neither.
Find a brand that contains no corn, by-products, sugar or artificial flavoring. Then you will probably have a good food.

DON'T GO FOR BLACKWOOD... most of their ingredients lists start with Corn and Poultry By-products.. both very very bad ingedients. If you want something in that price range choose Health Foods.

The rest are ok. I would add Canidae and now! to that list. There are other good foods out there, just look at the ingredients.

Pedigree and Alpo are the benchmark for bad dog foods. They are pretty much the worst of the worst as far as kibble is concerned. I don't think there is a single good ingredient in either of them. If i remember correctly the first ingredient for both of them is some kind of corn (Which means there is more corn in the food then anything else... basically its flour). They don't use single source whole meat proteins which makes the food unstable and (Pedigree definitly, not sure about Alpo) uses artificial coloring... do you really think your dog cares what color his food is?

@byaku-chan - Fantastically written, i agree with everything you said. Reading your post puts a big smile on my face knowing there are more people out there who actually take the time to look into what a dog really needs rather than just listen to what a pet shop/vet tells them.

@Sashan - Ishkan was introduced to me recently, i don't remember exactly what the ingredients are in the dog kibble but i know the cat version is excellent and produces similar results (shiny coat) as you have mentioned.
The Blackwood catfish thing is a relatively decent food, however i have major issues with the comapny itself. They started out making a food very similar in ingredients to Pedigree, put it in a shiny bag and sold it for the same price as super super premium foods. Then when they lost a bit of popularity because someone actually looked at the ingredients, they dropped the price but seemed to keep pretty much the same ingredients list. Then with the recent boom in sales of holistic and hypoallergenic food, woosh catfish and watever it is pops up, which conforms to the general public's knowledge of what is good and bad for dogs at the moment. I understand that dog food is big business, however i prefer to stick to companies that as a whole do their own research into what dogs need and produce foods with high quality ingredients from day 1.

I think i love you... This is the first time i have met someone on this forum who has such a deep understanding of canine nutrition and a firm grasp of what is good and what isn't (or at least the first time someone else has spoken up about it in such a concise and easy to understand manner).
I too am a strong believer that Science Plan/Science Diet/Hills is a totally poo food. The only exception i find is that the Formula for dogs with kidney failure does seem to improve the life of dogs with severe kidney problems. All the other varieties don't seem to produce any different results than a high quality normal food in sick dogs and doesn't keep a healthy dog as healthy as high quality normal foods.
Science Plan claims that it works by using a different production method to other foods that breaks down the ingredients into smaller chunks which eliminates the allergens in corn and such. However if you just didn't use ingredients that are known to be common causes of allergies (and other problems) in dogs, this wouldn't be an issue. Also there are some cases where dogs still exhibit the same symptoms they did previously showing that it doesn't in fact work in every case.
Also (the last time i checked) the nutritional values for Science Plan are lacking in almost every way. The easiest one to see is the Protein content which is much lower than you would want to see in a pet food for healthy active pets, or for pets who need as much energy as possible to fight off whatever they are suffering from.
I do know that only certified vets are allowed to order Science Plan and it does have quite a high profit margin compared to most other food brands which makes it an attractive sale. Also Science Plan has been known to be one of the main sponsors for a number of vet text books.
I'm not saying all vets are pushing Science Plan just for an attractive profit, but there are better foods out there (and i have heard of a few vets who prefer to suggest high quality brands over Science Plan) but some do, i have personally be "prescribed" Science Plan (suggested use for life in all cases) for Ringworm infection, Digestive Tract sensitivity, Picky eater and an Oversized Golden who is at high risk of developing Hip-Displasia in later life, all of which have been managed and (in the cases where possible) cured without the use of Science Plan.



Undecided from me, i don't personally like it but there is no major nutritional or ingredient issue that i can identify. The ingredients in their different varieties are very different so its quite hard to discuss them as a whole. Overall their ingredients are good and they do have some excellent ingredients, but the choose not to put them in all their foods. This is a great site 'Food Analyisis' with very easy to read analysis of a number of different foods (the link goes directly to the Addiction analysis).
Protein is a little on the high side for my liking (i generally find a protein content of 24% - 26% is just right for most dogs) at 29% but this isn't a major issue for a dog that gets plenty of exercise.

The only major issues i have with Addiction is firstly the price (the last time i did a price check was around 6 months ago so i don't know how accurate it is now). It seems a little on the high side for what it is, and i am always a little wary of foods that use fancy packaging (i understand it is to get your attention but if the food really is THAT good, they don't need to and would be better spending the money on researching to improve their food. The other issue i have is their new 'raw food diet'. I don't think, with current manufacturing processes, that a commercial raw food diet is the best way to go.
The whole benefit of BARF is that you know exactly what your dog is eating and where it comes from, also looking at the history of how commercial kibble developed (starting with brands like Pedigree and Alpo and them moving onwards and upwards to the better brands that are around today) i would be wary of using a 'new form' of commercial food so close to its introduction to the market.


Perhaps people can post the ingredients list and Nutritional analysis of dog foods they want to know about (choose one or 2 specific variety that you are interested in) and then we can discuss the specific ingredients that are good and bad and everyone can get an idea of what to look out for

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Added on May 6, 2010, 2:55 pmYes their catfish variety does conform to the preferred ingredients for a good dog food and yes lamb and rice doesn't contain corn, but it still has its negative points. So here goes, first up Lamb and Rice:

Ingredient list:

Lamb Meal, Rice Flour, Oatmeal, Poultry Meal, Ground Rice, Plain Dried Beet Pulp (Sugar Removed), Poultry Fat [Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols (Source of Vitamin E) and Citric Acid], Dried Tomato Pomace, Menhaden Fish Meal, Lecithin, Vegetable Oil, Dried Cheese, Monosodium Phosphate, Fish Oil, DL-Methionine, Choline Chloride, Dried Enterococcus Faccium Fermentation Products, Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Yucca Schidigera Extract, Salt, L-Lysine, Ascorbic Acid (Source of Vitamin C), Dried Garlic, Vitamin A Acetate, D-Activated Animal Sterol (Source of Vitamin D3), Vitamin E Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source of Vitamin K Activity), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Niacin Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Biotin, Manganese Sulfate, Maganous Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Iron Proteinate, Copper Sulfate, Copper Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Zinc Oxide, Zinc Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Selenite.

GUARANTEED ANALYSIS:

Crude Protein, not less than..........24.00%
Crude Fat, not less than................14.00%**
Crude Fiber, not more than.............4.00%
Moisture, not more than..................9.00%

So first of all we look at the first 5 ingredients purely as ingredients, there is Lamb meal (which is good) Rice flour (which is ok), Oatmeal (also ok), Poultry Meal (not a good ingredient), and Ground rice (fine). Now look at them as a whole, in a good food you need to have at least 2 single source meats, Blackwood Lamb and Rice has one. Next you will always find some kind of filler in the top 5, but it is best to have a maximum of 2, Blackwood has 3 which indicates that this food is probably more grain than anything else. Yes they have used higher quality grains (rice and oats) but still grains, and a lot of them.
I have saved Poultry Meal for last as this is the main ingredient i have a problem with. 'Poultry' in dog foods means a combination of Chicken, Duck and Turkey First off, this means that Blackwood Lamb and Rice contains some other meats than Lamb, also because it is not a single source meat this means that the amount of chicken, duck or turkey can vary in each bag... this is not a good thing! Dog kibble is supposed to be stable (dog's digestive system works best when it is given the same thing constantly, which is why if you change foods suddenly your dog usually gets diarrhea for a few days). If they were using the same amount of Chicken, Turkey and Duck in every batch, they would be listed as individual ingredients.
Poultry (and Poultry meal) usually consists of whatever meat surplus at the "supplier market" and so gets lumped into a 'bargain bin' of sorts and sold for a cheaper price because the exact content (percentage of chicken to duck to turkey) cannot be guaranteed.

We then look at the rest of the ingredients: Beet Pulp is a controversial ingredient and there is (as yet) no consensus on whether it is beneficial or not. We then have Poultry fat (same problem as Poultry Meal, not a stable ingredient). Tomato, Fish, Lecithin, Veg oil, all ok but nothing special. Dried Cheese is totally unneccesary and purely included for flavoring (which in a good dog food will be limited in most cases to 'natural flavorings' if anything), lower down the list there is also Salt and Dried Garlic which are again for flavoring purposes only (the amount of garlic contained would not be enough to cause toxicity which can be caused by garlic in dogs, it will also not be enough for any of the documented health benefits of garlic).
The last thing i want to discuss as far as the food is concerned are the "Dried Enterococcus Faccium Fermentation Products" and "Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product". I have as yet been unable to find an exact description of what these are, however from what i can tell from research i have done is that they are the left over products of the fermentation process to extract healthy bacteria (Lactobacillus Acidophilus is a form of bacteria and i'm assuming Enterococcus Faccium is as well). As i don't know specifically what these products are i can't comment definitively on their benefits or detremental effects, however usually in dog foods something that is a 'left over' product of some kind of process is a cheaper form of the ingredient that is readily available and safe for use (however higher priced) in dog foods.

As far as the Guaranteed Analysis goes (this one is from the internet), they don't guarantee much, but what they do guarantee is all within normal levels for a dog food. Good dog foods often have a full work up of vitamin and mineral content to look at.

Now i will briefly look at Blackwood 1000 ("for normally active adults")

Ingredients List:
Poultry Meal, Corn Meal, Chicken Fat [Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols (Source of Vitamin E) and Citric Acid], Dried Plain Beet Pulp (Sugar Removed), Ground Rice, Oatmeal, Dried Potato Product, Brewers Dried Yeast, Menhaden Fish Meal, Flax Meal, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Lecithin, L-Lysine, DL-Methionine, Dried Whey, Dried Cheese, Dried Garlic, Calcium Carbonate, Choline Chloride, Vitamin E Supplement, Ascorbic Acid (Source of Vitamin C), Yucca Schidigera Extract, Dried Steptococcus Facium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product, Biotin, Niacin Supplement, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Acetate, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Thiamin Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Menadione Dimethylpyrimidinol Bisulfite (Source of Vitamin K Activity), Citric Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid, Potassium Chloride, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganous Oxide, Sodium Selenite, Calcium Iodate.

As most of the ingredients lower down are pretty much the same as the Lamb and Rice formula i will only discuss the first 5:
Poultry Meal (already discussed, bad bad bad), Corn Meal (corn is in the top 3 ingested allergens in dogs, bad bad bad), Chicken fat is a good ingredient (a million times better than the Poultry fat found in the lamb variety), Beet Pulp (already discussed), and Ground rice (one of the better fillers, although 'whole rice' is better as it contains the husks which are a good form of fiber (as long as they haven't been dusted with pesticides and other nasty chemicals).
So with the combination top 2 of Poultry meal and Corn meal, this is NOT a great or even a good food, and definitely not worth what you pay for it (you can find much better foods in the same price range).

Yes as you said, the Catfish variety is a decent food... however do you want to judge by the best they can offer or the worst. If Blackwood has no problems using sub par ingredients in the majority of its foods to get a favorable profit margin what makes you think they won't try to cut costs in every (non-visible) way possible in all their food varieties?

This post has been edited by Divas: May 6 2010, 03:00 PM

@karwaidotnet
Acana doesn't have any bad ingredients in it. I am a little wary about using food with very high meat content for dogs that don't have heavy exercise schedules (by heavy i mean working dogs and sled dogs that do a lot of strenuous activity every day) as they don't need so much protein. On the analyisis you provided they only gave the dry wight analysis (remove the moisture and that is what you have left) which is why the protein is at 36%. I only really deal with kibbles so don't remember off hand what dry weight numbers are good and bad. Checked on the Acana website and the Grasslands protein content is listed at 32% which compared to the 25ish% percent that i would advise for normally active dogs is very high. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as excess protein isn't converted to fat but it can put a strain on the kidneys if they are already damaged. For this one i would say it is a pretty great food ingredients wise, but maybe not necessarily the best choice for a normal house pet with a normal level of activity due to the high protein content (although you can be sure all the protein in there comes from great sources) . If your dog does well using Acana then by all means stick with it, but just keep an eye out (especially later in life) for signs of kidney issues and switch to a lower protein food if any do develop. The only major side effect i have heard to feeding (a healthy dog) high protein foods is softer stool so *shrugs*

Orijen is pretty much the same as Acana but with an even higher protein content (40% for the regular adult variety). So again i would say not a bad food ingredients wise but probably not the best choice for a dog with a normal pet lifestyle. I did find this about

So for your question about high protein levels, it isn't necessarily good or bad. It depends on the activity level of your dog. There was a study that i read about quite a while ago that stated that high protein levels causes kidney damage which is where the high protein = bad theory came from, however the research was apparently done on rats not dogs and since then there has been further studies done that shows very high protein levels doesn't affect (normal healthy) dog kidneys in the same manner it did the rats. However i still prefer to stay away from high protein foods for dogs with normal activity levels as there are great foods out there that have a more acceptable protein content.

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Added on May 7, 2010, 4:32 pm@^4ever_Fan+a5y^
The Addiction formula you posted looks fine to me. I have already stated my personal (although still totally unjustified) opinion about Addiction so will put that aside. The protein level is what you would expect to see in a Puppy formula and the ingredients used all appear to be good quality, healthy ingredients. One small worry for me is that the Chicken Fat is the third ingredient where i would usually expect to see a second meat but i don't think it would really cause any problems.
It is also interesting to note that Enterococcus faecium and Lacotabacillus acidophilus are listed in the guarantee (they are both good bacteria cultures that help keep the stomach flora healthy) which means they are found in one of the listed ingredients (this is a good thing rather than the Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product listed as an ingredient in some not so great foods which suggest the left over bits from extracting these bacteria).

Oats are (as eric138 stated) a good source of fiber so is a good ingredient (as long as it is balanced out with good meats and other ingredients). Usually if you see oats listed as an ingredient you can be sure that the food is at least half decent as they are quite an expensive 'filler' and not so good foods would opt for something cheaper .

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Added on May 7, 2010, 4:33 pm
@eric138
I'm assuming you mean Chicken fat which is seen in a lot of dog foods (generally found around the 5th ingredient). It is a great source of linoleic acid and Omega-6 fatty acid. As of yet i haven't seen any indication that it has any negative points about it so i generally class it as a decent ingredient, you can't take the presence of Chicken fat to mean that a dog food is fantastic but i wouldn't take it as an indication of a bad food either.

You already know that i prefer go! to now! but here is my explanation . Although now! has a lot more veggies in it (which in today's market is often a sign of a well made food) it only has one meat in the top 5 ingredients whereas go! has 2. However the protein content of now! is quite a lot higher (now! is 26%, go! is 22%) so based on that i would prefer now!.

At the end of the day, they are both good foods in their own right so it is more personal preference that sways me more towards go!.
To pick out a few ingredients, they both contain kelp which is a great ingredient and now! has broccoli which is a known anti-carcinogen. Canola oil and Flax-seed are considered decent ingredients and a lot of dog foods are starting to use a lot of berries which seem to do well with most dogs.

From what i can tell go! follows a more traditional dog food formula with much of the ingredients list consisting of (i'm assuming) manufactured or extracted vitamins and minerals whereas now! is following the more recent (and i suppose currently more popular?) formula which uses a lot of fruits, vegetable and berries to make up the majority of the nutritional content. I would say both styles have their benefits and drawbacks so as long as the nutritional analysis is sound, they are both acceptable as good foods.


This post has been edited by Divas: May 7 2010, 04:33 PM

@byaku-chan

Thanks for the Science Plan article, will be reading it shortly. Good luck with your kidney problem foster, sending healing thoughts.

My favorite thing to do when i am in a bad mood is to pop into a pet shop and act clueless!! My business partner does the same thing . She once got offered Calcium supplements because they didn't have Glucosamine.
I have also been told that Science Plan is very nutritious and that the only thing you can't feed dogs is chocolate (when i specifically asked about Onions and Raisins they said that they are both safe for dogs)... I quietly correct them and also have to try very hard to keep my mouth shut when i hear bad advice being given.

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Added on May 7, 2010, 6:06 pm@moe81
Nature's Plan is a decent food, the top 5 (Natural Chicken, Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, Oat Groats, Rice Flour) are all fine. If i was to nit pick i would prefer that the Chicken Meal was 1st and Natural Chicken was second (as 'natural chicken' will have a much much higher water content (therefore less chicken which = less protein and minerals etc) and would prefer whole oats to oat groats, however that is by no means to say it is a bad food. The protein is within normal levels for a good food, although the fat is a little higher than i am used to seeing i think, it isn't high enough to cause obesity in a normally active dog.
All in all i don't have any issues with Nature's Plan, it is nothing fancy, nothing special but an all round decent food.

Pro Plan on the other hand (I'm assuming this is what you mean by Pro Performance as it is all that came up on Google, if not please give me an ingredients list and nutritional analysis) is not so great. I have pulled up the ingredients for their Performance Formula (in case you were looking at this one specifically).

Top 5 ingredients for Pro Plan Performance are... Chicken, Corn Gluten Meal, Brewers Rice, Animal fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), poultry by product meal.

Within those top 5 there is 1 ingredient that is considered ok which is the Chicken but even that is nothing spectacular.
So here is what is wrong with the rest:
Corn Gluten Meal is a byproduct of corn which is also used as a natural herbicide. It is edible but as it comes from corn also has the allergenic properties that normal corn has.
Brewers Rice is milled fragments of rice which is a by product of milled rice. It is lacking a lot of the nutritional content that normal rice contains.
Animal Fat can contain the fat of any animal (that produces meat for consumption so usually pig, cow, sheep). So this is an unstable ingredient that will mean the makeup of each batch produced is different.
Poultry by product meal... is one of the worst ingredients you can possible ask for. Not only is it a mixed source (the same idea as animal fat, coming from a number of different animals) but it is also byproducts which is the left over bits after the usable meat has been removed. We are talking feet, beaks, internal organs and such. This is a double bad if the animals they have been taken from were given chemical (steroids, antibiotics etc) as they will be all stored up in the kidneys which then go into your dog food... tasty.

Other notable ingredients in the mix are 2 more corn based ingredients (whole grain corn, corn bran), and Animal Digest which is (as defined by the AAFCO) "material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue." Basically pre-digested meat from multiple sources.

Also too much protein and too much fat (30% and 20%).

In summary really really crappy food. I also took a quick look at their "Shredded Blend Natural" range. I'm afraid it is pretty much the same thing: brewers rice, animal fat, animal digest and corn products everywhere.

I couldn't find the ingredients list for Best choice anywhere on the web (except a German site that might have been an ingredients list but i don't read German so couldn't tell :S ) so if you have it post it up and i'll have a look .

(p.s- oh gosh i am no expert either!! when i am looking at a food and see an ingredient that i am not sure what it is, i wack it in google and there is usually a wikipedia explanation of what it is, from there i can make an informed decision about its value in dog food or do more research to see what has been said and what it is used for. I also found a great site a while ago that had the full list of AAFCO definitions for dog food ingredients that helped me a lot, but i haven't been able to find it since, if i do will post it up.)

This post has been edited by Divas: May 7 2010, 06:21 PM

I would consider that to be the normal amount of exercise that a house dog should get. So for a puppy or adult i would feed something with a protein level of around 25% (anything in the range of 22% to 28% would be fine but i would personally stick as close to 25% as possible).

For older dogs that starting to wear down, perhaps not walking as fast or playing as vigorously i would use a food with a lower protein level (closer to 22%) to give their kidneys a lower workload.

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Added on May 8, 2010, 7:02 pmDefinitely, if you are talking about the amount of food, you will always need to adjust the amount depending on how much your individual dog needs and what brand you are feeding.
But when looking at protein levels it is slightly harder and most protein doesn't get stored as fat but simply gets filtered out in the kidneys and then flushed out in the waste. Dogs who have average exercise levels therefore need a food with average protein levels (as long as they are healthy normal dogs) whereas dogs with very heavy exercise loads need a lot of protein (just like human body builders who need a higher level of protein in their diet to do what they do).

You are right that there is no fixed formula, but there are good general guidelines that will usually point to the right range of protein percentage for different activity levels.

This post has been edited by Divas: May 8 2010, 07:03 PM

yup you guessed it, not a good food:
The major reason poultry is used by a lot of dog food companies is because it is much cheaper than individual meat products like chicken, or turkey. As the well known saying goes; Good things don't come cheap, Cheap things don't come good.
Secondly we have corn and corn flour. Because the second 2 ingredients are corn based ingredients means there is probably more corn in the food than there is Poultry (crappy meat is better than not meat).
Add in the rice flour (a ok ingredient on its own) and you start to get the impression that this dog food is shaping up to be more a bag of flavored flour pressed into kibble shapes... yummy.

Interestingly there are also a couple of ingredients that i don't remember seeing in kibble before: Beef fibers (i'm not sure i even know what this is) and Yeast.
After some research i didn't manage to find any info on Beef fibers in dog food. I am assuming that it is something to do with muscle tissue from cows (as muscle is made up of fibers).
As for yeast. I couldn't find anything definite about yeast specifically but i did find this really great site that lists a lot of things you don't want to see in dog food as well as a description of what it is and why it is bad. I would assume raw yeast or its products in dog food would unbalance the bacterial culture in the stomach and intestines.

Finally the fact that the vitamins and minerals are not listed separately but simply lumped into one general ingredient is never a good sign.

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Added on May 11, 2010, 6:20 pm
I would definitely say 21% protein is way to low for a 3month old.

What brand were you feeding her when she started to chew her paws? This is a symptom of food allergies but for a puppy so young to have severe food allergies and in fact food allergies in dogs of any age are in fact very rare. I'm guessing she came from a pet shop?

I wouldn't switch up to a food with a very high protein level right away as the sudden increase in protein could be a shock to the system in any breed. Try using a food with a moderate protein level (around 25%) as well as one with a good ingredients list.

I also wouldn't say that poodles have weak stomachs, they are generally pretty hardy little dogs.

Remember that you need to keep feeding one brand of food for at least 6 months to get a accurate read on whether it is good or bad for your dog. If your dog seems to have a bad reaction to a food that should be good for them, keep them on it to see if they are just reacting to toxins from previous foods working their way out of your dogs systems.
(Of course if your dog has severe vomiting, skin rashes/lesions or any other condition that is threatening their well being and health switch food immediately (after checking with a vet that something else isn't causing the symptoms) rather than continue with the trial).

One last unrelated thing: Has your puppy completed all of her puppy vaccinations? if not you shouldn't be taking her to places where other dogs go. (Wait until 2 weeks after the final puppy vaccination to be safe). Also with toy breeds i would say 90 minutes is quite a lot of walking for a pup, i would cut back a bit at least until she is older and spend more time on mental stimulation and play type exercise.

This post has been edited by Divas: May 11 2010, 06:36 PM

Yes i agree with this, if you know a dog is fully vaccinated and healthy thena social visit is fine. But this is very different to walking in a public space where you don't know the condition of the dogs who have traveled through.

As long as you are careful it is up to you to decide. I'm just uber paranoid at the moment with all the threads people have been posting about their puppy getting Parvo/Distemper.

I have the funniest image in my head when thinking of your "machinegun pooper".
I can also totally sympathise with people giving her different things to eat (mine is a mother-in-law), very frustrating.

Hope her poop settles down to normal soon

Shouldn't be a problem, its a decent food. See how he goes .

Also just wanted to add another thing science diet is actually useful for (that i had forgotten and was recently reminded of). If you have a dog that has been very ill and so not eating or drinking (i'm talking Parvo/Distemper etc.), If you mix i/d or a/d wet food in with a bit of regular food and water, the dog will find it much easier to eat, keep down and digest that sticking him straight back on full meals of highly nutritional foods. He will also stay hydrated due to the high water content of the mix. As the dog gets stronger and healthier, you can slowly reduce the amount of a/d or i/d and increase the amount of normal food (keep the water content high until you are sure your dog is drinking enough again). I would recommend starting with a 50/50 split of SD and Good quality dry kibble with enough water to make it the consistency of porridge.

@karwaidotnet - Yup i would guess the sludgy poop and bad smell is all the excess protein coming out. Try switching to a good quality normal dog food for a while (I would recommend Canidae, go!, now! or health foods but you can choose any that follow the 'good food' rules). Hopefully that sorts everything out, don't forget to introduce the food slowly by mixing it with the Orijen she is eating now (start with 50/50 then work towards 100% new food over a week or 2).

If she has a lot of intestinal/digestive related problems you could try giving her a little apple cider vinegar in her food each day (like a teaspoon) as that has been seen to do a lot of good for digestive systems in dogs.

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Added on May 23, 2010, 4:19 pm@mikehwt - Yes it is indeed scary when you start to really understand what goes into our dog's food. But dog food is a huge industry with lots of money to be made so it is only natural that a lot of the companies involved are more concerned about the health of their wallets than the health of our pets.

There is already an analysis of Pro Plan on this post, but it is the Performance variety, not the Shredded Naturals that i think you are talking about. So here goes, Pro Plan Shredded Blend Natural Lamb & Rice Formula:

Top 5 ingredients are: Lamb, brewers rice, corn gluten meal, whole grain wheat, chicken meal

Starts out well with Lamb, simple single source meat protein number one.
Then crash down to brewers rice, corn gluten meal and whole grain wheat - not desirable ingredients.

Brewers rice is the small milled fragments of rice kernels that have been separated from the larger kernels of milled rice. (AAFCO definition). Brewers rice is a processed rice product that is missing many of the nutrients contained in whole ground rice and brown rice thus reducing the quality. (From Wikipedia).
Corn Gluten Meal is a by-product of the corn milling process.
Wheat in general although not as bad as corn, is not as good as (real) rice, or barley, or oats, or potato.

By this point, even if you take into consideration the final ingredient of top 5 (chicken meal) the food already has more grains/fillers than it does meat...
If we carry on down the list we see ingredients such as animal-fat, soybean meal, beet pulp, animal digest... the list goes on. I also found an ingredient that i haven't noticed before and looked up quickly:
Introducing Glycerin:
In foods and beverages, glycerin serves as a humectant, solvent and sweetener, and may help preserve foods. A sweetening agent should never be seen in dog food (there are plenty of other safe preservatives that can be used).

Don't get me wrong, they have put some good ingredients in there, Pearled Barley is there somewhere, as is oat meal and fish meal. However the fact that the majority of the top 5 ingredients are undesirables and a lot of the other ingredients aren't impressive either, isn't outweighed by the decent ingredients they decided to throw in.

Also a Lamb formula food should NEVER contain chicken protein as a lot of people rely on Lamb formula foods as a chicken free alternative for protein sensitive dogs. Any formula that is advertised as a single meat formula (Lamb and rice, Kangaroo and barley, Duck and sweet potato) shouldn't contain other meats in the top 5. Its like you buying a beef steak, and then finding that it has been stuffed with chicken when it arrives on your plate...

To summarize, although the protein levels and stuff are all fine, the ingredients really aren't (especially not for something which seems to be trying to be advertised as a healthy alternative food). Re-read this thread and then decide for yourself what food brands you are interested in (i like now!, go!, Canidae and Health foods but there are other good brands out there). If you get stuck you can always post up the ingredients and get an analysis, but it is important for Malaysian dog owners to be able to read and decipher pet food labels to force pet shops, suppliers and manufacturers to improve the quality of the food they produce/supply and sell.

This post has been edited by Divas: May 23 2010, 04:19 PM

@mikehwy - Put a list of the foods available and we can see what would be a good choice. Alternatively you can ask a shop to bring in food for you. I order specific/specialist brands for certain customers, they let me know how much they need (eg 15kg bag per month) and then i make sure i have it. Bigger shops might not do this but if you have a Petsmore/Pets wonderland or any of them, their company already has most brands in their warehouse and it would simply be a case of them adding one or 2 bags in a delivery every now and then.

@karwaidotnet - good luck with the addiction, let us know how it does for your dog.

When was the last time you dewormed your dogkarwaidot net? is it possible that worms are causing her poop to be soft instead of the food.

I would really suggest trying to stick with the addiction for a little while longer, just to see if it will clear up. Dog's digestive systems find it very hard to deal with change in the diet. If you do really feel you definitly want to change right away then i would agree with you on your choice of going with something simple (give her something without any wierd, interesting ingredients for a while to see how she goes). I would suggest either Canidae, Health foods or go!/now!...
You can try the Natural Balance if you want, but keep in mind despite having good ingredients in the first ingredient is not a meat (for the dry kibble at least), but that could be for a specific reason that i don't know of (haven't read the advertising speel to see what they are marketing the food as).
God luck, hope you find a food that gives you nice solid poop soon

Ok i had a look at some websites for Revolution, and it looks awesome. Do you need a prescription for it (a few sites say you do) and which vet did you get it from? I'm thinking about giving it a trial.
However i found THIS site which if you scroll down has a list of what Revolution works against and it says it doesn't prevent roundworms and hookworms (which are the intestinal worms i was talking about) in dogs, so it might be worth picking up a deworming pill just in case.

As for Canidae, it is hard to find as it is a small company that imports it (along with the Chris Christensen grooming products). I have my own Grooming salon where we stock Canidae so that is where i get it from. As far as i know you can get it in House of Groomers (both branches) and not sure where else. Pretty sure Grooming Ranch has as well, apart from that not sure. I have seen it in Pets Wonderland before (but the bag i saw was expired already :S). Quite a few shops opened by HOG students will have Canidae in, but i really can't remember where everyone is these days, lol sorry not much help.
(I have left my own shop out of the list, don't want to be advertising and all that).
Sadly this is the issue with Canidae, the availability is not there. You can also get go! or now!, the only place i know for sure who stocks them is Pet Shack (forgot if that is the name, quite sure, the one who does a lot of sugar glider stuff, all the Bugsy products anyway).

If they don't have Caidae, see if they have Health foods (if they have Avoderm then they have the supplier for Health foods). It is almost the same as Canidae ingredients wise, sold more widely and quite a lot cheaper as well.

I think you might find you have the same problems with Arcana if your dog didn't do well on addiction or orijen.

Also definitly check with your vet as all the websites i saw specificaly said the Revolution works in dogs for Heartworm, Dog ticks, fleas, mites and mange mites. It works in cats for intestinal worms as well but apparently not dogs.

Never heard of it, but did a quick search in google and found....

Ground Corn, Poultry Meal, Oat Groats, Beet Pulp, Poultry Fat

....enough said.

Yey that is great news!! using the Arcana or something else?

I can already tell you that go! and now! are both great foods. You will be safe with any of their formulas. However if you want i can do an analysis of whichever formula you decide to choose, just let me know which one you go for and i can pull the ingredients/nutrition from their website.

Did your Pitbull have Sarcoptic or Demodectic mange? Glad it is all solved now either way.

@ jtl - very helpful

This post has been edited by Divas: May 27 2010, 12:18 PM

Wow good job, very nice clear pictures. I have tried to get the exact formulas that i can see on the pics so here goes.

1. Nutri Edge "Adult" (The blue one on the bottom):
TOP 5: Chicken Meal, Brown Rice, Oat Groat, Potato Product, Chicken Fat (Preserved with Natural Mixed Tocopherols (Vitamin E).
All looks good here. As we know, Chicken meal is good (single source, whole meat), Brown rice is good. Oat Groat is good (this is the whole oat with only the inedible husks removed, it has better nutritional content than other, more processed, oat products).
Potato product is proving a little tricky to decipher. From what i can tell, potato product is pretty much potato flour; potatoes ground down and dehydrated into a powder. I'm assuming (from what happens to other things when they go through this process) the potatoes loose some of their nutritional value through this however its not a major issue when taking into consideration the other ingredients.

Further down in the list we find Prebiotics listed (although they don't get specific about it) as well as Flaxseed and Glucosomine which are all good ingredients.
On the bad side we have Beet Pulp, Brewers yeast and Salt... not so desirable really.

Protein, fat and fiber are all set at good levels (23%, 11% and 4%) although i am used to seeing a slightly higher fat content (closer to 14%).

All in all, not a bad food. Could be better but could definitely be much worse. Your dog should do reasonably well with this one.

2.Artemis "Fresh-mix Adult" (Light blue one on top of California Natural):
TOP 5: Chicken, Chicken Meal, Turkey, Barley, Brown Rice.
Beautiful top 5. Truly fantastic and awe inspiring. 3... count them 3!!! single source meats as the first 3 ingredients. Chicken, Chicken meal and turkey. They know what they are doing. The news stays good with Barley and Brown rice, both top notch fillers.

There are so many great and interesting things about this food i could simply list pretty much all the ingredients with a giant thumb up next to them... however, i have just pulled out some of the truly exceptional (and interesting) highlights that are not commonly seen in most foods (even great ones). Kelp, Spinach, numerous berries and a lot of pre/pro-biotics (Lactobacillus Casei, Enterococcus Faecium).
No food is perfect however and Artemis does contain Flavor Enhancer... but really, who cares... yes it is probably chemical but with all the other great stuff this food has, we can forgive them of this as they are just ensuring your dog (hopefully) loves it as much as i do!!

Do i really need to say Protein, fat and fiber are good? of course they are 23%, 14%, 3% exactly how i like it <3

3. ProPlan + Iams (and Eukanuba as well). Unless the rest are going to be really tough to pay for, don't even bother considering them. If you are on a budget you can choose one of these to mix in with a better food, saving money but still ensuring your dog gets some kind of decent nutrition. If you want an analysis done of any of these let me know (don't think Iams or Eukanuba have been done yet, ProPlan has i think).. for now will just leave it at by-product and corn everywhere !!!!

4. California Natural.

I was slightly disappointed with the website for these guys. Its seems like they are reluctant to give a detailed ingredients list. They do say that their ingredients lists are short and simple. But they lump vitamins and minerals into general categories (listed as 'vitamins' and 'minerals'), which would make any dog food ingredient list (that use synthesized/extracted vits and mins instead of fruits and veg) short.
From what i can tell, the ingredients they name all look fine, chicken meal, brown rice and the likes.

Interestingly they list salt as a positive ingredient, saying that all living things need salt and that they levels in which it is used in their food is healthy rather than unhealthy. However i have always believed that dogs get enough salt naturally through other ingredients in the food which is why i list it as a bad ingredient. I will have to do some more research and double check some nutritional contents to get a clear answer on this, but for now salt is staying in my bad list.

Protein and fat are fine (21%, 11%) but fiber seems extremely low to me (1.5%). Overall it just seems to contain not much of anything really.

So the verdict on this one is: could be bad, could be good, from the website i can't see much and i am always wary of foods with websites that don't clearly state the FULL ingredients list. I would avoid this one for now, unless someone can get a full ingredient list or confirm that the one on the website is the one on the pack as well.

5. Blackwood (although this should be lumped together with the others in #3, Blackwood has a special place in my heart so it gets a special number all to itself.
So the choices you have in your pic are (from top to bottom) 1000, 2000 and 3000.

1000 and 2000 are pretty much the same, featuring Poultry meal and Corn meal, as well as containing some choice ingredients such as Brewers yeast and beet pulp (they specify that it is with sugar removed which turns it from a terrible sweetening ingredient into a pointless filler), and the oh so familiar Dried Steptococcus Facium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product (the leftovers from making pre/pro-biotics).
On the bright side they did bother to add Chicken fat which is a decent ingredient at least... oh and 2000 has rice in... too little too late.
3000 is their 'lamb and rice formula' that contains "no corn, no wheat"... however it does contain Poultry meal and Poultry fat... one of which is in the top 5.. for a "lamb and rice" formula which is usually the choice of owners of dogs with skin problems (often thought to be emphasized and aggravated by chicken) this is absolutely unacceptable and shows little or no understanding of why lamb and rice formulas exist in the first place.

To sum it up. I hate Blackwood.... and justifiably so. When they first came on the market (a couple of years ago) they were extortionately expensive (around the same price as Canidae, Pinnacle and other such brands if i remember correctly), it seems they have dropped their price since then, however you still don't get what you pay for (considering Health Foods in around the same price and far, far, FAR superior). Although not the worst food you can get, the fact that they advertise themselves as one of the best "uncompromised details to unique high quality of ingredients makes it one of the best premium formulas" (1000), "Our outstanding formula makes this food the ultimate diet for dogs" (3000) fuels my total disgust and hatred.

Oh, but just to be fair... the Protein, fat and fiber is fine for Blackwood. (there is a long analysis of Blackwood on pg1 post #17)


Hopefully that helps you choose, pretty much 1st choice is Artemis, followed by NutriEdge, then (probably) California Natural...

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Added on May 28, 2010, 10:46 pmis it Proformance the ProPlan product that there is an analysis of somewhere on this thread?... if so (and my memory serves me right) i would switch to something else. How old is your puppy? (there is an analysis of Pro Plan Proformance on pg 2 post #28, if this isn't what you are talking about please post ingredient list and nutritional analysis).

Thanks eric i was also going to say that sounds very expensive for go! or now!. As my memory serves me, they are around the same price as Canidae (which would be closer to Rm200something for 13kg not 8.... Possibly, your pet shop is marking up the price to get a nicer margin (although the margin for go! and now! is the same as other foods...). You can double check the price and if it really is that much call them out on it and ask them why it is almost double the price that you can find it on the internet...

This post has been edited by Divas: May 28 2010, 10:53 PM