Where people get confused and, labels try to trick us is with meat. The ingredients are listed in order of amounts in the food BEFORE processing - as the raw weight. Now kibble is dry, so, the water is removed and, muscle meat of any animal is roughly 75% water. That water is removed in processing AFTER the ingredients list is made so, that 10 lbs of chicken becomes just 3 lbs in the finished product while the 5 lbs of rice remains the same 5 lbs. Oops, now we have more rice than meat in the finished product.

A meat meal already has the water removed so, that remains the same when processed. That's why meat and meat meal need to be the first three or, four if one is a meat fat if you actually want a meat based kibble.

One that lists say Bison, pea, venison meal, rice, chicken fat... is mostly pea and rice after processing since both the bison and peas will loose water in processing.

One listing Bison, Venison meal, fish meal, chicken fat, rice... would be much more meat.

Yes it's a marketing trick because manufactures know we read labels. Again research, and not falling for the lists that read "Whole deboned chicken, Beef, Salmon... because you loose 2/3 of that meat volume in processing so that the grain or legumes re actually the bulk of the finished kibble.

aljones wrote:

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?

"Creates" was probably not the greatest choice of a word but there was some wording to that affect in the dismissal of lawsuit argument...when the raw and fresh ingredients of Acana/Orijen are cooked down into the final product, they naturally contain a high amount of heavy metals. Since foods like Kibble and Bits, for example, don't use the raw/fresh ingredients in its food, of course it will have less in the way of metals, and like I mentioned, in that respect it would score higher than Acana/Orijen...but give each brand of food to a a Husky and that same food that scored higher in having less metals, would fail miserably in the nutrition aspect. While two seperate sides, I would think both could wreak havoc on dogs with sensitive digestive problems. We can easily look on a bag for ingredients that we can adjust by examining the different recipes within the brand to find one that may suit our dog better, but with these metals, we pretty much have no clue.

I'm not really a big water drinker, Al, and when I do drink water, it is bottled. I do know our water here is "safe" to drink, we get a "water report" mailed to us (just got one in the mail in fact) with details on its "safeness", haha, but I mostly drink Gatorade for hydration in between my Mountain Dew's, LOL. The dogs do drink tap water though so of course water is a concern. Bottled water always gave them runny poop though so I have to choose the lesser of two evils.

@bluemoods your post makes some really good points. I was online researching foods last night and I was looking at Fromm and thinking, to me, Acana actually *seems* like a better food. The thing I noticed with the Fromm recipes I looked at was that first ingredient is a meat, but then it went to, I believe it was peas, as the second ingredient whereas the Acana lists a deboned meat as first, then a meat meal second, then peas, then back to meat. The Fromm actually reminded me more of a Natures Domain recipe in the first few ingredients, except for maybe the quality I guess...ND uses a meat meal I think, first, whereas Fromm uses a deboned meat. Anyways, I wasn't very impressed by Fromm so I guess I'm staying with Acana (different recipe) since the Salmon formula ND isn't available anymore. I'm still looking at foods though, but for atleast this month, I have to stay with Acana since their bag is gone now so I'll have nothing to mix with whatever brand I would choose as their next kibble.

As always, I appreciate everyone's input to my posts/questions, I think there is a lot of good information FOR US ALL that might not be so dog food savvy , so I'm glad this thread was created and continue to be appreciative of everyone's input. Thank you! Keep it coming! Lol.

Edit: so I changed to Acana's Duck and Pear formula. Acana uses juniper berries as an ingredient throughout their lines, besides Beef and Pumpkin, the Duck and Pear are the only ones without juniper berries. They are both in the Singles line, Regionals and Heritage all had juniper berries from what I saw.

Andddddd, The Natures a Domain Salmon and Sweet Potato IS still available, I just saw it at Costco. I shoulda gone there first! LOLOL. I still feel better about her eating Acana though so hopefully this all works out. Wish me luck!

Good luck. I know it's a headache, I went through it all before deciding to feed raw. Why raw, because I gave up on finding a kibble I liked as 100% of a dog's diet. Hence I can use Pure Balance as the supplemental and, if need be emergency rations kibble. It is made by Ainsworth Pet Nutrition, as far as I can find, a reputable company. Of course all of the formulas are not equal, but I'm not a fan of rice in dog food.

If my dog needs a bland diet, I'll feed him the same rice I cook for my family and, feed it cooked with a single meat, rabbit or chicken for a few days, adding a fat supplement if I use rabbit and, it's longer than 48 hours on a bland diet - rabbit is way too low fat to be the only meat for very long and, can lead to "rabbit starvation" or fat starvation. It doesn't have enough fats to allow the fat soluble nutrients to be absorbed properly.

I do like the Acana Duck and Pear formula, that is a good kibble, one of a few I'd recommend for a kibble only diet for a dog.

Still if budget is a tight concern, then Pure Balance isn't a bad food, grain free formulas if you can afford it, if not the ones with rice in them. All of them are a lot better than foods like Pedigree, Ol' Roy, Twin Pet and the like that are basically meat flavored cornmeal.

I don't fault anyone for feeding acorn based dog food, that's all many pet owners can afford and, it will keep a dog from starving to death or being underweight. I learned how to feed wild predators growing up with cougars in our home and, any dog is a sub species of a wild predator. Even before all of this flap about grain free, feeding raw, etc... I fed raw or partially raw, knowing that was natural and good for the dog.

Now there are kibbles, canned and, prepared raw diets that are very good, making feeding predators at home a lot easier. Just a matter of finding what works for you and your dog.

when Leo got sick back in February, i stated searching for a new food, we tried dehydrated food but he didn't like the texture of the food. looked for homemade type food but at the time i didn't know that petplate, nomnomnow, Ollie and just food for dogs ect. existed.
i eventually stopped looking for a new food and decided to make it myself using the recipe book that i got when Joey was eating fresh homemade food. then i stated looking for a good multivitamin and fish oil to add to the food.
i do hope you find a good food that works for your pups.
i didn't know they had a law suit at the time that happened now i really wonder if that's what happened to him.

@bluemoods I completely forgot to look into the Natural Balance, I will do that though. They really seem to like this Duck and Pear, Kohdi even walked on two legs because he couldn't wait for me to set it down, LOL. Only time will tell now whether it'll be good for Mishka. Sucks because stopping her cranberry supplement coincides with the new food so if either thing helps her, I won't know which one it is.

I agree with you on foods, my Husky that lived to be 17 and Malamute that lived to be 16 didn't have all these grain free, raw, special diets that are out now and did just fine. They lived on Eukanuba for a good portion of their life. However, you can have the same food around forever, but it's not always the "same" . That's where I'd like to see changes, putting on the bag "new formula" or something to that affect each time they change ingredients. Just yesterday, at Costco, when I saw the Natures Domain my two were on, I turned it over just to see the ingredients again and sure enough it's protein was down, which tells me they changed it...again. The average person just picks up the bag they are used to getting, they're not going to read the ingredients each time and have to remember what was all in it. I wish these companies would have to make some kind of effort letting consumers know the food their dog is accustomed to, has changed.

@RedFlashFire05 so Leo used to be on Acana or Orijen, Ronin? I actually wouldn't put much thought into the lawsuit, it seems pretty baseless and not something that would have made our dogs sick. It has more to do with what the plaintiff believes is failing to disclose certain things, but if the lawsuit was actually won, I can foresee changes being made with the way all these dog food brands label their foods, not just Acana/Orijen. I think it's awesome you prepare your own food for Leo!

I agree on that lawsuit. If they win that one, then rice for human consumption will have to list the arsenic content as well. So would anything grown in regions where it's in the soil and, thus in everything that grows there, even if only in trace amounts.

My first dog, Jack, an Australian Shepherd, lived his whole life on Purina Dog Chow, lived to be 18 with minimal health problems, none before he was 12, then arthritis. Heart disease at 15 and, finally got too crippled up at 18 so, I had to put him down.

My step son's dog, Blue, lived on Ol' Roy all her life and that was 13 years. She was an intact GSD/Mutt. No problems until she got a rather large mammary tumor at age 12 and, that proved to be simply a lipoma, not cancer.

I do watch for changes in the kibble I feed. I hate those surprise changes. I'd appreciate it being noted on the label at least. As it is, that isn't required so, it's up to us to read the label every time we buy dog food. I also read other brands labels periodically so that I have a couple of options in mind if I need to switch brands due to changes I don't like or, that are not good for my dogs.

yeah, i notice changes in his coat it was getting brittle when he was on dr tim's  so i decided to change food to Orijen tundra for about 6 months. then he got sick on February 11th, the scariest day of our  lives. its still very vivid.

he had always go fresh homemade food when Joey was still with us, it was just kibble and fresh food mixed together.  now make his food one day a week i cook for him and make meals for 2 weeks. that my kitchen take over day   . everyone has to eat sandwiches .

i do hope that they change they way they label all the dog food.

@bluemoods I will start watching the ingredients more closely as well. It's just something I never thought of!

@RedFlashFire05 I know how scary it is, Mishka's little episode that one time is still vivid in my mind too. So happy Leo got better

With Mishka's coat, I never noticed a brittleness, it just seems like she lost patches of fur that seem to be taking an awfully long time to grow back in. However! Both Mishka and Kohdi got a bath this weekend and man did it make a difference in both their coats, they were long overdue but still, their coats look and feel amazing!

Update on progress so far on the Duck and Pear. Mishka farts with it. I remember that the last time they had it too. No farts yet tonite though <crosses fingers>

A little update....Mishka got her Nexgard chew and sure enough had diareah shoot out of her butt that night, so although it could be coincidence, it seems like Nexgard has been the culprit all this time.



On a sidenote, the vet was out of Nexgard for Kohdi so he was given Bravecto. Two positives I saw in this is it lasts 3 months, so if I give it to Mishka, maybe that would help, and second positive is for Kohdi, the weight limit is much lower than the Nexgard so he won't be getting sooooo much extra drug in him. I feel much better about that. Only drawback, he didn't like it. The Nexgard he ate like a treat while the Bravecto I had to try and be sneaky over and over until I finally had to just drop it down his throat until he swallowed it.

Update.

So Mishka had to go to the vet again a couple weeks ago, she was experiencing diareah for almost 2 weeks. Vet put her on meds and it cleared up soon after. This weekend I was at Costco and walked by the Natures Domain both my dogs were getting since they were a year old. Given Mishka was starting to get mushy poop again, but not yet diareah, I finally gave in and bought a bag of the Natures Domain. She has been getting it a few days now (with a very tiny amount of the Acana they've been on) and farting has disappeared, and poop is firmer than its been in a long long time. Too early to tell but it seems like she just had to get back on the food she was on for the first half of her life. Maybe it really is an enzyme thing.

Vet was a substitute for my regular vet who was on vacation. She took a lot of time listening to me, and going back through her paperwork up til the time Mishka was in the emergency vet. She looked at Mishka, said her eyes were bright and clear, her energy was great, and seemed really perplexed as to why Mishka was always getting sick without exhibiting the usual signs of certain disorders. We did a fecal test as well, no giardia, no parasites, etc. Everything is just so normal with Mishka that it doesn't make any sense. I brought up the Nexgard and it was her feeling that the symptoms would show up directly after, not for weeks at a time. So anyways, so far so good on putting her back on ND.