Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Healthy Furbabies...

In light of the recent pet food recall, I've decided to post what I've learned about dog food. We had a scare with Chloe's food & realized that it was time to look more seriously into what we're feeding our little monster. We had been feeding her Eukanuba, due to a vet's recommendation. As first time puppy owners, we had the false impression that the vet knows best. Turns out that so many commercial brands (ex: Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Purina) that are generally thought to be 'decent' foods, are junk.


I am by no means an expert, but I've found that the key to deciding on a good food is simply reading the ingredients. Look for meat as the main ingredients, preferably the top 2 out of 3 ingredients (not meat by-product or digest). Avoid generic fats or proteins, fillers like corn meal & look for a food that uses as few grains as possible. Here are some links to sites that were particularly helpful in educating me about how to choose a high quality food... dogfoodanalysis, thedogfoodproject, and dogaware. I'm not trying to preach this issue, just trying to pass on some info that I wish we would have found before.

After doing a lot of research, we chose to convert Chloe over to Canidae. It gets great reviews on the dogfoodanalysis site listed above & we're very happy with the decision. In only a week we saw a noticeable difference in her coat... it's much more shiny & soft than before. That's got to mean something, no? Granted, it is a few dollars more expensive. Small price to pay to avoid renal kidney failure...

No comments: