C. Bruner -- help -- a doggone question
tim
You also seem to have an open mind...just wondering if you have any
thoughts on dog food.
When my rott was a puppy, she was started on Nutro Lamb and Rice puppy
formula. When I took her home I kept her on Nutro until it was time to
switch to adult food, when I put her on Purina, but soon switched to
Science Diet Canine because my wife convinced me it was better (more
digestible, better nutrition, blah, blah, blah)...dog never really
liked it, so switched to Waltham, Purina One, Pedigree and am now back
to Science Diet.
I guess my question is "do you have an opinion on dog foods, is it
worth the bucks for the science diets, Walthams and Nutros of the
world, or should I go back to Purina? Any help would be appreciated.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
R Bishop
tim <tim...@my-deja.com> wrote:
When I had a dog, I ONLY fed Iams. Expensive but worth it.
Sue
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
"Never trust anything that thinks for itself,
if you can't see where it keeps its brain."
J K Rowlings
Larry Caldwell
> When I took her home I kept her on Nutro until it was time to
> switch to adult food, when I put her on Purina, but soon switched to
> Science Diet Canine because my wife convinced me it was better (more
> digestible, better nutrition, blah, blah, blah)...dog never really
> liked it, so switched to Waltham, Purina One, Pedigree and am now back
> to Science Diet.
Same results here. Science Diet is good stuff, but dogs despise it.
Right now I'm feeding a mix of Iams Lamb and Rice and Eukanuba Reduced
Fat. Plus, of course, whatever wretched things they pick up in the
field. :)
In the summertime they love wild blackberries. If I don't pick enough,
they go pick blackberries for themselves.
-- Larry
Karibear
extensive discussions on feeding dogs on rec.pets.dogs.breeds and
rpdhealth, you can look them up on deja. People do have some
strong opinions, but mostly it comes down to what _your_ dog
likes and thrives on.
http://www.aloha.com/~wolfepack/food.html
In article <89pa02$2lo$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, tim
<tim...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>I guess my question is "do you have an opinion on dog foods, is
it
>worth the bucks for the science diets, Walthams and Nutros of
the
>world, or should I go back to Purina? Any help would be
appreciated.
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
>
>
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
R Bishop
snow...@xyz.net (Jan Flora) wrote:
>In article <MPG.132a136df...@news.teleport.com>, Larry Caldwell
>My dog picks blueberries and eats them. She did blackberries when we
>lived down south (in the small states). Bears do the same thing, ya know.
>
>I normally feed Science Diet to my aging black lab, but buy Iams when it's
>on sale. She loves the Iams, and will eat the Science Diet. When we put
>her on a lamb/rice food, her coat got all skanky (dull) and she lost condition
>pretty fast.
>
>At the moment, my dog is a happy girl -- we had an entire beef liver in
>the fridge to give to someone, and we didn't give it away fast enough.
>It got kind of rude. We put it out in the yard, up on the D-7 Cat tracks,
>to take far away from our house the next day. Chris sliced a pound of
>liver off for my dog and gave it to her.
>
>Somehow, my arthritic old dog got the rest of the liver. She has it stashed
>under "the dog tree" in the snow, and she eats on it now and then. She
>thinks that we don't know about it. (Like, we wouldn't notice that she
>suddenly doesn't want any kibbles anymore?? *laugh*)
>
>Whoever makes Science Diet pays vets *loads* of money to push that
>dogfood, and they spend loads of $$ advertising it. It's not bad food, but
>there are better ones out there. Science Diet costs me $1/pound here
>in Alaska. I don't know what it costs down in the other states.
>
>Here in Alaska, people who raise dogs to race (like the Iditarod, the Yukon
>Quest and races like that) feed their dogs salmon, rice, beaver carcasses,
>chicken carcasses and stuff like that. I don't know what sort of dried food
>they feed, but I would be willing to bet that they don't feed Science Diet.
>I do know that they feed Iams and Eukanuba, since both companies
>sponsor Iditarod teams.
>
>When we run out of dried kibble, I feed my dog salmon and rice.
>She does pretty well on that. (I nuke freezer-burned salmon, cook
>rice, mix it together and feed the dog. She loves it. She eats any
>freezer-burned meat we have and she loves it. Did I mention that
>she's a black lab? In other words, she's an indiscriminate food-disposal
>unit, with a cast iron tummy.)
>
> Jan
Iams and Eukanuba are made by the same company. I've had a couple of dog breeders
tell me that both these dog foods are the best on the market and during the time
I had an extremely picky very large dog, they were the only food that kept weight
on her.
Sue
Larry Caldwell
In article <snowshoe-040...@82-pm2.hom.alaska.net>,
snow...@xyz.net writes:
> Here in Alaska, people who raise dogs to race (like the Iditarod, the Yukon
> Quest and races like that) feed their dogs salmon, rice, beaver carcasses,
> chicken carcasses and stuff like that. I don't know what sort of dried food
> they feed, but I would be willing to bet that they don't feed Science Diet.
> I do know that they feed Iams and Eukanuba, since both companies
> sponsor Iditarod teams.
When a dog is earning its living, dried food just doesn't cut it. A
dog's metabolism is astonishing when it is challenged. I once had a
Chesapeake that did 36 open water, ice breaking retrieves in 6 hours. On
that hunting trip he went from a well conditioned dog to skin and bones
in just three days, and I was shoving every kind of food I could find
down him. By the third day I was praying for whale blubber, but ended up
leaving him in the pickup, which he did NOT like.
> When we run out of dried kibble, I feed my dog salmon and rice.
> She does pretty well on that. (I nuke freezer-burned salmon, cook
> rice, mix it together and feed the dog. She loves it. She eats any
> freezer-burned meat we have and she loves it. Did I mention that
> she's a black lab? In other words, she's an indiscriminate food-disposal
> unit, with a cast iron tummy.)
I cook for the dogs too, usually cheap 30% fat hamburger and ground
turkey mixed with whole grain rice and vegetables like broccoli.
Mostly I just feed it when I am working the dogs hard enough they would
lose condition on dry food.
One of my dogs had a tender digestion when she was a pup, always puking.
Iams Lamb and Rice was one of the few things she could keep down. She
has grown out of the puppy pukes and cheerfully grazes all sorts of gross
things out of nature, but still does fine on the Iams. I added the
Eukanuba reduced fat in an effort to keep the dachshund trim. That may
be futile, since I have never seen a dog that could feed itself so well
in the field. He usually has at least one mouse before he has gone 200
feet.
-- Larry
Karibear
sled dogs in peak condition consume is incredible - I saw it
somewhere once and don't remember exactly, it was somewhere ~6-7K
a day, I think, or more. Some of the commercial fishermen I know
can put away 10-12K calories/day and still lose weight when they
are working. OTOH, those who do nothing don't need much of
anything, either. Remember the Metrecal fad? I knew some high
school kids who *gained* weight on ~700 calories a day back then.
In article <MPG.132af217a...@news.teleport.com>, Larry
Caldwell <lar...@teleport.com> wrote:
>When a dog is earning its living, dried food just doesn't cut
>it. A dog's metabolism is astonishing when it is challenged. I
>once had a Chesapeake that did 36 open water, ice breaking
>retrieves in 6 hours. On that hunting trip he went from a well
>conditioned dog to skin and bones in just three days, and I was
>shoving every kind of food I could find down him. By the third
>day I was praying for whale blubber, but ended up leaving him in
>the pickup, which he did NOT like.
>
>-- Larry
Jim
food mixed with vegetable oil, beef and pork bones, and lots of leftover
bread and meat scraps from home and friends. The vegetable oil keeps his fur
glossy and he's very energetic, happy and healthy.
Jim
--
Freedom first, wealth second...
www.economicfreedom.8m.com
Elaine Gallant
All dry kibble is essentially the same. The more expensive kind has more
animal fat sprayed on.
Please consider feeding your dog raw meat and bones. This can be
supplemented with left overs, eggs, hamburger, and other real food.
A raw chicken leg a day, including bones will maintain dental health.
tim wrote in message <89pa02$2lo$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Been following your posts for awhile -- and they usually make sense ;).
>You also seem to have an open mind...just wondering if you have any
>thoughts on dog food.
>
>When my rott was a puppy, she was started on Nutro Lamb and Rice puppy
>formula. When I took her home I kept her on Nutro until it was time to
>switch to adult food, when I put her on Purina, but soon switched to
>Science Diet Canine because my wife convinced me it was better (more
>digestible, better nutrition, blah, blah, blah)...dog never really
>liked it, so switched to Waltham, Purina One, Pedigree and am now back
>to Science Diet.
>
tim
thanks for the replys, noticed a number of you feeding bones, for some
reason, this hound can't handle bones. Big bones, small bones, no
matter, about 12 to 18 hours later, up they come....
Larry Caldwell
elaine....@worldnet.att.net writes:
> A raw chicken leg a day, including bones will maintain dental health.
I have heard this, but no way am I going to teach my bird dog to eat
bird.
-- Larry
C. Brunner
>Been following your posts for awhile -- and they usually make sense ;).
>You also seem to have an open mind...just wondering if you have any
>thoughts on dog food.
...
Well. Now that I've let everyone else answer, there isn't much more I
need to say. What I'll offer is strictly my opinion--it's not medical
advice, and it's probably not defensible in a courtroom. So, FWIW:
1) Most commercial pet foods sold in the U.S. are labeled
"nutritionally balanced," "nutritionally complete," etc. To carry
such a label, the pet food must meet federal standards regarding the
nutrients it contains. If I recall correctly, the standards are
developed by the AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control
Officials) and are based on nutritional guidelines published by the
National Research Council.
When I was in vet school, we used to joke that the federal government
had stricter guidelines (more regulations) for pet foods than for
human foods. We were also taught that, because of those regulations,
any "nutritionally complete" dog food made by a well-known, reputable
U.S. manufacturer was good enough for most dogs.
Since then, the marketing of high-end pet food has become an enormous
industry. Pet owners worry more about the source and "quality" of the
nutrients in their dog's food than many of them do about what's in
their children's food. There are diets specially formulated for
puppies, growing dogs, working dogs, obsese dogs, geriatric dogs; as
well as diets that are supposedly even more nutritionally balanced
than the old-fashioned "nutritionally balanced" ones were.
2) Some dogs are allergic to specific components in commercially
available dog foods. Food allergies in dogs can cause
gastrointestinal upset, itchy skin, and possibly other types of
problems. For several decades, veterinarians have dealt with food
allergies by changing the animal's diet to something it didn't
normally eat (a "hypoallergenic diet"). Thus, dogs that were allergic
to an ingredient commonly found in commercial dog foods (beef,
poultry, wheat, etc.) did much better when fed a diet of "lamb and
rice"--unless, of course, the dog was from a country where lamb/mutton
was a common ingredient in commercial dog food! In other cases, the
solution was to use duck, rabbit, or perhaps venison, plus the unusual
carbohydrate source (rice).
At first, those special diets had to be prepared from scratch by the
pet owner, who ended up spending as much time cooking for his/her dog
as for the kids! Later, dog food companies began to market
hypoallergenic diets that pet owners could obtain by prescription
through veterinarians. Nowdays, of course, consumers can buy such
diets over-the-counter at pet stores or even grocery stores. The
result is that many owners are feeding their otherwise healthy and
non-allergic dogs "hypoallergenic" diets (e.g., lamb and rice) because
they believe such food is somehow better for their pets than
traditional dog foods. Some veterinarians worry that widespread,
indiscriminant use of such diets will hinder their ability to treat
food allergies in dogs. There is nothing inherently hypoallergenic
about mutton--it's just an unusual protein source for dogs in the U.S.
(or at least it was until a few years ago).
3) Most household pets eat far too many calories and get far too
little exercise. Obesity causes many of the same problems in dogs as
it does in their owners (except for atherosclerosis and stroke). So
it is difficult to justify a "high energy" diet in most pet dogs.
Working dogs are a completely different story, of course. They are
athletes, and should be pampered--and fed--like athletes.
4) People in the U.S. are allowed to spend their disposable income on
whatever they want--be it a Mercedes M-Class SUV, a guided trip to the
Kenai to catch a limit of king salmon (<g>), or two cases of specialty
dog food for the family pet. IMHO, if it's nutritionally complete,
your dog eats it, and it makes **you** feel good, then, by all means,
buy it for him. But--again, strictly my opinion--people are spending
way more money than necessary on fancy pet foods that have a
significant impact on the bottom line but an indiscernible impact on
the pet's health.
YMMV, of course.
C. Brunner