HELP! Top quality dog food?

Question

I need to know some top quality dog food brands. I have a shih apso mix. She was on a homemade diet, but gained too much weight. I will still give her a homemade diet once or twice a week. Please recommend some good dog foods. Price is not too much of an problem except it can't be too expensive (eg 60.00 and 17 lb bag). Please help, I am looking for personal experiences and honest opinions. Please help me decide!!! If you can also tell me where to find it. Any cheap brands will be ignored!!!! The person with the best answer, I will give that type of food to my dog.

Answer 1

Sorry, but as a professional, I wouldn't recommend Nutro... I would recommend Innova Adult, Innova Evo, Wellness, Natural Balance (aside from the recalls..), Blue Buffalo, Solid Gold...

My number one pick would have to be Innova Evo... it's great, top of the line food and it should keep the weight off of her.  

Answer 2

I would choose Orijen over Eagle Pack because I have had bad problems with Eagle Pack giving my dogs diarrhea. But ultimately the choice is up to you!

Answer 3

I have my dog on Canidae, she has been on it for a year now, and she seems to be doing quite well. She maintains her weight. Wellness is a good brand as is Solid Gold.  It is really difficult to have a  homemade diet so you get all the nutrients plus vitamins  

Answer 4

Timberwolf, Eagle Pack Holistic, Canidae...

Answer 5

Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to dump cheap leftovers in. Will it kill your dog? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot.

Corn is a low quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets.

Thankfully, there are some excellent dog foods being made these days that include organic, human grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption.

Examples of low quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Pedigree, Kibbles n' Bits, Beneful, Ol'Roy.

Examples of high quality foods to look for: Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Canidae All Life Stages, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety Prairie, Nature's Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix.

Although the high quality foods are more expensive, you're getting what you're paying for. Less filler material means more concentrated nutrients... this means you typically need to feed far less of the high quality food than you would of the low quality one. Which also means less p**p!

A great option is to go with an entirely grainless diet. Many of the high quality foods now put out grainless formulas. Some good grainless diet's include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now! and Sold Gold Barking At The Moon, Taste of the Wild.

Some of the high end foods can be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness and Solid Gold. If you can't find a food, most of the high quality food brands have websites with store locators on them.

Remember that foods should be switched gradually, especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies.

Another option for feeding dogs is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted:

http://www.barfworld.com/

http://www.rawfed.com/

http://www.rawlearning.com/

http://www.wysong.net/controversies/rawm...

More on dog food:

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?...  (Learn how to determine the quality of your dog's food.)

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_... (Dog food reviews. Anything with five or six stars is a great food.)

Edit: I would choose Orijen over Eagle Pack Holistic.

Answer 6

Wellness CORE,Innova,Solid Gold, and Orijen are great foods! Very healthy and good for dogs!

Answer 7

I am very pleased to hear that you only want to feed your dog high quality dog food. Much too often people just want to feed their dogs whatever they can get that's cheap. I personally like the following foods. Eukanuba, Iams, Science Diet and Pro Plan. You can get these at the Grocery store, Petco, Petsmart and your veterinarian can also help you with a "reducing diet" thru a RX diet also. Common ones used thru a veterinarian are Science Diet and Purina Weight Reducing diets but are only by RX. I recom. Eukanuba or Iams myself and try to reduce her weight that way and then if that isn't helping, see your veterinarian because sometimes it can also be a medical issue ( Hypo-thyroidism in dogs that cause them to gain weight and not loose it easily)--my dog had this problem and was even on RX weight reduction diet and didn't loose weight until she was diagnosed with hypothyroid ( Low Thyroid ). Also, if you are deducing her diet and she acts hungry all the time, you can add raw baby carrots as a filler and they are very low in calaries. ( I also do this with my dog and she loves her carrots). Hope this helps some.  

Answer 8

I just started feeding my dogs Canidae 2 weeks ago and they really love it.

Answer 9

I have 2 yorkies they get nutro ultra, i think it is the best food and i have tried it all. I am still getting the puppy brand, it has salmon,chicken and lamb. as well as cranberries sunflower oil, fish oil....etc you should look it up online http://www.ultraholistic.com/index.html i am telling you, you will love to give it to your dog.

Answer 10

I have tried a lot of foods.  I have found that Blue Buffalo is the best for my dogs.  It is loaded with vitamins, Omega3, and quality protein.  No fillers, or corn.  I am going to switch gradually to Blue B. Wilderness as this last bag gets low.  My dogs have beautiful coats, shiny and they are complimented all the time.  If I thought I could keep it up, I would go to raw feeding, but I know I cannot be consistent and B/B is the next best thing.

Answer 11

There is a holistic pet store by My Organic Market near where I live.  I would look online or in the Yellow Pages for stores like this.  The store that I went to does research on EVERYTHING they have in their store to make sure that there are no by-products in their food.  One really good food that I give my dog is Enova Evo Small Bites.  That food is really good and they even have a wet food.  I'm not too crazy about their wet food though because there is one ingredient that I don't agree with (water sufficient for processing...I have no clue what that means and I certainly wouldn't want it in my food).  But your best bet is to just search for a holistic place near you and try out different things you and your pup like.  Good luck!