In one week my daughter and I will be picking up our springer spaniel(our first dog). He will be 8 weeks old so I will start him on one of the name brand puppy foods.

Dogs being dogs, a mostly lean meat diet would make the post sense(as that is what wild dogs eat). Most of the information I find states that most gundog owners feed their dogs dry dogfood. This has me confused as dry food is mostly carbs which would not naturally be in a dogs diet.

So my question: I'm interested to hear what you all feed your dogs from puppyhood through adulthood.

Big J.,

Babe eats dry food only for a couple of reasons; 1) dry food promotes good dental health. Sure, wild dogs eat meat, but they also get lots of bones, twigs, branches and other roughage to remove plaque with, Babe doesn't. 2) according to my vet, dogs are omnivores, not strict carnivores, so a mixed diet is better as a heavy protein diet is bad for the kidneys. Cats apparently are strict carnivores and I gather also are more prone to kidney disease.

You and I expect to own and operate our bird dogs for 10 or more years and support them for 12-14 years, much longer than the life expectancy of a wild dog. I'd advise strictly following your local vets recommendations, I'm sure you'll be in there a few times this year for shots, etc,.... just do what she/ he says.

You will probably get a lot of different responses here. On the one hand, many people feed their dogs cheap, grain based kibble. I think the rational is that the dog appears healthy and possibly past dogs have lived long productive lives. On the other side of spectrum is the ultra premium, grain free dog foods. Being a superior product, these usually command a premium price, often costing 4x the 'Walmart special.'

The way I see it, feeding your dog that $24.99 60lb dog food is about the same as living off of ramen noodle and McDonald's. Can you live off of it? Yes. Is it the healthiest thing in the world? No. You really have to make a judgment call based off of your own budget. At one point in time I fed my dog canidae dry dog food. At the time, it was a good product for a decent price. They must have changed their recipe because my dog had the worst gas imaginable. We quickly switched to Solid Gold- Barking at the Moon. It is pricey, but it keeps me from having to invest in a gas mask.

Check out this website:
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/...-puppy-foods-5-star/

I use dry food either Purina Pro Plan Sport or Diamond Extreme Athlete. Meat as the first ingredient and Protein of 28-30% and fat of 18-20% will keep sporting dogs in good shape. Lots of dry foods meet those specs.

BigB

I must confess that we feed our dogs dried dog food of the Purina or something similar variety. However this thread has got me thinking... especially the comments from thecanadian (Can you live off it, yes, is it the healthiest thing in the world, no"). I will check out the link he posted.
Peter

Just make sure that the first 3 to 5 food label ingred are meat based and be aware of the word meal such as corn meal. I buy Taste of the Wild which is salmon meat mostly but it is give my Deutsch Drahthaar's coat a nice coat shine all year long. People say it is expensive, but one needs to realize is that you don't have to feed as much because it is so much better. Right now I am switching over Orijen.

I always try give raw beef or chicken to my dogs after there dog food bowl is empty.
Perhap's you should buddy up with your local butcher and see what he has toward the end of his shift prior going to the dumpster. Sometime there are local co-op group in larger town or city where they sign a waiver and collect all of the expired meat including fish (no cherry picking allowed) and equally distributed among it's co-member. The downside, depending on how many member's, you are responsible to make sure that garbage can's and/or dumpster's are clean and odor free to comply with city and counties code. More member's less devotion time, too many member's, not enough meat and a freezer is a must.

My sister has a Olde Bulldoggee, allergic to all dog food, so she put him on a all meat diet along with fresh veggies and there were major improvement such as coat, muscle mass, energy, hard stool as well as no more rash or ear infections. Every breed is different.

The worst dog food is can dog food, 50 to 80% water based.

We have an 11 yr old Lab
She is except shape. We feed
Science Diet. We feed both wet and Dry.
Shinning coat her teeth are clean
Never brushed. We do feed Dental bones.
Feed puppy food until 6 months
Old.

I feed my german shepherd Costco salmon based dog food. $35 for 30 pound bag. No grain in food. It's same as Taste of the wild but much cheaper - Costco rules.


I tried feeding my dog raw - only problem is he has very low food drive. Eats when lever he feels like - more like a cat than a dog. I just leave the dry dog food and sometime over 24 hours he eats it. I can't do that with raw.

Mike

I will have to look into Costco salmon dog food, that's a spankin deal.

There are lots of good foods out there to choose from. I currently feed TSC's store brand of premium food. I don't recall the name. I chose this because it is relatively inexpensive and there is a store in the town I live in.

I would find a food at a store that is easy to get to. Invariably, a day will come when you are almost out of food and can't drive somewhere far to buy it. We use to feed Eagle Pack but stopped because it was difficult to buy locally.

In years past I fed plenty of bargin dog food and my dogs would hunt all day long.

Have fun with your dog,

Tom

Purina Pro-Plan
The reasons are:
Purina spends more time and money on nutrition research than any other pet food company I know of.
Their quality control is second to none.
You can get it pretty much anywhere in the US, which is helpful if you travel.

I have been using it for about 30 years now and have been well satisfied. I have strayed away a few times over the years either through sponsership deals or to see if there was something better.
Bottom line is I always go back to Purina.

I suggest that you check out the website:
www.dogfoodadvisor.com It provides an unbiased review of MOST of the dogfoods available on the market.

It provides many surprising and revealing facts about food products, and nutrition that are often smothered over by advertising and hype.

When we got out great dane pup we had him on dry food and he had nothing but trouble. Very loose stool, not putting weight on etc. We moved him to a BARF diet (Bones and raw food) and he's as good as gold now. We get a mix made up from our butcher, chicken carcasses minced up with red meat.

About 50% of our dogs diet is Raw beef ribs, lamb ribs and organ meats. They get Taste of the Wild for the remainder.

There isn't a better dog treat or tooth cleaner than raw rib bones.

Take a look at www.healthypetproducts.org
It is a good site sponsored by a local store that specializes in high quality foods. We know the owner and she is a fanatic when it comes to nutrition in pets.
I feed our 5 year old Arcana Grasslands and for a change of pace Taste of the Wild products.
Talk to your vet about how much to feed your dog. Every dog I have had gained weight when we followed the recommended portions on the bag. After all they want to sell dog food.
We had one Spinone male we fed a raw diet for 6 months. That is a pain but he looked like a body builder by the time he was one. My wife does not like handling ground meat that much but it really works well.
Stay away from people food and go dry particularly if the dog will be indoors with you. Life will be a lot more pleasant if you crate your dog at meal times or at least train it to go to a particular place in the house.
Good luck and have fun!

I have a good friend that used to be part owner in one of the plants that makes Science Diet. I asked him and his immediate answer was Taste of the Wild (which is what my trainer also said). He said that Science Diet was similar to Old Roy Walmart food, but with better oils for the coat. My GSD gets Taste of the Wild Bison flavor along with any raw meat I can get for him.

I have fed Canidae dry food for some time, they offer grain-free formulas as well as a good variety of hi-protein foods that have some grain but are corn-free. They own their own food production facility. Used to be produced by the Diamond foods plant that had the recall a few years ago. With such nutritionally dense premium foods you can feed a smaller serving, making the cost very reasonable [cheaper than vet bills imo] I also use the trims from our deer and elk butchering, grind them, and pack in quart Ziplock bags in the freezer. To prepare I thaw and bake for 20 minutes-- Medium rare. Store in refer and feed a good sized chunk once or twice a day.

Our guys get Wellness Healthy Weight, topped with a spoonful of low-fat yogurt. They also get fruit, carrots and raw broccoli or cauliflower on a fairly regular basis.

I have three hunt test and hunting Labs.
Been very happy with Dr Tims Active.
I live about forty miles from the nearest pet
store and they never had what I wanted, I started using chewy.com.
Best service and free shipping.

We feed ours a modified BARF diet. Raw meat and chicken carcass's minced up together, cooked rice and cooked veg that we blitz and mix with the rice. On the weekend we give them a beef bone. My pup's have great teeth and no more gut problems like we had on the dry food.

For our work dogs we feed dry, with mutton flap for the teeth and some mince.

I have 4 GSP's & feed them a mixture of Beneful dry & Pedigree canned, twice a day.

They run & hunt hard, seem to be very healthy. Oldest is almost 17?

Probably should pay more attention to nutrition, however I personally live

on a heavy Gluten diet (cookie dough, cookies, pancakes, french toast,...)

to the horror of many of my "health" conscious friends. Probably just lucky?

Jungle Boy, a GSP nearing 17? You are doing something right, mister. I'm a gluten glutton, too.

Dove season starts tomorrow!
My girl will be running on Purina Pro Plan Perfomance.(Rocket Fuel).

Wild dogs get the innards first. Including the gut and intestinal linings. Lean red meat only diet will stunt your dog.

I feed Loyal active dog with good results plus they have a loyalty program where 12th bag is free.

wild boar meat and buffalo meat is free for me