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Veteran
Posts: 233
 
| What brand of dog food do you use/recommend? Looking for something to help a young, active Labrador maintain weight. I know to look at ingredients and have meat be the first ingredient, but not sure exactly what else to look for. Currently using Diamond high performance brand. He gets all he can eat and hardly ever finishes his bowl. Thanks! |
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Member
Posts: 47
| Ideally, you would like meat to be about the first 4-6 ingredients. Keep in mind dog food labels ingredient panels are listed by weight BEFORE cooking, so if a "fresh" meat is listed first it will drop down lower on the panel once the food is cooked. A meat meal is after the water has been removed, so its net weight wont decrease after cooking. By product meals on the other hand are unwanted. Another thing to keep in mind is where salt is listed on the panel. Salt content is usually about 0.3-0.36%, so keep in mind anything listed below salt on the panel is pretty much negligibile in your food. Blue buffalo for example, boasts the use of blueberries in a few of their brands but on the panel blueberries is listed directly after salt (even assuming the berries are in their dried form this is still a negligible amount that your dog will not benefit from). There are several great brands with varying protein/fat/caloric levels and you may need to experiment to find what works best for your budget/individual dog. For example, we started my Sheltie on Orijen puppy and it just didn't jive with his digestive system, so we switched him down to the lower protein/fat level of the sister brand Acana, and have mixed in some dehydrated raw as well and we constantly get comments from judges on his beautiful coat quality! Just an example of how you may need to do a few alterations to make sure it works for your pooch. Acana, Orijen, and Go! are a few great Canadian brands but some people from the lower 48 might want to weigh in on what is readily available down there? Good luck! |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 865
| I have my Labs on Nulo dog food. It's grain free. They are doing great on it. I feed dry mixed with some canned. Google "Nulo" and you can check it out |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 808
| I second Nulo, I have working stock dogs and on certain days they will easily burn 10k calories. Nulo keeps their weight up, energy there, and coats looking good. Even my lap dachshunds do good on it. I have my cats on the Nulo cat food after one of my cats got really sick after eating Authority. I'll never feed anything else
Edited by The1CowgirlsEnvy 2016-12-09 11:43 PM
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  Ms. Marine
Posts: 4641
Location: Texas | I have my Aussie on Nutro. He loves it. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1612
Location: Cocoa, Florida | I feed taste of the wild, you can google best and worst dog foods and there is lots of info as well! |
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| I recently just swapped my crew off the Taste of The Wild- th ebags kept getting smaller & the price kept going up. I orignially chose it as it was considered comparible to Blue Buffalo, but the TOTW was cheaper- when I switched off of it there was maybe a $5 price difference in the two.
That being said, I'm feeding my guys the 4 Health grain feed line- it's only sold at TSC, but so far all 5 of my dogs are doing great on it  |
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 Expert
Posts: 1718
Location: Southeast Louisiana | It's been a while since I did much research on it, but back when I had a working dog who was hard to put weight on, I fed Eukanuba. I don't remember which formula, but it was in a pink bag. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 883
Location: Southern Indiana | I've been feeding canidae. It seems to be pretty good and isn't overly pricey. I purchased the platinum since my dog is getting to be older and it includes ingredients for joints. |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | I've been feeding TOTW for several years and am happy with it except the price. I've been hearing good things about Victor and am thinking about trying it because the price is more reasonable from what I've been told. There is a Diamond plant local to me and I hate to not support them, but feeding 2 big dogs and a high energy puppy $50/bag food is not fun. |
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The Advice Guru
Posts: 6419
| We look at protein and fat content. We try to get a fat content over 12% and I can't remember the protein percentage.
One thing you can do is supplement with fish oil, our old guy we did this with, we started out giving 2 table spoons on his food, then increased as he tolerated it. This also helps with the inflammatory process. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 865
| I used to feed Victor and liked it, but once I tried NULO it was better. NULO really is a great food for all breeds of dogs. I will never feed anything else again. Victor is runner up though |
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Expert
Posts: 1695
Location: Willows, CA | Renew Gold Balance is going to be available soon to a bigger market area. From Renew Gold, and we are excited to expand off of the west coast. This is a well thought thought formula made to the highest component quality that we can make. Contains coconut also, and is pretty amazing on skin and coat issues. |
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 Thick and Wavy
Posts: 6102
Location: Nebraska | TheDutchMan01 - 2016-12-11 12:03 AM I've been feeding canidae. It seems to be pretty good and isn't overly pricey. I purchased the platinum since my dog is getting to be older and it includes ingredients for joints.
I fed this as well. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 639
Location: God's country...aka TEXAS | winwillows - 2016-12-11 11:11 PM
Renew Gold Balance is going to be available soon to a bigger market area. From Renew Gold, and we are excited to expand off of the west coast. This is a well thought thought formula made to the highest component quality that we can make. Contains coconut also, and is pretty amazing on skin and coat issues.
This is very exciting! I've looked for it everywhere but cannot find it in TX. |
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Expert
Posts: 1280
Location: Texas | This website educated me on what to look for and maintains 100's of dog food reviews on every brand I have tried.
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/
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 Cute Little Imp
Posts: 2747
Location: N Texas | Taste of the Wild. I did tons of research and feel I get the most bang for my buck. My dogs love it and they look and feel great. I even got my sister to switch and her dog that struggled to keep weight on finally gained weight and became perkier and more active. |
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 It's not my fault I'm perfect
Posts: 13739
Location: Where the long tails flow, ND | winwillows - 2016-12-11 11:11 PM Renew Gold Balance is going to be available soon to a bigger market area. From Renew Gold, and we are excited to expand off of the west coast. This is a well thought thought formula made to the highest component quality that we can make. Contains coconut also, and is pretty amazing on skin and coat issues.
Oh I am interested in this.
I currently feed Taste of the Wild and have for years with zero problems. I have a Lab and a Border Collie. |
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 Regular
Posts: 73
Location: Central Texas | My goobers are on the diamond naturals. I switch between the lamb and rice and the chicken and rice so they don't get bored. Haven't had any issues with it and my heeler mix has a super sensitive stomach. All pups are different though |
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 Owner of a ratting catting machine
Posts: 2258
| My heeler gets 4Health and is looking and feeling wonderful. My little guys are on Natures Variety and it's a wonderful food. They poop a whole lot less, definitely helped with house training difficulties. |
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 Livin in the Dinosaur Age
Posts: 1993
Location: the other T-town, Oklahoma | Dont be fooled as the main ingredient in pet food as "meat", that could mean anything. There is a book called "Food Pets Die For", written by Ann Martin. The commercial pet food industry has a secret to hide. Her book has some scary facts. The most scary one to me is that several companies state "meat" as main ingredient but that "meat" could and in several does include euthanized cats and dogs in the mix to heighten protein content. Some vets actually sell those euthanized pets to those companies. That book changed my thinking when it comes to what I feed my dogs. |
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Expert
Posts: 1207
| Winwillows - Are they going to do a cat food also? Hopefully??? |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 670
Location: Running my kids somewhere. | I know there is a number checklist out there that you can do and it will rate the food. I can't find it right now. |
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OT- dog food