybe rotate with that food? I know TW can be hard to get but I order it on line and so far it's been delivered in a few days.