To put it simply.. there is no single "best" food out there. A brand that works for me may not work for you. All I can do is encourage owners to do their research; learn how to read ingredient labels, study up on what dogs' nutritional needs are, and just educate yourself in canine nutrition in general.

My rule of thumb is... grocery store brands are the worst, higher end chain pet store brands are better, and foods at boutique stores are generally best. Obviously there are exceptions to every "rule", but in general I find this to be pretty true.

Good luck!

Oh... something to keep in mind!!!! When factoring out "cost" for everything, remember that IN GENERAL the more "premium" brands of food are more caloric-dense, meaning you will need to feed LESS of it to satiate the dogs' caloric intake for each day. So while you may be feeding 3 cups a day of a lower end food, you may only need to feed 1-2 cups a day of a higher-quality food. So don't just compare prices to bags of food, you have to do a little math to figure out how much of the food you'd be feeding. So a $20 bag of food may end up being more expensive to feed than a $40 bag of food.