ashleylou wrote:

I feed all 3 of my dogs whiskas cat food or meow mix cat food. They absoulutely love it and there coats are beautiful and shiny and they are all healthy as a horse.

Cat food has extremely high ash contents; i wouldn't recommend it.

Huskyluv wrote:

ashleylou wrote:

I feed all 3 of my dogs whiskas cat food or meow mix cat food. They absoulutely love it and there coats are beautiful and shiny and they are all healthy as a horse.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to know, but may I ask why you feed cat food to your dogs?

Well val my mom has fed her dogs cat food as long as I can remember. The vet we go to also said its very good for them and it has good protein that they can't get from most dog food.
Its honestly pretty common around here to feed dogs cat food.
I'm not an expert or anything and I don't want to seem ignorant but in my opinion cat food is the best choice. My dogs coats are shinier and look more vibrant than most dogs that are fed dog food, and my vet is never disatisfied with there weight or health. I hope that's a good enough explanation. Lol

hypers987 wrote:

ashleylou wrote:

I feed all 3 of my dogs whiskas cat food or meow mix cat food. They absoulutely love it and there coats are beautiful and shiny and they are all healthy as a horse.

Cat food has extremely high ash contents; i wouldn't recommend it.

I've always known to feed my dogs cat food... but what would you recomend?

ashleylou wrote:

hypers987 wrote:

ashleylou wrote:

I feed all 3 of my dogs whiskas cat food or meow mix cat food. They absoulutely love it and there coats are beautiful and shiny and they are all healthy as a horse.

Cat food has extremely high ash contents; i wouldn't recommend it.

I've always known to feed my dogs cat food... but what would you recomend?

First of all, I'm gonna touch base on the cat food you are feeding - it's whiskas or meow mix, which aren't very high quality, they're crap. I wouldn't feed that to my cats, who actually are supposed to eat cat food. My cat's eat Chicken Soup For The Cat Lovers Soul, or Wellness.

I would never feed the food in question, not because it's made for cats, but because its all corn. It has such little animal protein that you are doing wrong by your animals. Dogs need animal proteins in order to exist. In feeding this food you are limiting their nutrition.

Second, these foods only have about 31% Protein, the high quality kibbles I was feeding before switching to raw, had around 34%. The high quality Cat kibble I feed is even more than that (but, I wouldn't feed that to my dog, especially a puppy.)

IMO, there is too little fat in these foods to be beneficial to a dog, especially a Siberian.

You have to remember, that these are formulated for cats, not for dogs. I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I think your vet may be wacky. I'm not saying you can't feed it - sparingly, but I can't imagine that it is good long term, or that it is good for kidneys and digestive tracts of dogs.

The rule in my house, since finding this forum - If I wouldn't eat it, neither should my animals. (that includes kibbles.)

And your absolutely right. I've just followed what my mom has always done. I didn't mean to offend anyone. I have been reading since brooke posted about the ash. But now that I've come to that what I'm doing is completely wrong I really don't know where to start from...HELP... I will change foods for both my animals cats and dogs but I honestly don't know where to go from here also while not breaking the bank.
I can't believe I was that ignorant as I refer to myself saying that earlier. I've read up on everything about sapphira except that! I know corn is no good for them but geesh!
So everyone ignore what I've already posted lol and all advice is welcome!

You are fine! I didn't mean to come off harsh. You are right by me, so if you want something tomorrow - go to Petco. If you want something in 2 days, order off wag.com but STOP feeding the cat food haha.

You aren't in trouble. Just remember, we have you and your dog in mind. Okay? Do you have a pet store near you?

Lol if I was a dog my tail would be between my legs! And I know you guys are like big brothers and sisters! yeah there's a pet store around me. But its kind of hard to find something without corn...

Check out Dogfood Advisor it might take a little bit of research, but you should be able to narrow down your options. They have a link to the "Best Grain Free Dry Dog Foods" and it's a significant list. I don't know what your budget is or what stores you have nearby, but you should be able to find something. Good luck!

Thank you!

We just got our first big bag of Grandma Lucy's and its a hit. We got the rabbit flavor and I usually add some raw to it. So far Ava hasn't skipped a meal since - and she usually hardly eats anything. Snickers has been getting THK Keen lately because Ava absolutely will not touch it for some reason. Both types of food are working out great so far - and the GL food smells really really yummy. I kinda wanna take Ava's food one night lol

Myndi wrote:

We just got our first big bag of Grandma Lucy's and its a hit. We got the rabbit flavor and I usually add some raw to it. So far Ava hasn't skipped a meal since - and she usually hardly eats anything. Snickers has been getting THK Keen lately because Ava absolutely will not touch it for some reason. Both types of food are working out great so far - and the GL food smells really really yummy. I kinda wanna take Ava's food one night lol

THK is having a 20% off each individual product all throughout July, so I got Keen and Thrive. =) Kale is currently on GL rabbit as well and is loving it!

ashleylou wrote:

Lol if I was a dog my tail would be between my legs! And I know you guys are like big brothers and sisters! yeah there's a pet store around me. But its kind of hard to find something without corn...

We've all been there, I remember there was a time when I thought Pedigree was the best dog food basically all because of the packaging!

Cats are true carnivores so they should be eating entirely meat, although you won't find a kibble that fits the bill. But do look for something grain free for the cats at least.

If you are on a restricted budget and your dogs do well on grain inclusive foods then there is no shame in going that route. I would advise choosing a food with a named animal meat or preferably named meat meal as the first ingredient.

Luckily, it's getting easier and easier to find corn free dog foods. You can even find decent corn free foods at Walmart and Target like Newman's Own or even Purina One Beyond. I wouldn't normally recommend Purina brand but that formula isn't terrible and it's not that expensive and is super easy to find. If you can afford better foods then great, forgive me but I mentioned these cheaper options considering your age as I know people at that age are on a tighter budget (forgive me for generalizing, I know I was on a strict budget at that age).

Thanks val I appreciate it! Megan has also helped me out a lot and I'm pretty sure I'm going to feed my animals raw food and some kibble not sure what kind I havnt made it to tsc I will be going there tomorrow

Ok so I cut the cat food out! And I got earthborn holistic puppy vintage food and some bill-jac. I'm starting them out slowly on raw food with raw eggs. So is that better?

The Earthborn is excellent, I wouldn't feed the Bil-Jac. If you haven't opened the Bil-Jac I would return it for something better.

Raw egg is a great addition to raw feeding but that's not where I would start. I would recommend you start your venture into raw on something like chicken (if it agrees with your dogs) and add other things as you go along. Keep in mind that egg can give some dogs the runs also, so it's not alarming if that happens.

Hello all,

We're having trouble finding a kibble to suit both our pups, we have had them on Optimum and we both feel that it's not doing them any good (severe gas and liquid poos). The trouble we're having is which food to go, we don't want to spend $86 a bag on dog food as much as we would love to it's not in our budget. I've had a look at the dog food rating site but many of them arent actually available in Australia, or the ones we're looking at aren't on the list. If any of the Aussies on the site could let me know what you're currently feeding that would be appreciated, we have two pups under three months.

TIA

Though I realize with you being in Australia this sight might not be of much help but its a place many of us here in the USA & Canada refer to. Try to stay with 4 & 5 star rated foods

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/

Another one but doesn't seem to be active any longer is:

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

Currently I've been feeding a mix of Ziwipeak Venison and fish and Canidae Pure Elements kibble. So far I'm fairly impressed with the quality and Kale scafs it up (which he never does with kibble other than Evo).

I feed Prey Model Raw. Meat is available everywhere

Orijen or Acana!

I feed Blue Buffalo Wilderness but I think we are going to try Taste of the Wild as well. Anna doesn't have a sensitive tummy so it's easy to change foods.

Raw

Blue Buffalo Wilderness, Orijen gave my boy severe gas.

mheath0429 wrote:

I feed Prey Model Raw. Meat is available everywhere

I will 2nd this and say that when we were feeding kibble we went with Acana, Fromm, and Orijen.

We started Kota out on Science Diet, because our vet told us that was the best stuff out there. Of course, since our vet at the time told us that, I was naive and believed him. It wasn't until I went to PetLand on day that the lady helping us told us that it was basically crap food. Needless to say I felt like an idiot, as I thought I had done every bit of research I could have done...

Anyways she recommended Nature Valley's Instinct because it was completely grain-free and one of the 5 star dog foods on The Dog Food Adviser website. That's what we have been feeding Kota ever since and she loves it. They have like 4 different flavors so we constantly change up her flavor hoping that she doesn't get sick of it. They actually have a new type out by the same brand that has actual freeze dried raw in it and Kota loves loves loves it. She goes as far as to eat the light colored raw pieces out first before eating the rest of her food. Its kind of funny. Its a bit on the high priced side but for the quality I don't mind.

We tried putting her on a raw diet but it just didn't seem to be a good fit so now we give her the prepackaged raw that our Pet Land sells from a freezer by the same company that we get her kibble from. It works out pretty well and she seems to be healthy, and fit.