The BEST dry dog food? (please respond quickly)

[wolfsoul]

Originally posted by IRescue452
Some people. No dogs are not naturally going to attack a cornfield. They do however get nutrional value off of vegetables and they have systems that can digest vegetable matter.

I'm sorry, but while dogs can digest corn, wheat, etc --- a very small portion of the nutrients is used. Vegetable protien is difficult for a dog to digest. Hence the reason many dogs don't thrive well on vegetarian diets. Often times a food will add corn and whatnot as a filler to boost the protein percentage of the food -- but very little of that vegetable protien is digested. Yes, alot of dogs will raid the garden -- alot of dogs will raid the garbage too. I doubt that at the time they are thinking about how their digestive system will break the food and how many of the vitamins and nutrients are used. Dogs are not omnivores. They are primary carnivores (meaning yes, they can eat vegetable, but they primarily eat meat). In the wild, a canid will eat meat. It will get vegetable and grain from the stomach contents of these animals (As all carnivores do -- it doesn't make them an omnivore). This is easy for them to digest because it has already been pre-digested for them. When a wolf is very hungry, sometimes it will eat berries. But other than that, it is all meat, organs, etc.

Edit: This isn't to say that vegetables aren't good in a dog food. I was just talking about the grains like corn and wheat.

I never said I'd prefer to have only starch in the food, as it is not good for anybody, but other vegetables are good for dogs. Cats on the other hand are carnivores who get little to no nutritional value off of eating vegetation. You don't see much cat food with beef, carrots and peas or chicken and rice do you. No you see seafood blend or chicken, turkey, and salmon. The only time you see rice is in a food that is made for cats is for those who have problems in the area of defication.

Corn is actually very starchy -- that's why they have corn starch. It's also not a vegetable, it's a grain. It's odd that you say that cat foods don't have rice unless it's a formula for pooping problems. Because my cat is eating a food with rice in it, and it's a general all-stages food, not formulized. I also picked up over 20 brands of cat food samples from the Vancouver Pet Expo, and every one has rice in it, with the exception of one that has only rice flour.


Getting back to the original topic at hand.. I say to go with what she likes and what she does best on, but remember that even if she does really well on a feed-grade food, effects can show up later (IE -- BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin, and other carcinogenic chemical preservatives may not cause cancer or epilepsy for a number of years). Maybe try Avoderm, or Nutro Ultra? Nutro Utlra is fairly new but it's already building itself quite a reputation. I'd say it's definatly one of Nutro's better products.