ANSWER:
~ WOW, In my opinion that article is the biggest bunch of crap I have ever seen. The dog foods they stand behind are crap. Purina and Eukanuba, they are horrible dog foods!
A high quality kibble or raw diet is the best for all dogs!
No dog should eat any big box grocery store/pet food dog food.
Foods to avoid: Pedigree, Beneful, Purina, Iams, Nutro, Alpo, Ol Roy, Mighty Dog, Ceser, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Purina, Royal Canin, Kibbles N Bits, Bil-Jac, Eagle Pack (not to be confused with Eagle Pack Holistic) and of course all grocery store brands of dog food!
These foods have low quality ingredients that can cause allergies, diabetes, bloat, overweight, oily skin, excessive and or runny stool and a myriad of other problems. Most of these brands are owned by companies like Del Monte, Proctor and Gamble, Mars and Nestle. Do you really believe that a company like Proctor and Gamble who makes beauty products, household cleaning supplies, baby items, prescription drugs and many others is the best suited company to make quality products for dogs? 50% of Mars is pet food, 45% is unhealthy snacks like candy bars. Science Diet is promoted by vets who in return make a profit on every bag they sell. Hill’s is the largest employer of veterinarians outside of academia. They sponsor many pet nutrition related veterinary school programs and hold seminars and training sessions on the subject of pet nutrition for practicing veterinarians. So of course Hill’s is going to say they are the best, they are teaching the vets pet nutrition, they want to make a profit, not healthy cat and dog food. Does this sound like the best company to make dog food? All of these companies have one thing in common, they have the advertising to make you believe pictures of meat and veggies and healthy dogs running around on the commercials is what you will get. Knowing the truth about what is in these foods is devastating.
Quality dog foods: Innova, California Natural, EVO, Karma, Wellness, Orijen, Canidae, Merricks, Artemis, Taste of the Wild, Nature’s Variety, Solid Gold-Barking at the Moon, Go!, Now!, Pinnacle, Blue Buffalo, and Timberwolf Organic.
Here are several websites to do your own research, which I highly suggest. A lot of questions here about dog s health problems are a direct result of the food you are feeding. Read the ingredients label on the back, go to the website and see who owns the dog food, look up the ingredients and learn why it is used and what the pros and cons are. Changing to a healthy low grain, no grain dog food will relieve most of your dog aliments and give you a healthier and happier dog.
www.naturapet.com
www.dogfoodproject.com
www.dogfoodanalysis.com
www.api4animals.org/facts.php?p=359&more=1
www.feedmypet.com/dog-food-comparison.html
www.canidae.com
Current pet food regulations allow manufacturers to use ingredients that you would never knowingly give to your pet. In fact, you may be shocked to learn what some brands of pet food really contain. For example: the use of by-products (feet, bones and intestines, etc.), the 5 Ds, (dead, dying, diseased, decayed, drugged), chemical preservatives (BHA and BHT) and grains that are often difficult to digest (corn, wheat, gluten and soy), which are often used as a protein source instead of meat.
I was shocked and disgusted when I first learned about how most all commercially processed dog foods are made and their ingredients. I became an educated consumer wanting the best for my dogs. They say the most dangerous woman in the world is an educated dog mother. How true!
That is why I will never feed any brand name dog food from Pedigree, Purina, Eukanuba, Iams, Ol’Roy, Beneful, Diamond, Nutro etc. ever again.
They are made with dangerous ingredients and deadly additives that are literally bringing our dogs to an early and painful death.
Food is the fuel of all life. The quality of the fuel directly relates to how well the body can operate. Low quality dog food, such as Beneful, Pedigree, Ol Roy, Purina, Eukanuba, Iams, Science Diet, etc., are filled with *empty* calories. These foods are made with keeping costs down in mind, *not* in the best interest of nutrition. When you think of healthy food, do you think of Nestle or Mars (both heavily invested in producing candy)? What about Del Monte (heavily invested in produce, especially corn )?
Heck, just go to Beneful s or Pedigree s websites, they re full of promotions, coupons, streaming audio and video, and heart-warming catchy slogans; they know that as long as they paint a pretty picture, the sheeple of the world will think it must be good because they got a warm and fuzzy feeling by the advertising.
Let s take Pup-peroni (by Del Monte), for example, a quick scan of the ingredients raises eyebrows:
– Meat By-products Definition: The non-rendered, clean parts, other
than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not
limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone,
partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and
intestines freed of their contents
– Sugar Because all dogs need sugar, right?
– Propylene Glycol Here s a few uses of this chemical (from Wikipedia):
+ As the main ingredient in deodorant sticks
+ As a medical and sexual lubricant
+ As the killing and preserving agent in pitfall traps, usually used
to capture ground beetles
+ As a solvent used in mixing photographic chemicals, such as film
developers
+ In hand sanitizers, antibacterial lotions, and saline solutions
How about Pedigree (made by M&M s company Mars), you know Really good food for dogs :
– First ingredient GROUND WHOLE CORN (read, nutritionally void filler)
– Corn Gluten Meal This is a well-known (even patented) herbicidal agent
used for weed control in lawns and gardens!
– Wheat Mill Run Definition: Commonly referred to as “floor sweepings”,
this ingredient is nothing more than inexpensive filler with little or
no nutritional value.
– Chicken by-product meal: Consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts
of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped
eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as
might occur unavoidable in good processing practice. Chicken by-product
costs less than chicken muscle meat and lacks the digestibility of
chicken muscle meat.
Chemical additives aside, let s analyze the recommended serving size between Pedigree and a quality food like Orijen. Being that Pedigree is mostly fillers, your poor dog has to eat so much more just to get the calories to survive when compared to a quality food that actually contains real meat. You ready?
Pedigree (50-75lb. dog): 4 to 5-1/3 cups a day
Orijen (45-75lb. dog): 1-3/4 to 2-1/2 cups a day!
Orijen costs more, but you feed less, AND the quality is superb. Just look at the difference in the ingredients and it s painfully obvious which is a quality food.
Pedigree: GROUND WHOLE CORN, MEAT AND BONE MEAL, GROUND WHEAT, CORN GLUTEN MEAL, ANIMAL FAT (PRESERVED WITH BHA/BHT), WHEAT MILL RUN, WHEAT FLOUR, NATURAL FLAVOR, SALT, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, CARAMEL COLOR, CHICKEN BY-PRODUCT MEAL, RICE, VEGETABLE OIL (SOURCE OF LINOLEIC ACID), VITAMINS (CHOLINE CHLORIDE, dl-ALPHA TOCOPHEROL ACETATE [SOURCE OF VITAMIN E], L-ASCORBYL-2-POLYPHOSPHATE [SOURCE OF VITAMIN C*], VITAMIN A SUPPLEMENT, THIAMINE MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], BIOTIN, d-CALCIUM PANTOTHENATE, RIBOFLAVIN SUPPLEMENT [VITAMIN B2], VITAMIN D3 SUPPLEMENT, VITAMIN B12 SUPPLEMENT), MINERALS (ZINC SULFATE, ZINC PROTEINATE, COPPER SULFATE, COPPER PROTEINATE, MANGANESE PROTEINATE, POTASSIUM IODIDE), ADDED FD&C AND LAKE COLORS (YELLOW 6, YELLOW 5, BLUE 2, RED 40)
Orijen: Deboned chicken, chicken meal, turkey meal, russet potato, lake whitefish, chicken fat, sweet potato, whole eggs, turkey, salmon meal, salmon and anchovy oils, salmon, natural chicken flavour, sunflower oil, sun-cured alfalfa, dried brown kelp, carrots, spinach, peas, tomatoes, apples, psyllium, dulse, glucosamine Hcl, cranberries, black currants, rosemary extract, chondroitin sulfate, sea salt.
You can apply this same analogy TO EVERY SINGLE PET FOOD IN THE GROCERY / CHAIN PET STORES!
NEWS FLASH: Science Diet is crap food too! Yes, your vet makes *MONEY* by selling it, not to mention a SIGNIFICANT number of veterinary school programs ARE FUNDED by Hill s!
There is nothing scientific about their diet . The science they use is how to make a profit.
The use of corn, wheat, or soy in dog food can cause skin irritation, hair loss, fever, ear infections, kidney failure, liver failure, dental disease, obesity, chronic digestive problems, bloat, heart disease, and hyperthyroidism.