[bellasmomok]

Originally Posted by Britster

Also, want to add that the early research that convinced people of the myth of high protein damaging dog's liver was done on rats which are omnivores and their digestive system works entirely different than dogs which are carnivores. Rat's bodies are not designed to handle high protein the way dogs are. I am not aware of any research on dogs that points to high protein damaging dog's liver. I might be mistaken here, but in addition to using rodents, I believe the source of most of the protein was corn gluten, so it was pretty invalid regarding canines and high protein from meat on two fronts.

I wasn't aware of the liver damage....I only knew about the kidney damage. And there have been a significant amount of dogs that go into renal failure (kidney failure) after switching to a very high protein food....they end up on dialysis and a number of them have died. However, it is thought to have happened because those particular dogs probably already had underlying kidney problems that hadn't been noticed or diagnosed yet. That's a lot of speculation, but for me I'd just want to be sure. I also know a lot of dogs that have done amazingly well on super high protein diets, so I'm not saying that it should be completely off the table for everyone at all!!

Originally Posted by Britster

I've written this before, so I'll copy/paste.

The way I see it, it's just like with people... you have those who live off TV dinners and McDonald's, and you have those who shop all organic, and eat healthy every single day.

People who eat terribly, smoke heavily, etc. can live perfectly normal lives.

Just like the person who exercises, eats excellent and "does everything right" can drop dead at age 30 from a heart attack. Or a person who never smoked a day in their life can die from lung cancer. That's life.

Just because a dog does "well" on Eukanuba or Pedigree doesn't necessarily mean they're eating as good as they could.... but it also doesn't mean they're going to be unhealthy dogs and die young either necessarily. I personally would never feed it because I don't agree with the ingredients, and I don't like the amount of recalls it has, etc, but those are my personal feelings that I've researched heavily. That's not to say Jackson doesn't get to enjoy a little Cesar wet food every now and then, or a Milk Bone, I just do it in moderation... just like people.

You gotta do for your dogs what you personally decide is right... but in the end you can't place blame and say 'this dog didn't live as long as this one because it ate better food.' There's too many other factors out there. Do your research, and feed what you feel works best for your dog. Not what someone else says its best for your dog.

I couldn't agree more!