With her, yes, I do think Nature's Domain with meat as a supplement is a good idea. Since Kohdi is okay with chicken, he could have half his food be Nature's domain and the other half be meat, including the very inexpensive chicken legs and thigh quarters.

The vegetarian kibble with lean meat supplement would suit her well, I think. Were she mine, I'd slowly work her into a venison based raw diet but, that's because venison is plentiful for me and, I could reduce it for my others, giving her plenty for the entire year from the 12 deer my husband and I can legally harvest each year. I could feed my others more beef, just buy a third steer off the organic Angus farm my step daughter's father in law owns - cheap when I buy them on the hoof because family.

For you kibble with meat supplement would be more cost effective. Chicken and beef for Kohdi, more salmon, trout, duck, goose muscle only - not the skin or fat - don't think goose grease would agree well with Mishka. I'd even see if she's okay with egg whites - all of the the HDL is in the yolks, she may be able to have the protein of the egg without the fat of the yolk.

I do like feeding yogurt at least 3 times a week, my own get that. Just make sure it's a good plain yogurt with active cultures. For treats I do like Member's Mark (Sam's Club) Grain free biscuits, Zukes, Better than ears and, Blue Gog Bakery training treats. Mine find those high value because they are made with barely and, toasted, baked grain is a flavor they don't get often so, a nibble of it is a real treat to them.

Pumpkin is good, sweet potato, sweet peas, green beans, carrots, pears, apples, blueberries, blackberries, all good treats, either raw or lightly steamed if the dogs like them a bit more tender than raw.

You could also look into other plant based dog foods like Evolution, Natural Balance and, V-Dog. See what you think of them. You know your dogs best and, know what they will and won't eat.

Perfect, thank you so much Bev with all your help. they get Greek yogurt everyday, one is just plain Greek yogurt and every once in awhile I get plain Greek yogurt with honey. They also love pumpkin so I'm good there. Sometimes I even mix the pumpkin with the yogurt.

I'm curious to see how Kohdi will react when given a piece of raw chicken, lol.

Thank you again!

Mix the pumpkin, yogurt and honey - they love the lightly sweet treat.

I bet Kohdi will love the chicken. His instincts will tell him it's good food - sniff, chomp, chomp, gone LOL.

Ok, so just a little update.

I went to Costco and it seems the Natures Domain Salmon and sweet potato is no longer sold (?). None of their other recipes I liked. So if I change her food, it won't be to Natures Domain.

After this weekend, I'm wondering if she has food sensitivities at all, or, maybe it truly is the Nexgard I give them. I had a party/bbq on Sunday and the guests were all asked not to give the dogs ANY food, particularly Mishka. One couple brought their kids, and so Mishka had quite the feast going on. She ate Nacho Cheese Doritos, guacamole, hamburgers with cheese, buns and all, chicken, ice cream and the kicker was a jalepeno that fell off one guests burger and wolfed down by Mishka before he could blink. And not one reaction from all this food. No throw up, no diareah, just some slightly soft poop but even that looked better than when she's been sick. So.....I just don't know.

I'd try using a natural, topical flea control, herbal or Diatomous Earth powder, for a couple of months and, see how she does.

A little soft but still with some shape is pretty normal for a feast on BBQ food especially with avocado, corn form Doritos, Wheat from buns and, milk from ice cream. Any of mine would have soft stools for 1-2 poops after that feast. They do get that once or twice a year, when we host a whole hog or, half a steer roast.

I hope Mishka's trouble is as simple as flea control. If that's all it is, she's a pretty normal Husky, or from my perspective, a totally normal wolf. If that's her only problem, learning to love rosemary, mint, citronella and DE isn't hard to do.

Wolfdogs are notorious for medication sensitivity. Every one of mine has issues with one medication or vaccine or another. Halo reacts badly to Bordatella vaccine. Silver ran a fever, went off his food and, had diarrhea for two weeks over heart worm prevention pills, Knight actually contracted distemper from the vaccine and spent 4 days on IV fluids at the vet. Kaila hasn't had a medication problem YET but, she's only 14 weeks old so, we haven't done all of it yet. Strongid does give her the runs but, I expect that with any of mine when they get wormed.

The fleas here seemed to have little to no reaction to the natural methods, Bev. They were calling them the "super flea". I used the D.E throughout the house and yard with what felt like, no affect. I used some natural flea sprays I found at the pet store and both were on Advantage II. Only when I used Capstar did I actually see some relief for Kohdi and Mishka, and it'd be short lived. I started using the Nexgard and no lie, I noticed its affect immediately and within a day or two, neither dog had fleas and none since. I chose the Nexgard because of its affect on ticks as well, and it's side affects at the time, were the least. A friend in the neighborhood who had a Husky started using just the Sorresto collar and said it worked awesome, but one day in the park, their dog was playing and stopped, laid down, and died. Can't say it was the collar, and I wouldn't say that, but since they never found out what happened to their 5 year old little girl, it's still in the back of my mind. I had a Malamute growing up who was allergic to fleas, he would chew the fur right off himself, it was heart breaking, at the time only a product called Program was available and he was a different dog after starting it, never had a flea again and had a wonderful long life. I always told myself if this pill shortened his life, I'd be ok with his quality of life being better but since he lived to be 16, I never had to doubt myself I did the wrong thing. I hate having to give my two chemicals but they would get fleas so badly it was insane. I just have to look into other products being offered and see what I come up with.

During the winter I had stopped the Nexgard, I don't remember there being any difference in Mishka . It was only a few months though.

Mishka had runny poop yesterday. Don't know what did it.

Natural flea prevention is work, a lot more work than the chemical means that use pesticides. You have to keep up with it daily on the dog and in the house and, the yard weekly.

Nematodes every spring, DE monthly, weekly mowing the grass as sort as possible and still have a green lawn.

Daily flea comb the dog, apply repellent, wash dog bedding in hot water, dry in dryer on high heat, vacuum carpets, mop floors.

Weekly get dog wet, soaking wet and keep him/her that way for five minutes. Every two weeks shampoo dog and, leave the lather on for five minutes.

After a month of no fleas, you can slack off on the combing to a couple of times a week, or after going to a public area and, before going in the house to make sure you didn't get unwanted hitchhikers. Alternately, you can get the dog soaking wet for five minutes before going in the house to remove any possible hitchhikers before they get into your house.

A dog with a strong immune system helps too. None of mine get fleas or ticks past age 7 months and, they don't need daily prevention, they simply never get them, even when every dog in town has them bad that year. They are fed raw and, do get whole animals, including the hide, fur, guts, all of the animal. Sometimes it takes them two days to eat all of a deer - it stays out there for them, no refrigeration and, yes, it begins to rot but, they still eat it. They would in the wild so, they do it here too. Dogs do have the digestive and immune systems to handle that, if they are fed that way and have worked up to it gradually. I think that helps a lot in parasite prevention.

Combined with keeping their home and yard as pest free as possible, it works very well. One load of dog laundry a day is worth it to make sure my fur kids are comfortable and pest free.

I do use spot on for pups one time dose if they come with fleas. Fastest way to get them off and dead. If that fails, they get two months of an internal pesticide.

Since the flea infestation of the house is long over with now, I might try going natural again to see if it works. With there being carpet in the house, and sleeping on whatever bed they feel like, it's not going to be easy though. They more than likely pick most of the fleas up on walks too, and I can't see getting them soak and wet several times a day, daily, in this house.

So second day of diareah, and it's got mucus on it too. I looked it all up and since I don't see blood, I don't think it's some of the more serious things. Nothing out of the ordinary with her diet either. It's been super hot though, but would a dog stress from the heat so much as to get mucus poop? The house is kept as cool as possible but even I can get uncomfortable at times just from the heat in the air, it's been a humid heat.

have you tried Wondercide Natural Flea & Tick Control  they have some for dogs and cat or both and some for outside.
it could be from stress or for of GI upset. dose she act weird when you give her the nexgard?
Leo acted wired when he was on sentinel he would walk back and forth, look uncomfortable, hot and lethargic at one point he vomited. or could be something in the food recipe that they eat has changed? when that would happen Joey would pick at the food but not really eat much of it or just refuse to eat.

after four tries with the oral meds for heart worms and fleas and he still had those issues went natural. i have been using essential oils to keep the bugs off.
i use 10 drops of lavender,15 drops of cedarwood, 2 drops of  lemon eucalyptus, 2 drops of rose geranium, 2 drops of plao santo, and 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar in a 16oz glass bottle and add water, and shake it up and your good to go.

I don't think I've tried the Wondercide, Ronin. I don't remember what all I was buying for them that was natural, but I think that name would have stuck in my head. I will look for it. And thanks for the essential oil ingredients as well, I will get some.

No, neither dog acts weird with the Nexgard. It's a beef flavored thing so they actually think it's a treat, which makes me sad in some ways. Because of their weight difference, Mishka gets a smaller dosage, she's about in the middle of the weight class for that dosage whereas Kohdi is at the very very bottom of his weight class for his dosage (his dosage treats dogs all the way up to 120 lbs!!!) so if either dog were to have trouble with the stuff, I'd have put my money on it being Kohdi (I'm thinking if I continue Nexgard, giving him the same dosage Mishka gets) . One of the side effects of Nexgard is throwing up, which they both did do on their initial dosage (when I started them on it) but it was out of the timeframe of where I would have had to re-dose them because it wasn't in their blood stream or whatever, yet. No throwing up since.

Ok, need some thoughts...the ONLY thing Mishka gets, that Kohdi doesn't, is the cranberry supplement (Nutramax Cranadin), what are the chances this cranberry supplement could be messing Mishka up? One of the reasons I ask is because in my mind, if there was something in the food, or something in the flea control, that Kohdi would show some kind of sign/s something isn't quite right about them, like when I had them on the Solid Gold High Protein food, they BOTH exploded on it, but his stomach is good despite having way more flea control in him than he needs, and he's good on the food too but yes, I know each dog can react differently there, but Mishka used to be able to eat ANYTHING, it just seems something went wrong when I started changing/adding things for them and all the changes/adding were pretty much at the exact same time. The food, the Nexgard, the cranberry supplement all happened just at the same time as Mishka going thru the UTI thing, with the cranberry supplement being the only thing Mishka has in her diet that Kohdi doesn't.

Here are the ingredients for the cranberry supplement...

i use Now Foods brand for the essential oils you can find them on amazon.
was she was taking the cranberry supplement and was having normal bowel movements before the nexgard? i believe that diarrhea was listed on the side effects for the nexgard.

Ronin, she has normal bowel movements both on Nexgard and the cranberry supplement and even her food, it's these 3 week interval things where stuff gets messed up in her stomach. It sucks. Now, in trying to find them a new food, I learn Acana has a class action lawsuit against them and the food I'm feeding is included in the lawsuit. It's not a recall, I guess it's something about misrepresentation so consumers can make informed decisions on the food they feed. Apparently orjen and Acana contain heavy metals and BP's. I did a screen shot of the brand/recipes affected but I'm not sure if this would have anything to do with Mishka's problems.

My bad, I cut off the top part that lists metals. Here is the pic...

@artic_wind Jimmy, I've read almost all of that case and while I cannot disagree that arsenic, et al are harmful and I see the several pages of statements regarding the effects - at no point in that 72 page document do I see anywhere the source of the table that you quoted.

The following paragraph is a lead in to the chart:

Quote :

nowhere in the labeling, advertising, statements, warranties and/or packaging do Defendants disclose that the Contaminated Pet Foods (defined herein) contain levels of arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium and/or BISPHENOL A (“BPA”) — all known to pose health risks to humans and animals, including dogs

my only rejoinder is that while one can make the statement, without proof your claim is as valid as theirs.  The table puports to state fact without substance.

While I'm admittedly playing devils advocate this suit, so far as I can see, is tantamount to saying that "your couch contains 1.5% arsenic which is evil" - true statement but if I can't/won't show how I determined that your couch contains arsenic said suit would get tossed out of court.

Now you may have read that document closer than I, I have to admit that I skipped the several pages with pictures of the various food bag and similar, that doesn't mean that it's not in the document, just that I didn't see it.

Regrettably, we live in a very litigious society and people will sue over almost anything with almost no provable facts - I'd just like to see the facts and their sources.

ETA:  Champion requests dismissal of the suit.  Their counterclaim makes for interesting reading.  Simply, at what point do naturally occurring metals affect dogs and precisely what dogs were harmed by eating their food?

@aljones I agree. I've been reading, and like you I skimmed a lot, I also speed read (where I developed that I do not know, haha) and there are truly two sides to this lawsuit. From what I understand, these metals and BP's are "normally" in foods, this lawsuit is about misrepresentation (these things are not listed on the packaging and advertisements) and thus, consumers aren't able to make that informed choice. The same company that did that table, also claims foods like Purina and Pedigree are "good". People are understandably upset though, I know I am, this food is not cheap and we are under the impression, given no recalls and their list of ingredients, etc. that we are doing right by our dogs when in fact we may be slowly poisoning them. I read through many of the posts to a site as well and MANY people are noticing the same things I am in Mishka, diareah with mucus, throwing up, excessive thirst and things of that nature. UTI's and crystals in urine were cited but Mishka had that before the food change and skin conditions were also cited and I haven't seen that in Mishka except for the fact her coat has never been the same since changing her food. Mishka is a small dog so it may be affecting her more than Kohdi, I don't know, but I think there may be some validity to the claim, overall. Anyone feeding this food since 2013 are apparently affected, but the plant split between Canada and the U.S was in 2016, Canada isn't in the lawsuit but there are people in Canada complaining about the change in their dogs, and many many have been on Acana for many years.

I don't know. I just don't know what to do now with a change in food. I read Fromm is a recommended food but for how long?! I HAVE to do something though.

Well, I just blew away my response, suffice it to say that, in my opinion, the quantities of unlisted heavy metals they're discussing are so small as to be insignificant.

The acceptable level of arsenic in food is 12,500µg or four times the amount they're listing on that chart.

While I admit that I feed the worlds worst food, when I can afford it Fromms is my 'go to' dog food. With ONE voluntary recall of canned pet food in 2016 it's about the best. YMMV

What's legal and, what we want for our pets are two different things. I don't like those levels of arsenic. Yes, a lot of foods have it in there. Rice is a major issue with arsenic levels but, it's also a better grain than corn and, some dogs need a rice based food.

Even going grain free doesn't entirely avoid it but, it does help reduce the arsenic. Really the only way to avoid it all together is not to feed commercial dog food at all and, to avoid commercial supplements that might contain arsenic. That means a whole animals that are not commercially raised and, home grown fruits and vegetables for a supplement.

For most the knowledge of nutrients, how to balance a dog's diet and, the time and land required as well as having to hunt, fish and/or raise animals for dog food make it impossible to feed such a diet.

The best you can do is do your research on the foods you want to feed and, choose the one or two that have the lowest levels and are suitable for your dog(s).

If it's in the sol, all plants that grow there will take up a tiny bit of arsenic but, rice is unique in that it takes up a lot more than any other crop would.

For most, I think it's the question of what raises the knowledge barrier to a level of concern.  Since we have seemingly chosen to make arsenic the culprit of this discussion and we know that arsenic occurs naturally in most of the worlds water supply and in the ground it has to be accepted that at some level it will occur in the food we (and our pets) eat.  I think that what we're discussing are trace elements that are fatal in less than trace amounts.

This to me has begun to beg the issue of what do we want the dog food companies to put on their labels?  Some metals will cause an affect at lower levels than others ... that's a given.  If we say that we want to see all ingredients which might be greater than .01 mg/kilogram then the list is:
1) going to be astoundingly long - probably the better part of the back of the bag.
2) trace elements that are fatal at less than .01 mg/kilogram will not appear and we'll find ourselves in the same situation we are now.
I don't think it's at all practical to require every manufacturer to list every "ingredient" at what point do you stop - 1 mole/???  At that we've reached the point of inanity.

I've been reading around and seen comments like "I'll never feed my pet anything that has any trace metals in it!"  then accept that there is nothing that you can feed your dog.  Everything has some trace amounts of heavy metals in it - we just have to determine what we consider acceptable and the manufacturers have to provide us with the necessary information so we can make a reasonable choice.

The CeanLabelProject tested 1073 different dog foods and then listed anonymous data.  Their "reports cards" are interesting but their top recommended dog food costs US$36.00 for 4.4 pounds.  Sorry guys but if that were my only option - you'd go hungry. @artic_wind Fromm with 2.3 (out of 5) stars appears on the list approximately 2/3 of the way down - Hills Science Diet (3.5 stars) and Diamond Brands (3.3 stars) both appear higher.  Credible? Probably.  Realistic - I'm not too sure.

Al, you mention the clean label project, and I will say many in the raw feeding community along with those who feed kibble community are trying to get this project to disclose where they get this info. No one in the dog community believes the project, since they are saying the better foods out there are bad and the foods that most people think are not good, they list as being great foods. They actually list kibbles and bits as a recommended food, or some other purina food, so the question is, who is sponsoring this project? The savvy people of the dog community have completely ignored this project and have also believe that any lawsuits will be dismissed. From what I have read good companies, like Orijen and Fromm have dismissed this project, because of the fact they source their food differently than companies like Purina. Pollution is the prime source for food having trace heavy metals, look at our oceans as a great example and tuna warnings. Most in the dog community have just plain ignored the clean label project as bunk. And when asked they will not provide any info unless you pay them, hahaha, if they truly cared about animals they would disclose the information with out asking for money.

I wasn't going to flat out call it a bunch of bunk, but I think my saying what I did about their recommendations should have said what I wasn't quite prepared to.

The issue I find with clean label project is that there's a difference between rating a foods nutritional quality and rating a foods label quality, and I think that confuses some and they aren't good at disclosing that. In theory a bag of food could list that it has so many ppm arsenic and that would be all it would take to get them the 4-5 stars you want to see. But as was mentioned, then labels would be huge and people would be more confused. I believe that the project started out as a good idea. I'm just not sure that it is manifesting in a way that will be useful going forward as more than a way to scare people. As has been mentioned. There will be trace things in any food, not just commercial but also in homecooking, that you can't truly control. It's in our water. It's in the soil. It's in the air we breathe. Setting an acceptable level and doing your homework are your best bets. If they aren't willing to disclose the amounts of what they are finding to explain why they give the rating that they do then there's no point in them bothering to do the testing. And I'm not going to pay to find out that something is still way under the tolerated amount when their whole spiel is transparency. You could have a water test done on the water at your house and find out it isn't the food that's causing an issue at all. It could be your water. That same water that you would put into homecooking to get away from commercial foods. Bottled water can be just as bad or worse than tap in some cases also, so a lot of factors to take into account.

Even feeding raw or homemade can be problematic. My home a case in point. selenium is required in very small amounts for all animals. You'd think a trace mineral wouldn't be a big deal but, without it, animals, including humans, can't maintain muscle tone or muscle mass, they loose weight and muscle despite eating enough food.

The area I live in has soil that is very low in selenium. You can graze horses or cattle on the greenest grass and, feed them the best local hay but, they still loose weight. Deer in areas away from the hunter placed feeders and mineral licks are thinner than those that have access to human provided supplements. Feeding raw, if you aren't careful can lead to selenium deficiency in a dog. If I fed only animals raised or able to forage supplement free, then the meat would be deficient in selenium and, my dogs would suffer for it.

I have to be sure the meat is from supplemented animals, or add a trace mineral supplement to the meat before I feed it to avoid emaciated dogs that are eating plenty of seemingly good quality food.

That is the advantage of a good quality commercial dog food, it eliminates worries over deficiencies like that.

Now, here the locally grown rice is among the highest in the nation for inorganic arsenic - yep Arkansas, Louisiana and, Texas Rice is bad for arsenic and, those are major US rice producing states. That "Made in the USA with only US sourced ingredients might not be so good but then again, if the rice is getting arsenic from the local soil, so are all of my home grown fruits and vegetables. Still those are better than commercial pesticide and chemical filled products. I'll take a little arsenic over lab chemicals any day. A LITTLE being the key word there!

It's a matter of not panicking over stuff that sounds terrible and, using common sense and, personal experience combined with research and knowledge to decide what's best for you and your pets. Then you have to balance that with what your budget can afford and, what you and your dog actually like to eat and, don't have any digestive issues when eating.

aljones wrote:

I wasn't going to flat out call it a bunch of bunk, but I think my saying what I did about their recommendations should have said what I wasn't quite prepared to.

I'd say it's "bunk" in a way, but I'm not sure I'm totally understanding everything correctly. Here is what I'm understanding...the better foods have more in the way of meat in them than the not so great foods, like kibbles and bits. When meats are cooked and they break down, more in the way of these metals are created, . Add that to ingredients that already have these metals in them, you are getting more in the way of metals overall, within the bag of food. So if this is true (and I'm not sure it is, but I'm thinking it is) the better brands of food are going to have lower ratings than the not so great foods, in that respect. But as far as like, the nutrition part of it, what is good for our breed of dog, the Husky, who can't have the grains, corn, fillers, etc. the not so great brands fail miserably and the better brands come out on top. I'd say it's akin to *twisting of the facts* but it's not really (or is it?) because this is about the amount of metals in food and not about the diet itself. I, like most people, who are not dog food savvy, look at things like arsenic, lead, etc. and get freaked out that we are giving poison to our dogs, but I understand now that this poison is everywhere. Still can't decide if Acana is the best brand for Mishka though!!! Ughhh. For now, I've stopped her cranberry supplement, I want to see if it changes anything in her. I figure a week or two without it won't be that detrimental to her.

@bluemoods the breeder I got my last 3 Huskies (before Kohdi and Mishka) from sent me pages and pages long messages on dog nutrition and Selenium was a huge part of those messages. That was 10 years ago! and our worlds lack of selenium was already a huge concern of hers back then. Reading your post reminded me to those messages.

It's not that the metals are created during the process, Jimmy, because the animals we process for dog food are generally 'vegetation eaters' the metals that come from the water and soil then into the food that those animals eat are then reduced (well, the flesh is reduced) leaving the same quantity of metals in a smaller portion hence a higher percentage.  (( clear as mud, right?? ))

CleanLabelProject fails in my mind in that don't give the names of the products that they test when they give the specific results - we're supposed to accept their interpretation at face value and I seriously have to question their interpretation.

If every manufacturer listed the ingredients, to include the heavy metals of concern, I think we'd still have problems - information overload would be a part of it and different manufacturers are invariably going to test their products differently (to their advantage?)  "Well, rice is better than corn but the arsenic in rice is soo much higher than the arsenic in corn - woe is me, what do I do?"

We've had ongoing discussion about the the quality of various dog food based on it's content: chicken vs beef, chicken vs chicken meal, meat based vs vegetable based, poultry vs poultry byproducts and the list goes on.  This discussion simply caries that discussion in both a different direction (heavy metals vs 'pure' ingredients) and a different degree (µg/kg vs g/kg).

Is arsenic in any percentage a required element - believe it or not the jury is still out on that question.  The NIH says "It seems that arsenic has a role in the metabolism of the amino acid methionine and in gene silencing" (that's an interesting read about Heavy Metals, BTW)  Other chemicals (sodium, calcium, phosphorous, etc) are proven to be required for a healthy dog but any of them in the extreme is poisonous.  I think there are reasonable dog foods on the market (but don't ask me to recommend any) and I think it's also safe to say that, in general, no manufacturer is intentionally including (or allowing to be included) anything that they're aware is harmful - it's their responsibility to insure that their product meets our dogs needs.  If they fail to meet that measure of responsibility then we are going to stop buying their products.  Is it their responsibility to ensure that their food meets the needs of every dog that will ever eat it, that would be absolutely impossible to determine.  Is it their responsibility to ensure that the quality of their food meets the general requirements of their customers, different question with a different answer - definitely they must!!

As one final comment San Diego, with the exception of Warner Springs, has a 'safe' level of arsenic in its water supply with 2.98ppb (of an acceptable 10ppb) and 22.1ppb of uranium ( of an acceptable 80ppb.) I presume you drink the tap water so you're ingesting two known poisons ... without concern?