Interesting Dog Food Grading Linky

Click here to do it for your dog food.

I'm at work though, so I don't have the bag in front of me. I'll have to do it this afternoon.

Also, if you're interested Natura Pet Foods was bought out by P&G. These brands include Innova, California Naturals, EVO, Karma and Mother Nature. Here's some news and updates. Also, since they've been bought out, keep checking your food labels to see if they've made any changes to their formula, they say it's staying the same, though you never know what happens.

Need Some Kong Stuffing Ideas?

Then click here!

Rusty LOVES peanut butter but it's high in fat so I don't want to give him too much. The link goes to LOTS and LOTS of ideas besides peanut butter that you can stuff and then freeze to keep your dog entertained for hours.

Pet Food. Again. Yes.

Still interested in pet food links after I've drilled into you that you should feed a good dog food and not crap like Purina or Iams or Hill's Science/Prescription Diet?

Click Here to find out (drum roll please)....

The Truth About Pet Food

Ok, that's all. Have a Happy Hump Day!

It's Lettuce, Rusty. Just Lettuce.

Rusty sure does love when I make BLT's. He gets the smell of bacon but the taste of lettuce.

It's The New Food

California Natural Lamb Meal and Rice Adult Dry Dog Food (30-lb bag)

We did it. We made the switch. And now - Rusty's stools (or poop or whatever you want to call the brown stuff that comes out of his butt) are much harder than before. He only poops once a day (yes!) AND there's no more itching, no more licking, etc...

We've done it... and I think we'll rotate the CA Naturals - but not the chicken - to give him some variety of proteins and flavors with the Herring & Sweet Potato.

California Natural Herring and Sweet Potato Dry Dog Food (30-lb bag)

I never thought I'd be this interested in dog food!

It's Food Switch Time

Itching paws. Itching face. Dry skin. Diarrhea. Loose stools.

Ugh, dog owners, this is the worst day ever. Especially when you've bought a 30 lb bag of dog food that cost lots of money.

Rusty unfortunately has an incredibly horrible food allergy to chicken products/byproducts/etc...

Food allergies and food intolerances (oops, shall I say food that is too rich for their doggie system) is fairly common. You just have to find the right food.

After doing some googling, posting on doggie message boards and searching high and low for the correct food, I've gotten a few suggestions.

I'm going to start off with the research -

Signs & symptoms with recommendation of home cooked diet for 12 weeks

Signs & symptoms with recommendation of venison, fish, duck OR home cooked diet (and then an exclusion diet if the above proteins are still making it worse)

More exclusion diet (but totally biased)

Duck and potato based diet recommendation

And then there's hypoallergenic dog food. But that's well, what we need, right?

As I sat on the floor in the living room, I realized I had been awake for a long time, trying to research dog food. I hate researching dog food. It's for a dog. They should be able to eat anything but the poop soup in the backyard tells a different story.

After researching and trying to wrap my mind around the innerworkings of dog bowels, there are several options, all of which depend on what your dog is allergic to. So far allergy = deboned chicken, chicken meal, ground chicken, chicken by-products.

You should do an elimination diet and switch to something completely different. Check.

You can home cook food. Ok, but how expensive is that?

You can go purely raw food diet and do no kibble at all with Nature's Variety. Um, Ok. I could be up for that if we didn't have painted wood floors.

Or you could just do what Bimmer Man wants and buy Lamb & Rice formula dog food because that's what his family has done in the past. Ok, but he didn't buy dog food.

And then, BAM! I double checked a golden retriever message board and someone else had the same problem!

They just recommended adding pumpkin to firm up stools. Um, this was a doggie allergy, thank you very much. I need a different dog food.

I got a recommendation for Solid Gold and also for California Natural. After comparing the ingredients I bought a 5 lb bag of California Natural Lamb Meal & Rice.

We had to switch instantly, so the best way to do it is mix with homecooked rice OR cottage cheese to prevent diarrhea.

No loose poops since Friday. No nasty itchies yet.

But then again, I feel like I've been discussing poop for awhile now. So don't be surprised if poop comes up again.

Dog Food - The Realities of Cheap Crap

Cheap dog food is just that - cheap. Cheap dog food can actually create problems rather than give your dog the proper nutrition it needs to thrive. Imagine if you're a carnivore and yet people kept feeding you vegetables and you became anemic because of deprivation of iron (Ok, totally off topic and incredibly far fetched, but...).

Remember, dogs were once wild. They ate raw meat, which is the best possible diet for your dog, but trust me, feeding anywhere from 2 - 3% of Rusty's body weight per day is NOT going to be cost friendly to my wallet. That's um, well, a few pounds of meat. So he can get an occasional chicken thigh, but that's about it. If you're interested in a raw food diet, I'll post more on that topic later as Rusty gets older and I begin to give him more raw meat. For now, here's a few websites that have a ton more information on raw diets - RawFed.com and Jane Anderson's Raw Learning Site.

Let's start with the basics. Look at the ingredient list. Are the first three products not by products of meat? If so, then you have a winner, if not, don't buy it. Back to the basics of dogs - what did they originally eat? Meat, keep the food as close to their natural diet as possible. I know it's crazy, putting this much time and effort into your dog, but trust me, they'll live longer and have much healthier lives. The better you feed them, exercise and train them, the longer they'll live and the happier you'll be.

What do we feed?

Old Mother Hubbard is the maker of Wellness products. At first I was little leery of purchasing more expensive food. We've always purchased Purina ONE... so why switch?


You'll notice Oatmeal is listed as the third ingredient and why would I purchase this if there isn't more meat? Well, because there's no meat by-products and oatmeal is a good grain if you're unable to feed grain free food which comes to my next point -

Grain free is just that - there's absolutely no grains in the dog food meaning more meat for your animal. Because it's all meat, there's more protein. Dogs under the age of 2, especially large breed dogs should not have a grain free diet. What happens is protein makes them bulk up so much that their bone structure can't keep up with the growth coming from protein. In effect, they'll have bone, joint and cartilage problems later in life. Not so good, eh?

So as you can tell, deciding what to feed your dog can be a conundrum. I suggest trying a variety of better dog foods and seeing which your dog prefers.

TIP: Gas and loose stools mean it's too rich, while you can tell the stench of anal glands and then they probably need to poo... so make sure you pick something that's not too rich to start off with!

ANOTHER TIP: Try dogfoodanalysis.com to compare foods!