Kibble

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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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.

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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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

Not all foods work well for all dogs. Remember that.

...My dogs tend to do better on what I consider medium grade foods. Not the best/priciest stuff (Innova, California Natural, Canidae) but not the really cheap stuff either (Hi-Pro, Dog Chow). Remember price has nothing to do with what might work for your dog. Just because a food is listed in a magazine as their 10 best, doesn't mean its better than another food that isn't listed. They do no testing of the food, they base their opinions on the ingredients. My dogs have not done well on any of those foods. Think for yourself and don't get brainwashed into thinking you are a horrible pet owner if you don't buy these foods for your dog

...Remember, what works for my dogs or anyone else's dog might not work for yours. Buy the smallest bag you can find of what you want to start trying and if the dog doesn't eat it or you don't like the results, then you aren't out much and you can donate the rest to a shelter. I swear this last year I have to have donated more food that didn't work out with my dogs to shelters than anyone else in my county. (laughs)

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