Dry and wet dog food

[JadeOrchidSong]

We adopted our shih tzu Pomeranian mix two weeks ago. He is 2.5 years old and weighs 17 pounds. He likes to eat his science diet kibbles mixed with Taste of the Wild canned lamb. He usually doesn't like the dry kibbles by themselves. I wonder if I am spoiling him? I give him 1/2 cup kibble and two or three teaspoons of canned lamb and mix them together for him twice a day.

Can you share how you give your dog food? Do you give only dry kibbles? Do you give both kibbles and canned food? Do you give them separately or mixed?

Also several people tell me that I am turning into his servant when I tell them that I am thinking of cooking dog food (meat with rice and veggies) as a 1/4 or 1/3 of his total food intake, with his main food being kibbles. I would only cook every other week if I do it at all. Can you share with me why doing this turns me into a servant? Is it better just to let him have the dry kibble with nothing else? Thanks!

[beaners]

Science diet kibble is essentially cardboard, lol. Can you just find a quality food that is more appealing?

[JadeOrchidSong]

Is Taste of the Wild better? It is grain free!

 

[Ellie]

We adopted our shih tzu Pomeranian mix two weeks ago. He is 2.5 years old and weighs 17 pounds. He likes to eat his science diet kibbles mixed with Taste of the Wild canned lamb. He usually doesn't like the dry kibbles by themselves. I wonder if I am spoiling him? I give him 1/2 cup kibble and two or three teaspoons of canned lamb and mix them together for him twice a day.

Can you share how you give your dog food? Do you give only dry kibbles? Do you give both kibbles and canned food? Do you give them separately or mixed?

Also several people tell me that I am turning into his servant when I tell them that I am thinking of cooking dog food (meat with rice and veggies) as a 1/4 or 1/3 of his total food intake, with his main food being kibbles. I would only cook every other week if I do it at all. Can you share with me why doing this turns me into a servant? Is it better just to let him have the dry kibble with nothing else? Thanks!

 

 

 

I give my 10# dachshund 1/4 cup of dry food twice a day. My 28# French bull dog gets 1/2 cup twice a day. No canned food, no treats.

 

We feed dry Evo (or Innova; usually Evo) exclusively, because it has human-quality ingredients. When new critters have come into our home, I have seen a marked improvement in their coats after a few months, even if their previous owners were feeding them premium-quality foods.

 

I can't say that you're "spoiling" your sweet puppy by giving him canned in addition to the dry, or by cooking his food. However, cooking for the dog would be way too much for *me.* YMMV.

[zoobie]

I'd switch to a higher quality kibble and see if he likes that better. Our vet recommends all dry food for cats and dogs because it's better for their teeth. My 18 and 20 year old cats split a can of wet food a night now, but they get special treatment for being the oldest. You can pour chicken broth on dry kibble, but once pup gets used to it, you're stuck.

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/best-dog-foods/best-dry-dog-foods/

 

I can barely keep up with cooking for my family. I'd crack if I had to cook for my dogs! :) I probably wouldn't start unless you are 100% sure you will continue forever. Dogs have long memories when it comes to food.

[JustEm]

My dogs get dry kibble twice a day. For a treat they get beef bones since we have the butcher save them for us when we purchase our side of beef each year. I do not do wet food for dogs because it is worse for their teeth. If you pup chews a lot of bone/ hard toys then you wouldn't really have to worry about the wet hurting their teeth as the chewing will keep them clean. I also hate the way wet dog food smells. If I were ever going to prepare food for my dog I would commit 100% to a raw food diet for them but since it is not cost effective I go with what is for them.

[Melissa in Australia]

we give our dogs dry kibbles once a day. We get working dog kibbles, the ones with the highest %protein. They also get bones twice a week. Our dogs are strictly outside dogs.

[JadeOrchidSong]

I think I will stop wet food and switch the dry to Taste of the Wild when I am done with Science Diet. Which TotW do you use if you use it?

[JadeOrchidSong]

Science diet kibble is essentially cardboard, lol. Can you just find a quality food that is more appealing?

 

SD is what his previous owners fed him. I know nothing about dog food, so I just got SD for him. I will switch to Taste of the Wild.

 

[Pawz4me]

I've always mixed some canned dog food or, preferably, healthy "human" food in with all my dogs' food.

 

Eating nothing but highly processed, dehydrated dry crunchy bits is NOT a healthy way to eat.

 

In general canned food is considered healthier than kibble. It has fewer preservatives and carbs and more moisture (all healthful for dogs). Some sources claim that crunching on kibble may contribute to dental health. The statistics that I've read say that if it does, it's a relatively small effect. Just yesterday I read a study (which unfortunately I didn't bookmark) that said that dogs who are kibble fed tend to have about ten percent fewer dental issues. IMO that can easily be offset by teeth brushing or offering appropriate chews. I've never had a dog who ate dry kibble, and I've never had a dog whose teeth needed cleaning. That includes my current 13-yo dog. At his most recent check-up the vet said he had the best teeth of any 13 yo dog she'd ever seen. Now some (maybe a lot) of that is genetics. But as I said, he's never eaten dry kibble in his life, so his good dental health is certainly NOT related to that.

 

You also may be offering your dog way too much food. It's really hard for humans to visualize how little food such a small dog needs. I have a 14.5 pound Shih Tzu. He gets maybe 1/3 cup of kibble per day total along with a bit of extra -- a small amount of canned food, a little cooked chicken, green beans, etc. And he usually doesn't eat all of that. I leave his food down for 15 minutes or so and whatever he doesn't finish is then given to my other dog.

 

Home-cooking for dogs is common, and you can find lots of information on the internet about how to go about it correctly. At the percentages you're talking about you'd probably be fine, but I would want to put a little effort into balancing it. The main thing you need to be concerned about is the calcium/phosphorus ratio. In general that can be handled by adding one dried, crushed eggshell (an excellent source of calcium) per pound of meat. That's a rough estimate, of course, depending on what other ingredients you use. But it at least gets the calcium/phosphorus ratio in the ballpark of where it should be. All you'd need to do is wash an eggshell (or more than one depending on how much meat you're using), dry it in the oven, finely crush it and mix it in with the food you prepare weekly.

[Melissa in Australia]

Funny how everyone has a different idea. I have heard from at least 2 vets, plus the vet on the radio that dogs only really need kibbles, and canned food isn't necessary. the one vet recommends dry food only plus meaty bones twice a week or even better half a rabbit with skin still on once a week with kibbles

[Pawz4me]

Many nutrition textbooks used in vet schools are written by people with ties to the pet food industry. Kibble is a relatively recent invention, in the past 50 years or so. Before that dogs did fine on "people food."

[Rebecca VA]

Dogs are hunters, too. Our dog killed and ate numerous baby bunnies when we lived at our old house (no bunnies here, but there are plenty of chipmunks and squirrels, who are too fast for him). If we lived in the country, he'd be nosing around chicken coops waiting to sink his teeth into a fat hen.

 

To the OP, we give our dog about half a cup of Paul Newman's Organic Dog Food (dry) with 1/3 can of Merrick dog food per day. We buy whatever flavors sound appealing to us (they have some scrumptious ones). Our dog has become so spoiled on the Merrick food that he refuses to eat dry food by itself.

[SailorMom]

We only do dry. We use Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (great food and not ridiculously expensive).

[Ellie]

Here is an article about Dr. Wendel Belfiield. He was our vet in San Jose, California. When I first took a pet to him in 1987, he did not recommend any commercial pet food. Later, he recommended Innova, which was created by one of his "patients." He recommended Innova because of its human-quality ingredients (and he did not sell it).

 

Food Not Fit for a Pet

[Erin]

Because I have six dogs I have to straddle the line between ideal and cost-effective.

These are a couple of good sites for dog food reviews. I think they both review dry as well as canned.

http://www.dogfoodan...g_food_reviews/

http://www.dogfoodad...od-reviews/dry/

 

 

Personally, I feed Diamond Naturals. (Diamond is the parent company of Chicken Soup and TotW, btw.)

It's probably the cheapest of the "quality" kibbles, but still a solid 4-5 star food.

 

Interestingly, all of my dogs get about a cup of it, once a day. From the 50 pound border collie down to the 8 pound dachsies, they maintain weight on the same amount of food...

[Pawz4me]

Here is an article about Dr. Wendel Belfiield. He was our vet in San Jose, California. When I first took a pet to him in 1987, he did not recommend any commercial pet food. Later, he recommended Innova, which was created by one of his "patients." He recommended Innova because of its human-quality ingredients (and he did not sell it).

 

Food Not Fit for a Pet

 

Dr. Belfield is widely credited with being a "consultant" for Natura (manufacturer of Innova). So he very likely had a financial benefit in recommending it. Sadly, Natura was sold out to Procter & Gamble two or three years ago, so what was once a very respectable and reliable pet food manufacturer now has to be considered with caution. IMHO, of course. They no longer state on their site that all ingredients are sourced domestically, and that's a huge red flag for me. Add to that the recent recall issues and I've gotten leery of using Natura products. And they used to be the only pet food company I had complete faith in. :(

[AngieW in Texas]

I'm feeding 4Health Performance formula. It's only available at Tractor Supply, but it's a premium dog food at much less than premium price.

 

Here is a link to the review on dogfood advisor:

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/4health-dog-food-dry/

 

As far as quantity goes, my 60 pound, very active German shepherd eats about 3.5 cups of food/day. She was eating about 4.5 cup/day until her growth slowed down and then she started leaving food, so I reduced the amount I was giving her.

 

If you want to mix something wet into the dog food, canned pumpkin is great for dogs and is often what vets will recommend that you add when your dog has digestive upset. Just make sure that what you add is 100% pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling.

 

Kylie also gets 3-4 frozen neck bones each week. They have some meat on them, but not a lot. Occasionally I will spring for finger rib bones which have a decent amount of meat on them, but those are almost $2/pound while the neck bones are less than $1/pound and are a lot less dense as well.

[Ellie]

 

Dr. Belfield is widely credited with being a "consultant" for Natura (manufacturer of Innova). So he very likely had a financial benefit in recommending it. Sadly, Natura was sold out to Procter & Gamble two or three years ago, so what was once a very respectable and reliable pet food manufacturer now has to be considered with caution. IMHO, of course. They no longer state on their site that all ingredients are sourced domestically, and that's a huge red flag for me. Add to that the recent recall issues and I've gotten leery of using Natura products. And they used to be the only pet food company I had complete faith in. :(

 

Yes, he was a consultant. The man who started Natura owned a store in San Jose called An-Jan, which sold critter foods of all kinds. One of the stores was right down the street from Dr. Belfield's office, and when he would drop in, Dr. Belfield would give him grief about all the stuff he was selling. He finally decided to do something about it. Of course he would consult with Dr. Belfield. I saw the articles Dr. Belfield had written long before Natura Pet, and newspaper articles plastered all over the walls of his office, which talked about animals who had died from eating commercial pet food that had been rendered from euthanized animals. Who better to consult with than Dr. Belfield?

 

When I first took a pet to him, he gave me a recipe to make this really nasty food--brown rice, shredded carrots, garlic, Vitamin C powder, and some awful meat-y stuff that you had to buy frozen because it has no shape of its own and which made me gag when I cooked it. And then none of my animals would eat it, not even the starving stray cat. I figured they'd have to deal with Iams, lol.

 

I know that Natura has been sold to P&G, and I don't have *complete* faith in them any longer, but I have not seen any decline in my cats' and dogs' coat or other health issues, and salmonella can show up anywhere, so I'm just going to keep on buying--and recommending--Evo.

[Erin]

From what I can tell, most, if not all, of the quality pet foods have had recalls.

Personally, I can't let that be a deterrent or I'd have to feed BARF and I don't have enough time, space or money to do that.

[RoughCollie]

I feed Aidan Fromm grain-free. The company has never had a recall.

 

Here is a list of more recent recalls: http://www.dogfoodad...g-food-recalls/

 

Here is a dog food calculator: http://www.dogfoodad...ood-calculator/

 

I do add people food to Aidan's meals. I add unseasoned, coooked meat, chicken or fish, and unsalted, plain green beans and carrots. I feed him a scrambled egg three times a week. Those additions make his food much more enjoyable for him than plain dry food. I sometimes add canned food (Evanger's buffalo) to his meal, or mix in a little bit of Parmesan, grated low-fat cheese, or yogurt.

 

I make sure the yogurt has no artificial sweeteners in it. Xylitol is particularly harmful to dogs, as are grapes, raisins, onions, garlic, chocolate, coffee, macadamia nuts, fatty foods, and yeast dough. http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison-control/animal-poison-control-faq.aspx#FD1

 

I know how many calories Aidan needs a day (I asked the vet), and I reserve 10% of those calories for treats I use in training him and for bully sticks (which are usually 15 calories per inch).