In regard to Nutro and Royal Canin, they are owned by the same company, Mars Petcare.

Has their quality control been any better since 2007 or has it gotten worse? So many companies are owned by huge corporations, and it may be more important who's running the individual companies because they may not all have the same quality control. That said, I know nothing of Nutro, but I really like what I know about RC's quality control.

I have zero ability to answer that question as I have absolutely no knowledge of how each division functions now as compared to 2007. If you like the QC for Royal Canin, that's fine. Who knows...maybe Nutro's QC has improved as well. That kind of question would be best answered by Nutro and then researched.

That's right! I guess I always forget that.

I wonder if it's something along the lines of Diamond. For example, the chicken going into Natural Balance is not the same chicken going into Diamond Naturals. It's made at a Diamond plant but is not an actual Diamond food.

It seems it's rare to find foods that actually use their own facilities to produce their foods - Fromm, Champion, and Lotus come to mind.

It seems almost like all canned foods are made at Menu Foods.

Winston also eats RC, he seems to do well on it and it's something he will consistently eat. Which is a big factor for him.

Have you seen this video Nancy?

It is very interesting and shows the lengths they go for Quality Control.

No I hadn't seen it but I learned that I'm pronouncing it Canan wrong! I have a friend (who has a friend :p) who toured the plants and just raved about it, I would love to see one for myself. Also, I've heard the French are very into their dogs and take them everywhere so a French dog food appealed to me!

Meesha LOVES this stuff, i have her on the yorkie puppy, it costs me 27$ with tax for a 2.5lb bag though :S, which i think is crazy. I use to work in a pet store in my teens( it was a small family owned, don't sell dogs/cats, against the huge corporation puppy mill pet stores kind of place, would sell locally made products, hand made outfits, hand made cat scratchers etc, i think it may be out of business now though, which is unfortunate, the world needs more pet stores like that and not the puppy mill huge corporation ones, anyways besides the point lol) but people who had yorkies always use to come in and rave about how good this pet food was, i thought they were nuts paying that much. Now i have meesha and couldnt find anything she really liked, even tryed her on vet food, she wouldn't touch it, so i tryed her on this and she went nuts about it, i'm noticing her itching less, poops don't smell as much, watery eyes are clering up, looks healthyer and she has alot more energy. It's also made by royal canin, the same company of stuff the vet sells calls medical.anyways thats my experience so far with it, so i guess i'll have to keep paying the 27$ for small 2.5lb bag:/ lol, she's worth it though.

Royal Canin isn't the worst food you could buy but it's not the best, and it's true it's HORRIBLY overpriced. Look at the first three ingredients on the back... shoot even the first 10. total crap. First ingredients should always be types of meat... chicken, beef, pork, fish.

I'd go for Orijen, Acana, Taste of the Wild or a raw diet. Try to go for low grain or grain free foods.

The bottom line for me is that Royal Canin is the only food that Keno likes. I tried switching him to Blue Buffalo and he refused to eat it. Then I found out that Blue is made by Diamond so back I went to Royal Canin.

Your information is incorrect although it's very commonly reported. RC does have a meat as the first ingredient. Chicken meal is meat with the water removed. So it's pure meat. Some companies who use chicken without the water removed could use much less chicken and still get away with it being the first ingredient. Read this for more information on what chicken meal is:

Dehydrated chicken is "meat with the water removed". Dehydrated chicken is "pure meat".

Chicken meal is not dehydrated chicken.

The source I quoted defines “chicken meal”, and I believe it’s a good source because she has studied nutrition. Do you have a source that defines chicken meal? I'm not interested in the definition of dehydrated chicken, that's not one of the contents of RC.

From: Pet Food Labels - General

'For example, "meat" is defined as the "clean flesh of slaughtered mammals and is limited to...the striate muscle...with or without the accompanying and overlying fat and the portions of the skin, sinew, nerve and blood vessels which normally accompany the flesh." On the other hand, "meat meal" is "the rendered product from mammal tissues, exclusive of any added blood, hair, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents." Thus, in addition to the processing, it could also contain parts of animals one would not think of as "meat." Meat meal may not be very pleasing to think about eating yourself, even though it can contain more minerals than meat. However, animals do not share in people's aesthetic concerns about the source and composition of their food. Regardless, the distinction must be made in the ingredient list (and in the product name). For this reason, a product containing "lamb meal" cannot be named a "Lamb Dinner."'

Did you read my definition? It's basically the same, although she suggests we avoid products with the term meat and look for specific type of animal. Meals consist of meat and skin, with or without the bones, but exclusive of feathers/hair, heads, feet, horns, entrails etc. and have the proper calcium/phosphorus ratio required for a balanced diet. I seriously don't see anything wrong with that and you do get more actual animal protein than you would with a meat that didn't have the water removed.