Mr. Woofus

Just curious what kind of kibble you guys give your cute hounds? I have mixed feelings because of all the fillers that a lot of them have. So far home cooked meal with California Natural is what Woofus is getting. But Proctor and Gamble bought out Natura, so I'll be switching. Any help? Thanks!!

Mikey T

What is someones filler is another's nutrious ingredient. Some thinks to keep in mind, Most of what you read about dog food is nothing more than marketing B.S. ie corn is a filler. All kibble to hold its shape require a source of starch, the absolute minimium is 19% and at that it is still not really economical practical. So every dog food "kibble" uses some sort as starch "carbohydrate" to act as a binder and add calories and some nutritional content. Those dogs foods that rail against corn, rice, wheat and other grains, simply use other starch sources like like potato or tapioca for which it could easily be said are actual less nutrious than the grains they replace.

What Are The Most Healthy Grains, Legumes And Starches?

Kirska

I order my food from http://www.petsnaturalchoice.net

The food is really great quality and it's nice to have it delivered right to my door. You can check the ingredients online and compare to other brands.

Mr. Woofus

Wow, this seems like a great product. What do you do? Only dry, or mixed with wet? What about the supplements?

Kirska

My dogs eat just dry, no supplements. It is a very rich food so you end up feeding them less (my 60 lb basset eats 2 to 2.5 cups a day). My vet told us we could give them green beans for added volume if we wanted them to feel more "full" without adding any significant calories. Usually they are pretty satisfied with just the dry food though :P

smitte21

I feed American Natural Premium which is a very good quality food at a reasonable price. Only problem for most is it's really only available in the Southeastern WI area most readily. It's made here in Cedarburg WI by one of the guys who makes Fromm.

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www.savybassets.net

Josie's Dad

Nature's Choice, Salmon and Vegetables. We think Josie is allergic to chicken. She's been great since we switched her over. It smells and is expensive, but it's got real cranberries and veggies in it. Very satisfied.

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When Josie comes home...it's so good!

Boomer's Mom

I feed Boomer 4HEALTH puppy food from Tractor Supply Company. He likes it, and it agrees with him. We recently tried gradually switching him over to TOW, but he didn't care for it as much and actually pooped more. Haven't given him any canned food, but have considered it.

He also gets several puppy biscuits a day, and occasionally whatever drops on the floor when I'm cooking.

LuciaB

I'm interested to see the responses to this question. We started out on Nutura as that is what my other dogs were on. The problem is our Basset puppy acts like she is starving to death with the small amount of quality food she is supposed to get. I switched to a lower quality food (Beneful) that has a higher volume suggested and she seems much happier, but I'm not crazy about the quality. She's fit and shiny and happy so maybe I'm being overly concerned?

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~Lucia~

Mikey T

unlike other breeds scent hounds never seem to ever get fully I have always said in reference to beagles and basset but it applies in general to all scent hounds is they are never sated until their feet no longer touch the ground. So what you are experience with the puppy is expected.

A therory on why scent hounds are alway hunger of a vet of mine goes something ling this. A hungry hound is more likely to hunt longer harder and more diligently for food. So when selective breed for perfomance being hungry all the time was favored unlike in other breeds.

If you want to feed only one dog food but gain the advantage of higher volume of food beneful provides you can simply add a fiber source to the Nutra food. That is it is ok to add up a quanity equal in volume to the kibble fed of a high fiber food like canned squash, pumkin or green beens. As mentioned above that one persons filler is anothers nutrious ingredient. There is one draw back to high carb meals: they inhibit protein digestion. There are studies the show that meat protein is more highly digestable by dogs than plant based however most studies fail to account for the charbohydrates as well. So a large part of the conclusion that meat based protein is better more digestable is because it was fed with less carbs.

Pesonal I general feed a high protein, high fat relatively low carb diet. With kibble the practical limit is ~20 carb by weight it is require for kibble to retain its shape to get lower in carbs required eith er a caned diet (even though most canned food is equal to carbs on a dry matter basis as kibbble) or a homemade diet. I general just deal with the consequence of the dog always feeling hungry.


Quality is in the eyes of the beholder. The most inportant critera is how the dog does. I have fed many socalled super premium brand that my dogs reacted poorly to. Price etc is not a measure of quality but more often that of marketing prowess.
the best article I have ever read on dog foods is the follow. Keep in mind most articles on dog food nutrition are biased it is best to figure out that bias will reading to keep the information provided in perspective
Dog Foods - Help in making the choice easier