# What do you feed and why?



## counciloak

Now that one of our most common dog food manufacturers raised their prices, I decided to look for alternatives.  I found that our most popular dog foods didn't rate very well by comparison to other foods. What is your favorite and what have you compared it to?

J.O


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## mlp

What have you been feeding? I fed Native for a long time but I have been feeding Fromm for about a year now, starting out with the classic and am now feeding the gold. The Fromm has been very consistant the whole time I've used it. Unless they change the formula's and cause loose stools or something I will stick with the fromm. I have fed nearly every top brand out there and this works the best for my dogs. Good luck , not all feeds work with all dogs.


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## counciloak

mlp said:


> What have you been feeding? I fed Native for a long time but I have been feeding Fromm for about a year now, starting out with the classic and am now feeding the gold. The Fromm has been very consistant the whole time I've used it. Unless they change the formula's and cause loose stools or something I will stick with the fromm. I have fed nearly every top brand out there and this works the best for my dogs. Good luck , not all feeds work with all dogs.


I've never heard of it, but looked in to it, and it seems to be better than the Eukanuba that I have been using


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## Huff

I am feeding Victor dog food. Both of my dogs are doing well on it. 

Russell


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## SpinRetriever

I have my three on Dr. Tim's Pursuit. I have friends using Dr. Tim's Momentum 35/25 but it is real rocket fuel.

We buy a 50 bag pallet and delivered it comes out to be about $1lb compared to $1.50lb retail.

Really excellent proven food. In 2012, Dr. Tim's team won the Iditarod and had 3 other teams place in the top ten. Lot's of pro bird dog trainers are using it as well.


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## thelast2

Native Level 3 because it doesnt have all the fillers many of the other name brand dogfoods use IE Corn.....


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## PMG 131

Mine were on Native, but had 2 bags in a row that caused the most vile squirts. Now on Pro Plan, not had an issue since.


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## Cajuntrainer

Pro plan performance for the last 10 years


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## SpinRetriever

I was died in the wool Pro Plan but eastern prices are like $1.30lb plus tax and for all that corn I think you can do better.

Dr. Tim's is probably the best you can buy at least from what I have used. I spoke to the guy that placed 3 of the top 5 at the Purina Invitational this year using it and he switched off PP. 

With todays prices buying skids of food direct makes sense. I love food that comes in a plain 44# bag. We break it up among 6 people usually.

There is a guy I saw on TV that takes a Malamute team to the arctic circle camping for 3 months and he uses the food.

Says something.


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## SpinRetriever

Cajuntrainer said:


> Pro plan performance for the last 10 years


I saw tonight Pro Plan is in 33lb bags now, new name too, for the same price. So, its about a 35% price increase by the lb.


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## Tim Trammell

will have to try some Dr. Tim's


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## SpinRetriever

Tim Trammell said:


> will have to try some Dr. Tim's


If you are feeding just a couple dogs, Petflow has the best deal on the 44#bags. Free shipping and no tax.

If you have a kennel, he ships skids at $1lb.


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## kona's mom

Been feeding Nature's Variety Instinct but have trouble keeping weight on. Tried PP Performance and had more success with keeping weight on but don't like the corn in it. Would welcome suggestions also


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## SpinRetriever

kona's mom said:


> Been feeding Nature's Variety Instinct but have trouble keeping weight on. Tried PP Performance and had more success with keeping weight on but don't like the corn in it. Would welcome suggestions also


Try Dr. Tim's Pursuit, 30/20. Petflow has the best deal on 44lb breeder bags. $60 for 44lbs, no tax and free shipping.


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## PTS

Anyone ever used the Blue Buffalo grain free food?


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## mlp

I tried Blue Buffalo with my dogs for a while but it was just way to rich or something, loose stools from start to finish. It might work good for your dogs though.


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## SFKennels

I have been using blue buffalo wilderness. I haven't had a problem with lose stool but my girls could clear the room with a fart.


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## SpinRetriever

I know a few guys that feed The Pride Pro Series 26/20 and do nothing but rave about it. 

Anyone else?


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## Wazo

We switched from Pro Plan to Kirklands Premium (Costco) about a year and half ago. Dogs are doing great and we do hunt tests as well as show ring. Coats are shiny and thick. Kirkland's is rated 4 stars (above Pro Plan and a lot of other premium foods) by Dog Food adviser. Only about $26 a 40 lb bag


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## hotel4dogs

Pro Plan for my dogs. 
The company has been in business forever. They spend more on research than everyone else combined. They have their own manufacturing facilities, unlike smaller companies who job out the manufacturing and have no control over quality (and hence recalls). 
Websites like dog food advisor have their own agendas and beliefs and none of it is backed up by research. The people who post the site have no academic background in small animal nutrition.
In my years of boarding, I've boarded some really old dogs. Dogs who were larger dogs, between 17-22 years old. Every one of them ate either Purina or Eukanuba/Iams. My own older golden will be 16 in a couple of weeks. My boy does hunt/field, agility, and is a bench CH. Obviously it works for him. 
Contrary to popular marketing madness, grains are a perfectly legitimate food for dogs, unless the specific dog has an issue with a particular grain, which is very uncommon. The most common food intolerances in dogs are chicken, beef, eggs, and dairy. Grains are pretty far down the list.
Corn is not a filler, no matter what the marketing people would have you believe. It's a source of carbohydrates. In order for a dog food to be a particular % of protein, and not 100% protein, you need to make up the rest of the food with either carbohydrates or fats or a mixture of both. 
I suspect I have (and have read) many more canine nutrition textbooks and resources than the people who publish the dog food advisor website. Most of what they say is pure nonsense.
That said, no two dogs are alike, and what works for one dog may not work at all for another.


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## Jerry Day

I have used Purina Pro Plan for the last 5 yrs. since starting Days End Retrievers and have fed it to over 90 dogs. prior, I fed Pro Plan for over 10 yrs. to 16 personal dogs. several of my dogs lived to over 14 yrs. of age.
Over the past 15 yrs. I've tried several different so called quality foods. I have always come back to Purina. Why? Top quality for the price. well balanced at 30/20 for the client retrievers that I train. I haven't had any other food that gave the dogs any better coat any more energy or more mussel mass and maintain as small of stool. Its also for all stages of life pup-adult.Pro Plan has changed its name to Sport but is still in 37.5 lb. bag.


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## Pudelpointer

I have switched from PPP, Blue Wilderness, EVO and now feed Dr Tim's. My dogs coats have never looked better, over all health is best it's ever been. Very happy with the food. Dr Tim is always willing to promptly answer questions as well.


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## wayne anderson

Thank you, Barb, for bringing some much-needed common sense to these dog food conversations. I spent my career in the animal feed industry. The marketing ploys of some of these dog food firms just confuse many dog owners (i.e., the knock against corn and other carbohydrates). This disinformation process seems similar to discussions about "natural" or "organic" foods/feeds. As you said, most nay-sayers have their own agendas.


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## A team

Strong Point, 

I'm new to the game and fed my dog eukanuba for the first three years of her dogs life. Circumstances and opportunity knocked one day and I bought a bag of Strong Point and my dogs responded really well to the food. 

I did some research and it appeared that Strong Point matched up(nutritionally) really well to price comparable and even surpassed some of the more expensive foods on the market.


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## kona's mom

Just received my first bag of Momentum today. Kona seems to like the taste. We'll see how it works for him


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## 3blackdogs

I feed PPP to the dogs in training for the simple reason that the pros they go to use that. Switching back and forth does more harm than good IMHO. The dogs do well on it, only criticism is that - in my experience - the dogs that get PPP have big tartar build up on their teeth compared to the others.

Have used PPPuppy and Euk puppy on the little ones and I do like Euk better. 

Have had excellent results with Science Diet JD on several older arthritic dogs - but be prepared for a hit in the wallet. The results have been worth every penny though. 

I feed Fromms to the retirees here at home and endorse it highly. Wisconsin based family-owned company, no garbage ingredients, nothing from China, high quality, distribution network is NOT big box, etc. The older dogs are doing beautifully, firm regular stools, coats are wonderful. No problem with palatability - but my dogs would eat sawdust if offered, so they're not a good sample for judging fussiness.


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## Roy Redifer

Over the years I've fed Nutra Nuggets, The old IAMs, Eukanuba, Pro-Plan and Native. I believe that Native is probably the best but my dogs did seem a bit loose on it. I travel my dogs a lot and have to go by airplane most times. I was able to get Native when I was on the east coast but found it nearly impossible to find around the Oklahoma City area. Since that trip I made the executive decision and went back to Pro-Plan. I can find it nearly anywhere I travel and my dogs do digest it better. Over all pretty happy with Pro Plan


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## Bill Watson

Roy, How is Penny doing, and more importantly, how are you doing? We are staying busy "in retirement", but would like to catch up. Cleo and Bill at gatorptl[email protected]


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## Roy Redifer

Hi Bill and Cleo. Sorry that I dropped out of sight. Had a lot of things going. Penny is doing wonderful. Fit as a fiddle and runs around like a 3 year old. She's now 10. I stopped trailing her several years ago. The pressure was getting too much for her and me. I'm thinking about running her this spring though. I have a couple young up and comings in the derby. One is her grandson. Great to hear you guys are doing well with retirement. I'll stay in touch.


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## SpinRetriever

Pudelpointer said:


> I have switched from PPP, Blue Wilderness, EVO and now feed Dr Tim's. My dogs coats have never looked better, over all health is best it's ever been. Very happy with the food. Dr Tim is always willing to promptly answer questions as well.


Best food I have ever used and was the best decision I ever made when it comes to the dogs.


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## dr tim

Hello all; just wanted to offer up my time if you have any questions about sporting dogs or food, etc. A brief overview of my company: We have been around over 8 years now and our formulas have been derived from working with sled dogs for about 20 years. I have 36 dogs myself and have competed in many races in the States, Alaska(they consider themselves a separate country), Canada and Europe. Our foods were built from first hand experiences of correct feeding programs to maximize the potentials of the dogs through nutrition as what I saw on the market was not working with out all sorts of tweaking. I got very tired of having to tweak the diet to eliminate stress diarrhea, for example.

We looked at what worked best, analyzed it and made it into a kibble. I have worked the Iditarod as a vet numerous times, ran it and have fed tons of feed over the years. Developed first in my garage we then took our formula and it took 6 plants to find the right place to produce the food. That was a huge learning curve, to say the least. We supply many kennels out there, including the kennel that won the Iditarod last year but also many field trial kennels. Proper nutrition based on the metabolic needs of the dog leads to some pretty amazing performances.

As a vet it is very satisfying as I am still a full time practicing small animal doctor in Michigan.

So, please ask away and I will be happy to share knowledge as best I can.


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## jluther

Dr. Tim, I e-mailed your company when I first came across your food--and was happy with the product answers I received. At the time, I also requested that you take the golden retriever off of the packaging for the formula designed for "the dog that prefers to scale the couch." While I don't know that my e-mail made any difference, I'm pleased to see that you have indeed changed the packaging so that the reputation of working goldens is not disparaged. My goldens don't so much scale the couch as leap over it. Perhaps I should change to a lower level performance food to eliminate this behavior? ;-) 

Julie
Traveler - UH HR Gaylan's One With the Wind UD MH OA NAJ WCX VCX CCA
Piney - UH HR Truline Rio's Pine Creek SH WCX (Master passes)
Madison WI / National Mine MI


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## JimB

Dr. Tim, what is your opinion on corn in dog food? It seems that some people like it and others don't.


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## dr tim

Yes, we did change the dog to a husky just for you It is a sweet picture.

I have never been a big corn fan with high performance dogs, thus you won't see any in our formulas. 2 reasons: First is corn brings too much vegetable protein to the equation in formulating a food to its maximum. Second is the digestabiliy. I believe corn can work with proper extrusion so the digestability is high but often the machines are run so fast the digestability is , say, 80%. In a high performance animal that extra 20% of non digestable starch(corn, whatever) is what can cause the soft stools many of you may see when the dog is working. There are other parts of the equation with making a high performance dog food but this is one of the simplest things to understand. But shareholders don't always understand thus the machines are run very fast. 

Momentum, for example is a 35% protein food and of that 35%, 94% of the protein is derived from animal sources. And we run the machine slower(slow cook) so we can get a 95% digestability of the starches. I can here Harry Caray calling this one "Outta here."


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## kentdsr

New to the RTF and already learning a lot! I have always tried to feed my dogs the best I can afford and appreciate the information here. I know buying in bulk will save money but my question is how long do the typical premium dog foods stay fresh? I use a container with a seal, but often wonder how soon the food starts to deteriorate after the bag is opened?


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## SpinRetriever

kentdsr said:


> New to the RTF and already learning a lot! I have always tried to feed my dogs the best I can afford and appreciate the information here. I know buying in bulk will save money but my question is how long do the typical premium dog foods stay fresh? I use a container with a seal, but often wonder how soon the food starts to deteriorate after the bag is opened?


All depends on the temperature and if the food is kept out of the light, but I have been told from some experts that naturally preserved foods should be consumed within 3 months of opening the bag and 6 months if it is refrigerated.


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## dr tim

Keeping the air away from the kibble extends it and so does cooler temperatures. I need a few more posts to do PM's and threads. Here goes.


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## kona's mom

What's the deal with not being able to get bigger bags of momentum? Can't get online and my friend who runs a food shop keeps getting run around on when her order will be ready. Sending my dog down south next week and really needed that food


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## kentdsr

Thanks Spin Retriever and Dr Tim for the input. I do keep the food in an airtight container but think I'll move it to the garage during the cooler weather!


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## SpinRetriever

kona's mom said:


> What's the deal with not being able to get bigger bags of momentum? Can't get online and my friend who runs a food shop keeps getting run around on when her order will be ready. Sending my dog down south next week and really needed that food


Petflow.com has them in 44lbs.


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## Gunssmoke3217

I feed fromm large breed puppy. excellent food!


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## MaltaDelta

SpinRetriever said:


> If you are feeding just a couple dogs, Petflow has the best deal on the 44#bags. Free shipping and no tax.
> 
> If you have a kennel, he ships skids at $1lb.


You order it directly from Dr. Tim's at that price?


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## SpinRetriever

MaltaDelta said:


> You order it directly from Dr. Tim's at that price?


Yea, about $1lb shipped and no tax, of course depends on where you live. That price is on 50 bag pallets. That price is for Pursuit, the 30/20.

You can order from him in larger quantities, buy online or get it at the store if its carried in your area.


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## Erin Lynes

Dr Tim,
Is your food available anywhere in Canada?


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## dr tim

Hi Erin; right now we are not in Canada. Sorry!


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## dr tim

Hi Kona; demand has outstripped supply. We do ship direct as well in pallet quantities to many kennels through out the USA. I believe the Green Barn should have the food this week. Were you able to get food shipped to where your dog is going?


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