Pets Discussions

Well here is the thing... if you are cutting back on costs and just feeding yourself and your family cheap fast food, then I have no problem with the dogs getting the cheaper food as well.  If you are cutting costs, but STILL giving your family healthy foods (Fruits, Veggies, real meat) then you need to be extending that courtesy to your dogs as well.

The best analogy is that a dog eating cheap dog food is like you eating McDonald's everyday.  It's going to seriously compromise your/their health.

The fact is that we fed our past two dogs whatever was least expensive. One lived to be 14 and the other 16. My childhood dog never got dogfood and lived to be almost 17. My Hanna, the pampered Pomeranian, only gets organic dry food, and her treat is dry food (Bil Jac - she thinks it isn't food_ or healthy cookies. So yes it costs more but we now eat as much organic food as possible so why shouldn't she?

By the way she eats Paul Newman's organic dry food:)

SpokaneMan said…

Well here is the thing... if you are cutting back on costs and just feeding yourself and your family cheap fast food, then I have no problem with the dogs getting the cheaper food as well.  If you are cutting costs, but STILL giving your family healthy foods (Fruits, Veggies, real meat) then you need to be extending that courtesy to your dogs as well.

The best analogy is that a dog eating cheap dog food is like you eating McDonald's everyday.  It's going to seriously compromise your/their health.

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I think unless you're ordering off the $.99 menu, there's no such thing as cheap fast food.  It's just fast.  A few months ago we stopped off at Wendy's.  Meals for the three of us came out to $20!  I can cook a sensational healthy meal for 4 for less tha that.

But your point stands.

I feed my puppy Halo. I wrote a review on Ol' Roy, stating pretty much what criteeker said. By-products come from "4D" meat sources : dead, diseased, dying and disabled animals. This also include hooves, feathers, undeveloped eggs, beaks, anything that fell on the floor. It is also acceptable to put peanut shells and small amounts of newspaper in.

Cheap dog food contains all of that plus wheat and corn to fill. A BIG no-no is corn syrup in dog food. Ol' Roy is loaded with that. It makes the food so sweet the dog develops "finicky eater syndrome." Try and change to a healthier food and it's so bland the dog doesn't want to eat it. People say "see my dog won't eat anything else, it's so good!"

People think it's more economical to go cheap, but a dog needs less food if it has a higher density of nutrients. You will feed more of the cheapo brand.

You forgot one major crappy food, criteeker: Science Diet. That is a huge scam.

We feed out dogs Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul. It is around a dollar a pound. That isn't too expensive. The dogs love it and I have one dog with sensitive skin. If he eats anything else he gets itchy. I had a pom that until he got cancer I fed Purina to. After his diagnosis, I fed him good meat and veggies and some brown rice and some fruit and cottage cheese. He lasted a year longer than the prognosis.

This is a good thread because, honestly, before I got my new puppy and saw something on Twitter about dog food ingredients, I had just assumed that if you paid more for a dog food, and it didn't come from the supermarket shelves it had better ingredients. I fed my last dog Eukanuba, which is more expensive but still not so good. Also, Vets are in the pocket of Science Diet so many of them won't correct you when you say it's a good dog food. The AAFCO standards are a joke, and Consumer Reports reported Ol' Roy as a "best buy." They go on taste and price and nothing else.

If you can get nutritous food at a low price, good for you. But it seldom happens that way. I have told my family endlessly - and they can attest to that - that when you buy a pet, you have a responsibility to that pet for the rest of its life. I use Iams. It's not that much more expensive that brands that offer less nutrition than cheaper brands & doesn't have a lot of fillers. If the store doesn't have Iams & going to another store isn't an option I buy Eukaneba. Both brands were recommended by my breeders & my vet. Please give slightly more expensive brands that have superior ingredients a shot. You won't regret it.

Thank you so much for posting this - I try my best to pass the word along to pet owners about pet food ingredients.

Do a google search for "what's really in pet food" and go to the "BornFreeUSA" website, and please read over it.

Another great site is www.dogfoodanalysis.com and look for the reviews. There are analyses of the foods based on ingredients. It is very informative.

Please pass along the information!