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Possibly changing food, need recommendations

4K views 24 replies 15 participants last post by  DLJosh 
#1 ·
My girl is on Royal Canin German Shepherd Puppy food, she enjoys it and seems to be doing well on it. But I have been doing a lot of reading on diet and the right food. I know this is a hot topic and everyone has their own strong opinions on it, but I really want to hear from the "experts" here, yes, that means all of you. I don't mind spending the $2/lb but if I'm going to spend that much, I want the best for my girl.

1. What do you feed and why?
2. Price point compared to Royal Canin?
 
#4 ·
Certainly not an expert, but to answer your questions - I feed Orijen. The reason... My dog has always done great on it. I also like the ingredients, and the company that produces it.

The price.... It's deceptive, because per bag, it's an expensive food, but if you compare how much you feed per day to many other foods, the price isn't as bad as you may think.
 
#8 ·
For my girl, currently 5 years old and about 70-75lbs, I feed about 1 and 1/2 cups per day.

Absolutely agree, Royal Canin is not a food I'd recommend. Fromm is very good... Victor is another, Dr. Tim's is yet another... Lots of good foods to choose from.
 
#9 ·
I feed about 1 and 1/2 cups per day.
Wow, that's a drastic cut in what I'm feeding now. But the 4 cups I'm giving her right now is within the range and it's suiting her very well. She is in great shape and full of energy, growing every day.

Dr. Tim's is yet another... Lots of good foods to choose from.
Dr. Tim's you say? That name suits me well. And it will give me something else to tease my wife about since we always brag to each other when the puppy shows extra attention to one of us or she learns a new trick. The fun little games of she loves me more, lol
 
#11 ·
We were going to try the SPORTDOG for our Grand-Dog but after I emailed with the owner Phillip Posa a couple of times on 1/8/17, we decided not to.

If Ethoxyquin is in some of their formulas......
....what else might be in there???? :surprise:

"Thank you for your interest. Here are some answers to your questions

Texas Mills manufacturers our formulas. They are located in Texas.
Our Fish Meal is still preserved with Ethoxyquin. However our other proteins are preserved with Naturox. "


Moms:)
 
#12 ·
I don't judge a book is it's cover. Ingredients lists are used as a marketing tool to appeal to the consumer and not necessarily representative of the quality of the food, or how your dog will do on it. There is so much misinformation about this on the internet it is amazing. The only way to tell the quality of the food is to feed it to your dog and monitor the results.

I personally favor foods that are manufactured by a company with lots of resources, a long history of making dog food. Owns there manufacturing facilities. Owns a research center, employs hundreds of nutritionists, vets and veterinary nutritionists and does extensive research and testing. RC checks all of those off, and I would have absolutely no problem feeding it, and I have in the past with good results. My favorite food is Hills Large Breed Adult Healthy Mobility. My dogs absolutely love this food. Palatability is important to me, I want my dogs to really enjoy their feeding time. This food produces wonderful results for my dogs in all areas. Nice firm stools, beautiful coats, clear eyes good energy etc. I am stopped on a regular basis and told how beautiful my dogs are. I am a long time GSD owner and very carefully monitor everything about my dogs and how they do on there food. I have also tried many of the supposed 5 star foods with terrible results.
 
#15 ·
I use Fromm and I'm very happy with it. If you use Four Star, you can rotate within the line without upsetting your dog's digestion. It is not that much more expensive than other lines if you shop around. I have seen it in stores from the low $50s to high $60s for the largest size bags.
 
#19 ·
I would skip puppy food altogether, to be honest, and pick a good All Life Stages formula with appropriate levels of Calcium and Phosphorus. You want the Calcium level to be 1.5% or lower ... some like it even lower, but I think 1.5% is a decent number, considering the studies about the effects of this were using large breed dogs like Great Danes, and GSDs are medium size dogs. The ratio between Calcium and Phosphorus should be close to 1:1.

Victor doesn't list Calcium and Phosphorus for their foods on their website. They have quite a few All Life Stages Formulas, so I'd pick a few that you would like to feed, and email Victor and ask for the nutritional info.
 
#20 ·
We're currently feeding our pup Blue Wilderness. Our vet, who owns GSDs, recommended switching to Royal Canin. Now we're thinking about switching vets.

Do not feed any kibble that contains by product, and RC list it as the first ingredient. By product could be anything using what it's derived from that creates something else. In the meantime I'm thinking of switching to raw like I used to feed my APBTs.

For raw, I fed chicken quarters, raw egg, green peas, carrots, and goats milk. I'm sure I'm leaving out something as this was a decade ago and I substituted veggies and meat regularly but what is out there for RAW now that comes ready to eat?
 
#21 ·
We're currently feeding our pup Blue Wilderness. Our vet, who owns GSDs, recommended switching to Royal Canin. Now we're thinking about switching vets.
Good move. You can tell a lot about a vet (or a dog trainer, breeder, etc.) by what they recommend you put in your animal's stomach. For me it's always been simple. Give my animals (Dogs, cats, livestock) the quality I'd want for myself or my family. And food with unhealthy fillers and/or an unhealthy nutritional balance ain't that. To me that's like telling a high risk heart patient to go home and eat fried chicken every day because "Meh, it doesn't really matter". You'd look for a different cardiologist for sure.

You can also tell a lot about a food (even if you don't know much about nutrition and feed and are early in your research) by recommended portions. Foods of poor quality with no nutritional value state absurd serving sizes. Two or three times what your dog needs if it's getting a proper balance. It just takes that much of poor quality food to get them through the day. It's just like with humans. If you're eating a proper, balanced diet you don't need to eat as much to feel satiated as you do when it's junk food. They'll have you going through 80lbs+ per month per dog. Which is probably why they do it to be honest. More money if the food is of poor quality.
 
#22 ·
We feed Wellness Core puppy but are beginning to incorporate their adult food (he's 5 months now). The ingredients meet what we were after (no by products, meat based protein, no corn or grain) and dogfoodadvisor.com gave it their highest rating.

There are plenty of great foods out there, but to echo others Royal Canin's ingredients don't seem to be the best. Just my $.02.
 
#23 ·
When I was looking up food for my girl the names that kept coming up were Orijen and Fromm, the important thing to check and keep an eye out for is where the ingredients are sourced from. I see recall notices from time to time for some brands so just be cautious of that as well.

In the end I decided on a raw diet for my puppy, mainly because her breeder was already feeding her that before she came home so I thought it best to continue. If she wasn't being fed raw already I honestly would have just gone with Fromm, I liked all that I heard about them and the cost was a little lower than Orijen I believe? The names being mentioned here sound like solid candidates to look into.
 
#24 ·
RC is a good food and you are getting good results.. no need to change it. The whole ingredients list thing is a scam. You can't differentiate between a good food and a bad food by looking at the ingredients list. Many smaller companies want you to believe this and a lot of people do. They do this because they can't compete head on with the larger companies so they try and market their products by using an ingredients list which sounds and looks good to the human purchaser. It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the food or the results you will get. It is designed to suck money out of your pockets.
 
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