Balon was on Nutro Ultra, Vet told me to use Iams Puppy, he is not doing well on what I know is a crap food, loose mushy stools and all! So what do you guys recommend if not Wellness?

We started on TotW with Tika and switched over to Orijen, WELL BEFORE THE RECALL it had nothing to do with our switch. Can't help you in terms of any wellness product. I know a couple of members were on wellness core or still are. Melissa may have been feeding it to Cody when he was still in puppy mode.

Long and short of it is just finding a healthy food that works well with your pup's digestive system and they like enough to eat

But in terms of your question about what the rest of us have fed, or are feeding you can probably find what your looking for below.


There's a sticky in the nutrition forum pretty much detailing what everyone is or was currently feeding at the time of the post. I think most members have chimed in in that topic about their experiences with different foods and what works for their dogs.

what are you feeding your husky


The popular choices on this forum tend to be
Orijen, Blue Buffalo, TotW***, and The Honest Kitchen amongst others.


***A couple of members have moved away from Taste of the wild recently due to another recall dealing with a possible salmonella contamination at Diamond foods. None of the food was contaminated but some people have had their trust shaken a bit.



There is also the path of raw feeding which a good number of members are doing as well. The raw feeding forum can be found here:

Raw feeding

If you go that path you should find a wealth of knowledge on the topic there. It can be extremely cost effective if you buy correctly and extremely healthy is done right, but it does require a bit more time and commitment on your part.

There is also prepackaged raw either in frozen patties form or dehydrated raw you can check out in that forum.



If you are ever unsure about a food you can also check on a couple of sites that do in depth analysis on some of the foods.

Below are 2 decent ones, though like any other review site out there they are subject to companies offering "gift" with their product. I'm not saying it effects the ranking or review, but I like to take everything with a grain of salt.


dogfoodanalysis

dogfoodadvisor


Hope it helped, if not sorry for the hijack.
Either way best of luck and I hope Balon does better on what ever you decide to feed him
~Chris~

Orijen has an high content of protein, 80% and that worries me

I agree with Tika, I think it depends on your baby, Ax loves Totw but Roxy hates it lol.

I switched from totw... We actually had a contaminated bag. It has me shook up and honestly pissed. Try acana, I'm an advocate now, I've never seen my dogs so excited to eat and it's appropriate for all life stagesn(wild praire)

I'd recommend Orijen puppy or Acana. Wellness used to be a great product that I used to recommend until they changed manufacturers. Now Wellness dry food formulas are manufactured by Diamond, Menu Foods, and ANI. My dogs did great on Wellness until they switched manufacturers, then the food quality went down and diarrhea and upset stomachs ensued after the switch. Because of that I can no longer recommend Wellness in good conscience.

Balonsmom wrote:

Orijen has an high content of protein, 80% and that worries me

Why does that worry you? Protein percentage is not nearly as important as proper Ca:P ratios for a growing puppy.

Wellness is voluntarily recalling their super5 mix LB puppy formula.

Val I guess I read somewhere that high protein isn't good for dogs, it can hurt the kidneys, maybe this is wrong, I did get a small trail size bag of Orijen Puppy, the food doesnt smell good to me lol but if its the best for Balon than I'll use it!

Orijen does not have 80% protein. 80% of the protein comes from animal / meat sources (so you know it is not filled with soy to give you a decent protein level). Orijen is usually 38% - 40% protein

Balonsmom wrote:

Orijen has an high content of protein, 80% and that worries me

Good proteins that the dog is meant to digest will not hurt their kidneys. However low quality protein from sources that aren't quality meats are a different story. Not all proteins are created equal. I wouldn't have any qualms feeding Orijen puppy.

David, a lot of people still consider 40% to be high protein. I used to feed Evo which was 42% protein and heard so many people afraid to feed it because it was a high protein food.

I hear the same thing from time to time, but the puppy formula is 40% (adult is 38%), but many people are confused and think it is 80% because of the way it appears on the bag (the wording below the % tells you that it is high quality / good protein from animal / meat sources)

Same with Acana....60% of the protein comes from animal sources.

Dogs should get the majority of their protein from meat sources...there are quality proteins form plant sources (fruits, veggies, etc), but it should not be the majority of the food

Huskyluv wrote:

Good proteins that the dog is meant to digest will not hurt their kidneys. However low quality protein from sources that aren't quality meats are a different story. Not all proteins are created equal. I wouldn't have any qualms feeding Orijen puppy.

David, a lot of people still consider 40% to be high protein. I used to feed Evo which was 42% protein and heard so many people afraid to feed it because it was a high protein food.

Yes I see where I got the 80% from on the bag, but even the guy at the store "Bark" said it was very high in protein and many people don't like that. In doing some research it seems all the more expensive food (or "holistic" if you will) brand are high in protein. I am trying the Orijen to see how he does on it, need to get a larger bag even with starting a 1/4 cup Orijen to 3/4 cup Nutro Ultra I won't have enough to mix in for a week with the .88 size bag. And my vet HATES these foods, she doesn't like anything but Iams and Eukanuba which I know are not good brands. Yikes and besides when I mixed in the Iams puppy his stools were looser!

Most of the better quality brands are more expensive because you are getting foods with better ingredients. Most of the foods vets promote / sell are garbage and most of the grocery store brands are the same garbage at a lower price. The ingredients usually include large amounts of corn and by products, so that's why it is cheaper.

One thing about the higher protein foods is that you can feed less (which will help off set the cost to some degree). For example, one of my rescues was eating Science Diet when I got her and the other was eating Beneful. Both used to eat 3 cups a day each. Now on Orijen they eat less than 2 cups a day, so something else to consider.

My vet thinks the same way as yours....but here is a good article about vets and dog food (not to say all vets are bad, but honestly most don't know much about nutrition and the stuff they sell has a huge mark up / profit for them: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244595/Is-food-youre-feeding-pet-killing--making-vet-rich.html

Balonsmom wrote:

Yes I see where I got the 80% from on the bag, but even the guy at the store "Bark" said it was very high in protein and many people don't like that. In doing some research it seems all the more expensive food (or "holistic" if you will) brand are high in protein. I am trying the Orijen to see how he does on it, need to get a larger bag even with starting a 1/4 cup Orijen to 3/4 cup Nutro Ultra I won't have enough to mix in for a week with the .88 size bag. And my vet HATES these foods, she doesn't like anything but Iams and Eukanuba which I know are not good brands. Yikes and besides when I mixed in the Iams puppy his stools were looser!

I'm sure these links have been posted here before, but definitely worth mentioning sites with some good info on dog foods:

www.dogfoodadvisor.com
www.dogfoodanalysis.com (not as up to date as dog food advisor but good to cross reference)

I love my vet but I'd swear theres a kickback from Iams/Eukanuba When I pointblank asked how she could recommend Iams over a holistic brand they told me they do no research, and not using perservatives was bad too, since it makes shelf life shorter.

I just can't see how you could recommend food when ingredients have chicken by products, and corn meal lol. ewww!

Don't feel too bad.... I was told by our old vet that Ol Roy's was the best "Bang for your buck" You could get...

I think the first 5 ingredients are corn or potato based.



We don't go see her any more.

~Chris~

Tika wrote:

Don't feel too bad.... I was told by our old vet that Ol Roy's was the best "Bang for your buck" You could get...

I think the first 5 ingredients are corn or potato based.



We don't go see her any more.

~Chris~

Back in the not so smart days. BANG BANG!

Dog foos companies are to vets what drug companies are to doctors. It's pretty sick.

Here4thePics wrote:

Back in the not so smart days. BANG BANG!

LoL Len,

Which of your two is that??? I can't place the color / markings with them half in the bag so to speak

At least they appeared to like it

~Chris~

That was Mylo, my Malamute who passed away almost 2 yrs ago. Greatly loved now greatly missed.
Here are more complete pics of him.

Sniffing his Teddy, he so wanted to gut it because it was packed with rose scented beads.


By colddonkey at 2011-09-09


By colddonkey at 2011-09-20

Before both of his ears could stand up:


By colddonkey at 2011-12-05

Oh! I'm Sorry Len. I probably should have searched before posting that.

Beautiful Mal though. 2nd pic makes him look so regal or dignified. Must have been a grand friend to have around.

~Chris~

beautiful dog!