Pet Food News

I just rescued a 3 year old tricolor sheltie. He is the cutest guy ever and i want to feed him the right dog food so he doesn’t get sick. What dog food should i feed him? I know there are alot of crap food out there. What dog food do you feed your dog and they do awesome on. I would like to find something that he would like but has no corn and soy in it. Frist few ingredients must be meet. Preferabble fish or turkey. Meat that shelties would eat in the wild. He is about 15 pounds.

If you have the time and the interest, you could consider home cooked meals. Here’s one site with dog food recipe: http://www.monkeysee.com/play/6572-serving-dog-food

This way, you pick out the content yourself and have complete awareness of quality of product.
If you want a dog food, consider something that has no recent history of recalled product or repeat recalls in the past years. Some to consider:
http://www.sojos.com/europa.html
Some dog foods are labeled "organic" or "holistic" but some of these have been recalled due to inferior gluten products that were in other foods recalled during the massive series of recalls that started some years ago.
Here’s a site to keep updated on recalled dog foods:
http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/default.htm

I mean, we support ourselves and we’re supporting the animal. Would you like to let an animal starve and die? We would love to stop animal abuse, but then I could guess animal hunger would be on the rise later on in the future.

So why do we pay tax for pet food?

food is considered a necessity

having pets is not a necessity and therefore their food, upkeep, vet bills etc is a personal thing
animal control is a very prominent program in many cities that have an overabundance of animals,
even some legislation has been suggested to limit even pure bred animals

It seems that my cat has been getting soft stools off and on for awhile now, but also gets normal ones too. So I guess i’m going to stick to one brand of premium wet food and stay away from store bought and human food treats. So since there are a ton of brands out there, what ones could you guys recommend that would be best for my kittie’s sensitive digestive system? By premium, I mean Innova, California Natural,etc.
I did take my cat to her vet, and she gave her medicine. But she told me to feed her soft food only.

There could be a reason for your cat’s soft stools besides food. Some of the problems that can result in soft stools are infection with Coccidia or Giardia, both protozoal parasites, inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome.

You should really bring the cat to the vet to rule out the many non-food reasons for your cat’s soft stools.

There are really a lot of premium options for you out there. You are probably going to need to experiment to see which foods agree with your cat though your experiment will prove inconclusive if the issue is not the food at all…

Some of the foods I feed my cats are Innova EVO both the regular one, the duck, and the venison; Wellness - all the varieties except the one with lobster but most frequently either the chicken, turkey, or chicken and herring; Natural Balance Ultra and the chicken and liver pate, a few of the Merrick’s varieities and others.

Since your cat may simply have an intolerance to grain any other these grain-free (some of the Natural Balance have a little rice) may be the answer. I suggest that you not only choose a grain-free food but you try only one protein source at a time for at least a week since it could be that too.

You could start with only Wellness chicken for a week or so and if all goes well you’ll know it isn’t chicken, and so on.

Or you could begin with one of the Natural Balance limited ingredient foods. These are foods that contain only one unusual protein source such as duck. The idea is that some cats may have developed a sensitivity to some proteins like chicken or beef from over-exposure to them.

Aside from that, you could try your cat on a raw diet. These can be very beneficial to cats with bowel problems. Google "raw diet cat IBD" to start.

But really you should start with a vet visit. You don’t want to spend months experimenting with different foods and find out the poor kitty has had Coccidia all along.

About how expensive is it to make homemade dog food? My four dogs (3 large, 1 small) are currently on Science Diet (Large and Small bites) and it costs about $25-30 a week to feed them all. Does making homemade dog food with quality ingredients generally save money over feeding commercially marketed brands like Science Diet?

You’ll have to do your own math here, based upon the ingedients you wish to us.

For me, it was slightly more expensive to make my own– boiled chicken with baked sweet potato and parsley. The parsley was home grown.. I factored that at .0$ because I was using as much in my own cooking as it was for the dog. The split chicken breast I could purchase at about 99cents a pound when I was lucky. Same price for the sweet potato.. so I added the cost of the energy to fire up my stove & stovetop, as well as the price for my time.. And the multiple vitamins I added… Probably +$1.50 a pound, but it was worth it.

You can stretch that and reduce the price per pound by ’stretching’ the chicken and potato with boiled rice, but of course you have to keep a closer eye on nutrition, since dogs aren’t primarily vegetarians, I’d be reluctant to go too heavy on the rice for fear of ill effect.

So, start with your own recipe, factor in price per pound of the components, divide by the ratio/s in the recipe, then you’ll have your price. If you’re lucky enough to have a hunter in the family, or can get your hands on free meat, then your cost is reduced accordingly.

I was told Canola oil is "One molecule away from ’some unhealthy’ oil formula. Is there somehting with extensive experience, that could help me with this ? ‘Solid Gold’ Natural pet food has this as a main ingredient.

Nope wrong info. Canola oil is fine & healthy. Solid Gold is a great brand. Here is a link showing good nutrients in dog foods which canola oil is one.

http://drydogfood.bravehost.com/bestingredients.htm

Canola oil is made from the rapeseed. It’s low in saturated fat yet is high in Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Canola oil is also high in Vitamin E and Vitamin K. [REF]
9138 mg omega-3 fatty acids
18,645 mg omega-6 fatty acids