Great information - Dog Food Advisor
 

I like using the site as a quick place to find a whole list of foods and their ingredients for comparison but I wouldn't take everything they say as gospel- look at their contributors- only one is a vet, the other two are a radio host and a dentist, a HUMAN dentist! So how do you know who is writing each review. Do you really want to take a dentists opinion on what to feed your dog?

I like these kinds of sites for ingredient comparison too. For me, the ratings just get thrown out the window. Very interesting to see all the makers of raw. I didn't know so many companies had these products.

They are telling me I'm going to an unreasonable extreme by feeding soy dog food. ?? If their dog pooped liquid on meat diets, I'm sure they would change their minds.

The foods with higher meat content get higher ratings. I don't want a dog food with so much meat in it because it's extra stress on the kidneys and liver (it has to be metabolized and nitrogen has to be eliminated by the kidneys). These brands also tend to have more phosphorous (because of the meat content). Some will be comfortable with that and some won't. I don't like the idea. The 4 and 5 star foods here, I'd only feed a handful of them and that is if some of ones with lower ratings didn't work. Some of these smaller companies also have questionable quality control and the foods can lack consistency. Most of these companies also don't do feeding trials, so the dogs that it's being tried on belong to pet owners.

alrighty then...:rolleyes:

I just posted on the Blue Buffalo thread hoping Ellie May could recommend a quality dog food that didn't cost a fortune. :confused:

I posted in a thread earlier about how I personally liked a food to have more meat in it. Now I'm seeing this post and you have me really thinking about things from this perspective.

I wanted to ask what feeding trials you feel a food should have? Are the AAFCO guidelines enough? What else do we need to be aware of as far as testing and good quality control procedures?

Sorry you're getting so many diet/food questions today, but like the others I value your opinion! :)

I posted in the other thread again.

No, I don't think an AAFCO feeding trial is enough, but that's about the best there is...

If a company didn't run one, why not?
If they don't have a vet nutritionist on staff (who went through probably at least 10+ years of school and are experts), why not?
If they don't do either of these things, I'm really concerned...

Some of these companies just have DVMs?? I love my DVM, but she ain't qualified to formulate a kibble for the nation's dogs! She tells me to talk to a vet nutritionist...

I just recently noticed the "better" kibbles with all the meat have the highest phosphorus %.

And even things like by products (I dont' feed them unless I have to - the thought grosses me out), really how bad are they? Why not ask the company what is included in those by products? Some of it is organ meat that has to be listed as that. It will contribute a significant amount of vitamins/minerals. So does less by products mean more synthetic vitamins? I don't have the answer to that and I'm certainly not going out to buy a bag of regular SD right now, but I think these new companies are expert at marketing and I'm not convinced that they are making meaningful contributions to canine nutrition with their possible lack of research. But that is JMO.

These are such excellent questions Bonny. I am impressed with petowners who want to educate themselves. I will openly admit that I found this information too hard as a younger pet owner to sort it all out. I decided to home cook for that reason. I still believe I can do better than any company for my boys by home cooking for them with oversight from my vets. My dog Daisy unfortunately is another story and almost every diet from all meat and bone to vegetarian have failed her. She does best on diets designed for liver compromised dogs that consist of ingredients that sound terrible! She's 11, and nearing the end of her natural lifespan, so I am less worried these days about perfect balance and ingredients -- I just want to keep her alive!

BTW, AAFCO guidelines are not the same as AAFCO feeding trials. Ellie May can probably better explain the differences but basically when a company says that a food meets AAFCO guidelines, it only means they have done that on paper. AAFCO feeding trials means that they have run a trial of the food on pets. Then of course we have our own feeding trials at home - can OUR pets tolerate the food? And, pets are individuals, any BC nutritionist will say that, so what works for one will not work for another.

Good point, the other review site, http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/about.html is even worse, no one has studied nutrition.
Yet people take their word over the word of their vets who at the very least had one class in nutrition and I can tell you that you learn a lot in one class! The problem with learning on our own, is people don't always plow through that which is boring or difficult or even worse, they may just not understand certain concepts. Nutrition is a complex science, and how nutrients work together is important part of it. Lastly, individual recommended amounts of nutrients are still by and large, estimates. The more you study nutrition the more you will learn, we still don’t know an awful lot, so they main thing we can do is find a “SAFE” diet for our dogs, not the BEST diet, but a SAFE diet.

I personally love this site Invalid Page learning about dog food, she has great credentials too!

Great info...thanks!

Thank you for the link this is really great info.

I wonder why it came up with "invalid page"? I'll try again: The Dog Food Project - Myths about Dog Nutrition

I saved it in my favs.

I've been reading on this site for about an hour and it's very informative. It sounds like she has extensive education and experience in animal nutrition. :thumbup: Thanks for the link!

I think the good thing about the site is that she teaches us how to choose a "good" food.