dry dogfood

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Originally Posted by Jessika

Diamond is OK but a lot of their formulas contain by-products, and all contain lots of fillers.

Though their Lamb & Rice isn't too bad, ingredient-wise, the other formulas are.

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Very true they do contain a lot of fillers, but the lamb & rice (the one we used-guess I should have stated that in my post:o) wasn't too bad for a cheaper food. Much better than grocery store food IMHO.
It gave Bon runny poos but was fine for the girls.

I think it all really depends on what kind of food your dog can handle. Some can't handle the richer better foods, others can so I say just experiment. A lot of people have to do this to find out what's best for their dogs:)

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Originally Posted by dab_20

i use iams for my 2. the vet says iams and science diet are really high quality foods. science diet is more expensive though. sammy was on ol' roy but we switched him to iams because the vet thinks ol' roy is not very healthy.

but i think iams is a great brand and molli and sammy do great on it. there is iams lamb and rice too. its the same price.

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Yikes, I don't think Iams is very good...in fact most here boycott Iams...:(

I should also mention that I know a few dogs that cannot eat any kind of lamb food due to digestion problems, so be careful when trying a new food (another reason free samples are so wonderful!)

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Originally Posted by dab_20

i use iams for my 2. the vet says iams and science diet are really high quality foods. science diet is more expensive though. sammy was on ol' roy but we switched him to iams because the vet thinks ol' roy is not very healthy.

but i think iams is a great brand and molli and sammy do great on it. there is iams lamb and rice too. its the same price.

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Believe it or not most vets don't know crap about pet food. Plus they'll tell you anything to buy their product. I think I mentioned it in this thread, but the vets I work for HATE Science Diet but still sell and promote it :rolleyes:

Iams is a really bad food, and aside from that I've heard *really* bad things about the company.

And Ol' Roy is one of the worst foods on the market, so good job switching him off of that!

Here's the website about Iams I was looking for: www.iamscruelty.com

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Originally Posted by JenBKR

Here's the website about Iams I was looking for: www.iamscruelty.com

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PETA isn't a very reliable source, though. I've heard a lot of bad things about them too (with lots of proof) so now I don't know when to believe them.

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Originally Posted by .sarah

PETA isn't a very reliable source, though. I've heard a lot of bad things about them too (with lots of proof) so now I don't know when to believe them.

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Is that a PETA site? I didn't see that :confused: but the website was posted in another thread a while ago.

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Originally Posted by JenBKR

Is that a PETA site? I didn't see that :confused: but the website was posted in another thread a while ago.

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Haha yeah it's a PETA website -- one of their dozens...

If you scroll to the bottom of the page it has their logo. Not only that, but when I first found it, it was a link on their main website.

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Originally Posted by .sarah

Haha yeah it's a PETA website -- one of their dozens...

If you scroll to the bottom of the page it has their logo. Not only that, but when I first found it, it was a link on their main website.

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Oh geez, I completely missed that. :rolleyes: Ok, never mind about the website, we all know PETA can't be trusted. Thanks for pointing that out! :)

Well personally I dislike IAMs not because of the PETA rumors but the food quality and ingredients aren't exactly what I would want to be feeding to my dogs, you know?? But to each his own -- feed what you can afford! There is no "bad" dog food, the only "bad" dog food is not feeding anything at all! Sure some are "better" than others and I really wish to feed my dogs hte absolute best quality within my price range (hence why I'm not feeding Innova!) but any food keeps them alive :)

well my dogs do very well on iams. so what could be sooo bad about it??

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Originally Posted by dab_20

well my dogs do very well on iams. so what could be sooo bad about it??

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..the ingredients include by-products and lots of fillers, that's really the only "bad" thing about the food. Don't be offended, some people are set in their ways but as I said any food is a "good" food because its keeping them alive, right? ;)

yep your right. what are by-products and fillers?

Yeah, Iams and Science Diet aren't good foods, Science Diet is by far the worst between the two though. Most vets know nothing about food -- they are only taught about nutrition for a few hours and they are taught by Science Diet and other dog food company representitives, therefore they learn nothing. Before my vet decided to practise both holistically as well as conventionally, she was a regular conventional vet. She began to realise that many of the health problems that arose in pets could be due to diet. As soon as she stopped promoting the bad foods and started promoting RAW diets and high quality kibbles, she noticed an extreme drop in health problems.

You really just have to know what you're looking for when you look at the ingredients. When you are looking for an inexpensive food, obviously you have to let a few of the ingredients slide because it's impossible to find a good food for really cheap. But some of the ingredients you have to watch out for are corn, wheat, by-products, soy, peanut hulls, BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin, tallow, unessecary additives like colour, etc. Make sure the first ingredient is a meat MEAL, not just meat (unless the ingredient after the meat is a meat meal, then it doesn't really matter). So chicken meal instead of chicken, lamb meal instead of lamb, etc. Stay away from any inspecific ingredients like "meat meal" or "meat and bone meal." What kind of meat??? :eek: Same thing with "poultry." Dog food companies make a killing off of buying roadkill from the city and euthanised pets from shelters and laboratories and putting it in their food. Poultry often means crow. But like I said, if you want something cheap, it's hard to find something that lacks all of these bad ingredients. Just try your best! :)

by-products are any parts left over from animals that aren't fit for human consumption. This can include feathers, bones, feet, blood, and sawdust from the floor.

Fillers are ingredients added to a food that have little to NO nutritional value but serve as a cheap ingredient to add and make your pets "feel" like they are full. Fillers usually are not digested and come out as nice little packages on your front lawn. The MOST commonly used filler is any form of corn!

Here are the ingredients for IAMS Lamb Meal & Rice formula. "bad" or "questional" ingredients (from my view point) I have bolded:

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Lamb Meal, Brewers Rice, Corn Meal, Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Ground Whole Grain Barley, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of vitamin E, and Citric Acid), Fish Meal (source of fish oil), Chicken By-Product Meal, Corn Grits, Dried Beet Pulp (sugar removed), Natural Chicken Flavor, Potassium Chloride, Dried Egg Product, Brewers Dried Yeast, Salt, Monosodium Phosphate, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin A Acetate, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Thiamine Mononitrate (source of vitamin B1), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Niacin, Riboflavin Supplement (source of vitamin B2), Inositol, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (source of vitamin B6), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid), Choline Chloride, Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Manganese Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Potassium Iodide, Cobalt Carbonate), DL-Methionine, Rosemary Extract

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When reading an ingredient list, ingredients are listed from the highest weight to the lowest. So the first ingredient makes up the majority of the food whereas the last ingredient makes up the very smallest percentage. Make sense??

If you want more information on reading lables, google the term or here are a few sites that I have found helpful and have helped teach me!
http://www.asuperiorgsd.com/feeding.html
http://www.asuperiorgsd.com/dog.food.html
http://home.att.net/~wdcusick/011.html

We feed Iams and have been since Shadow was little. It was a lot better 8 years ago, we had Shadow on some crappy food and my Aunt recommended we get Iams. I know now that is has just gone downhill and isn't very good quality, but tell my mom that :rolleyes: she refuses to switch their food. Her "excuse" is that another one of my Aunts has a 16 year old Lab and it has lived off of Spartan brand dog food its whole life and Iams is a ton better than that stuff. As soon as I can take my Micki and Jack I will feed them raw...(even though those two are mine she won't allow me to feed them raw under her roof or even switch their food)

She said the other day that she wanted to switch their food but to something less expensive than Iams...I really would like to get the Hoodlums on Nutro but its still more expensive than she would like...we'll see.