Fellow dog owners - what food do you feed?

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Originally Posted by Mephibosheth1

Jackie, as a fellow Veterinary Professional, I would advise you to stay out of this argument. People have their own views, and if they would like to stay with them we can do nothing to force them. It is a sad fact that people would rather go against the advice of knowledgeable people because they are "part of the establishment", etc. it will be pointless to force them to change.

Im totally with you, but you can't win this argument...Ive tried and failed many times

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And as a fellow animal enthusiast, I would advise you to study a lot more on the topic. Animal enthusiasts don't come up with their own solid views because they're stupid. And that includes you.

You can't force me to change because I grew up with a whole country of dogs on raw food. You think they sell kibbles in the Philippines? Nope they don't. Unless you pay an arm and a leg for them at the fancy pet shops that sell shock collars and dog earrings. And we are quite active in the Kennel Club show rings.

So people saying, "Don't feed your dog raw!"... is, to the rest of the world, just another American idiot.

Sure, all animal enthusiasts are good at finding the truth on things:rolleyes:

I feed Rachel Ray's Nutrish brand of grain free dog food. It's inexpensive but IMO healthier than the "high end" brands by virtue of being grain free. The dogs seem to shed less now, and they treat that food like candy. They were pretty apathetic about meal time before I switched.

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Dogs are not obligate carnivores. Cats are obligate carnivores.

Obligate carnivores are those that require a diet almost exclusively of meat. Being obligate carnivores, cats require a compound found exclusively in meat and other animal tissues - taurine.

Taurine is a necessity for all animals, but because it is absent in plant material, herbivores and omnivores must produce it from other amino acids in their diet. Obligate carnivores must eat other animals that contain taurine in their meat and organs. Cats are hence obligate carnivores.

Dogs can synthesize their own taurine from other amino acids in their diet, which indicates that they are not obligate carnivores in terms of physiology. However not all dog breeds are the same. Some giant and large dog breeds tend to have shorter intestines than smaller dogs (which is measured relative to body length). Also larger dogs can be afflicted from taurine deficiency (due to higher excretion in their urine) more often than smaller dogs. Therefore large dogs probably require more meat in their diets than small dogs to ensure good health.

The BS blanket statement that dogs do not benefit from fruits or vegetables is just that - BS. Cats don't, dogs do.

Dogs - as do many members of the order carnivora - will eat anything they can in the wild. Dogs may not have amylase in their saliva, they secrete it from their pancreas - something that cats cannot do. Amylase is the enzyme that digests starches. Again, come to the argument with facts, not blanket statements, and certainly not your individual preferences.

Dogs have evolved/adapted to eat plant material - period. They can extract nutrition and sustenance out of it.

I have had dogs lead long and healthy lives on kibble and I know people who have had dogs lead long and healthy lives on proper raw diets. I have fed my dogs raw in the past and have been honest that I saw absolutely no difference healthwise.

All of this talk about allergies and other problems with digestion has less to do with canine nutrition and more to do with the epidemic of inbred and functionally deficient dogs that dominate the landscape. Food allergies and environmental allergies are issues in which diet can play a factor, but which poor genetics is an undeniable cause. Most food allergies in canines centers on intolerance to proteins - not grains. Talk to someone who tests dogs for food allergies and ask them what the number one food allergy is for dogs.......hint - it involves proteins - not carbs.

I mountain bike with my patterdale and hunt with her 9 months out of the year. Like most patterdales, she comes from stock not burdened by out of control line breeding, or by fads that promote physiological mutations that favor form over function. On her grain free kibble diet, she can hunt on a 90 degree day, digging into den after den for 4 to 8 hours, or run along a mountain bike for miles. Your pugs, bulldogs, et al cannot do that on a raw diet, a kibbled diet or on any diet.

For all of you that think that being a carnivore means only eating raw meat - what is a bear classified as? How about a bamboo eating panda bear?

Top 12 ingredients in ---

Science Diet Adult Light:
Ingredients: Ground whole grain corn, soybean mill run, chicken by-product meal, powdered cellulose, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, chicken liver flavor, soybean oil, latic acid, flaxseed, carmel color, iodized salt.

Wow..."meat" isn't even the first ingredient here. By-product is #3!! So according to the ingredients list, the bulk of this diet consists of corn.

Vegan Dog Food - Evolution Diet:
Ingredients: Whole Oats, Corn Gluten Meal, Soybean Meal, Soybean Oil, Carrots, Dried Tomato Pomace, Dried Potato Product, Dried Molasses, Deflourinated Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Salt

Comparison to quality rodent diets??
Mazuri Rodent 6f:
Ingredients: Ground Corn, Soybean Meal, Animal Fat, Cane Molasses, Wheat Middlings, Calcium Carbonate, Ground Oats, Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Dicalcium Phosphate, Ground Wheat, Ground Soybean Hulls, Fish Meal, Salt, Brewers Dried Yeast, Dried Beet Pulp, Wheat Germ, Corn Gluten Meal,

Harlan 7012 Rodent Formulated Laboratory diet:
Ingredients: Ground corn, soybean meal, ground oats, wheat midds, alfalfa meal, corn gluten meal, brewers yeast


Maybe it's just me, but Science Diet and quality rodent food sure look similar....

Just for funsies:
3 formulas of Science Diet Cat(OBLIGATE CARNIVORE that CANNOT ABSORB, PROCESS, DIGEST many of these ingredients, which does lead to Feline Diabetes):
1) Chicken, Whole Grain Wheat, Corn Gluten Meal, Pork Fat, Brewers Rice , Wheat Gluten, Chicken Liver Flavor, Dried Beet Pulp, Dried Egg Product, Calcium Sulfate, Lactic Acid, Potassium Chloride
2) Chicken, Whole Grain Wheat, Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Powdered Cellulose, Wheat Gluten, Pork Fat, Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken Liver Flavor, Lactic Acid, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate
3) Chicken, Whole Grain Wheat, Corn Gluten Meal, Pork Fat, Powdered Cellulose, Pea Bran Meal, Dried Egg Product, Wheat Gluten, Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken Liver Flavor, Lactic Acid, Soybean Oil

So much for healthy!! SD killing cats, one case of diabetes and obesity at a time.

Recap on a quality biologically appropriate kibble:
Orijen adult kibble:
First 12 ingredients: Boneless chicken, chicken meal, chicken liver, whole herring, boneless turkey, turkey meal, turkey liver, whole eggs, boneless walleye, whole salmon, chicken heart, chicken cartilage

Orijen Freeze dry:
First 12 ingredients: Chicken (ground with bone), turkey (ground with bone), whole herring, chicken liver, chicken heart, whole eggs, spinach greens, pea fiber, turkey liver, turkey heart, whole flounder

Uhhh, looking at the dentition of my canine and mustelid, I can definitely say the Orijen looks the most promising. :X



Dog Dentition:
http://loudoun.nvcc.edu/vetonline/ve...g1MVC-008F.jpg

Obligate Carnivore Cat Dentition:
http://loudoun.nvcc.edu/vetonline/ve...llMVC-003F.jpg

Obligate Carnivore Ferret Dentition (sure looks similar to that dog):
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8318/8...1b41cefb_z.jpg

Omnivore Bear Dentition:
http://www.headhuntertaxidermy.com/s...l_page2/16.JPG

Omnivore Baboon Dentition:
http://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?se...product.chain]

Omnivore Olive Baboon Dentition:
http://pierce.wesleyancollege.edu/fa...on%20skull.JPG

As you can see, omnivores like bears and primates have molars that are built to crush and grind. The share a movement like herbivores that chew and grind side to side.
Carnivores have teeth that slice, chop, and shear. Not to mention, they aren't capable of grinding skull movements. Their mouths can only open up and down in a scissor like movement.

I.Jaw biomechanics – shearing vs grinding
a. Toothrows will shear if the perpendicular distance between toothrows and the jaw joint are not equal, or of one toothrow is above and the other below the joint.
b. Teeth will occlude simultaneously if the distance between toothrows and joint are equal and both toothrows are in line with, or equally distant from, the joint
c. Gape is maximized in carnivores by emphasizing the temporal muscle in jaw mechanics. This allows them to have a smaller masseter movement.
d. In contrast, herbivores use the masseter muscle which provides direct source (e.g., not via the articulation) but constraints gape


Mammals possess four types of teeth: incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. Incisors and canines are for piercing and tearing flesh. Broad flat molars aid in grinding.

Yes, dogs have an increased ability to digest carbs when compared to wolves. The hypothesis is that this ability is what helped along their domestication. That being said, the ability to digest something does not mean that it is a healthy diet. I could feed cattle cardboard, and they would digest it, but that doesn't mean that I should. Corn in particular is usually not a good choice for most simple- stomached animals because they lack the microflora and gut setup to properly break it down. If a cow needs four stomach chambers, a horse a cecum, and both an army of microorganisms, just to digest corn and other grains, a simple- stomached animal like a dog is not getting much use out of it as a food source. With that said, based on the behavior, digestive system, and dentition, it is clear that they are optimized to primarily eat meat. A little bit of carbohydrates are fine. The main issue is offering a diet that is 50-90% carbohydrates (whoa! That sounds like.... Science Diet! Who would have guess!! :O)

Domestic Cat(Obligate Carnivore):
http://www.cnsweb.org/extra/digestve...T%20F5_13a.gif

Domestic Dog:
http://www.cnsweb.org/extra/digestve...T%20F5_12e.gif

Black Bear (Omnivore):
http://www.cnsweb.org/extra/digestve...T%20F5_15c.gif

Olive Baboon (Omnivore):
http://www.cnsweb.org/extra/digestve...T%20F5_16a.gif

Rat (Grainivore to digest all of that grains, corn, and delicious Science Diet goodness):
http://www.cnsweb.org/extra/digestve...T%20F5_14b.gif

European Rabbit (Herbivore):
http://www.cnsweb.org/extra/digestve...T%20F5_18c.gif

Just basic text book images, where the dog's digestive tract sure looks identical to that carnivorous digestive tract...hmmm
http://morriscourse.com/elements_of_...ve_systems.jpg

http://wordpress.as.edu.au/cshannon/..._carnivore.jpg

Digestion involves a number of mechanical, chemical, and microbial actions to degrade food into simple molecular compounds that can be absorbed into the body. Digestion in the mouth is mechanical (breaking large pieces of food into smaller pieces). Dogs and cats do not contain the enzyme amylase in their saliva like omnivores and herbivores. This does not allow the animal to digest starches and carbohydrates in the mouth. Dentition reflects on the type of diet consumed by a species; cutting and tearing prey. The digestive tract is short in dogs and cats, compared to other omnivores. They have a short digestive tract and strong stomach acid that allows faster digestion and a higher metabolism to digest animal protein and kill harmful bacteria(in meat). Herbivores and some omnivores have evolved to have very long digestive tracts. Longer digestive tracts are needed to properly process plant based materials.

Dietary functional fibers are plant substances not digested by mammalian intestinal enzymes. These include certain carbohydrates as well as other types of plant based material. The only "benefits" to this is having an animal with consistent large bowel movements.

Some crappy random notes I have from my Evolution of Mammals university course a while back:
- Digestion in Mammals (some key adaptations)

The mammalian stomach
I. 3 main parts: cardiac, fundus and pyloris
-Cardiac region- mucus, but no digestion glands
-Fundus- greatest # of glands, include cells that secrete HCl, and glands that secrete pyloric mucus
-Pyloris- produces more mucus

II. Carnivores
-Large glandular fundus
-Simple digestive tract
-Meat is relatively easy to digest, just have to chop it up
-High protein diet = high nitrogenous waste products, so need a lot of water
-Insectivory is similar to carnivorous diet, shrews for example

Because meat is easily digested, the gastric system of carnivores is typically short and simple. They are monogastricmeaning they have only one stomach (unlike a ruminants’ stomach which has four chambers). Due to the ease at which components required for growth are obtained from food, some carnivores have lost the ability to synthesis them

The teeth of carnivores are sharp and strong, this makes it easy to rip and tear meat from bones of prey. When possible, the meat is broken down further by the teeth to ensure maximum surface area for digestion by enzymes in the stomach and small intestines. True carnivores do not have digestive enzymes in their saliva.

Due to the lack of salivary enzymes, food spends little time in the mouth of a carnivore, it is shortly swallowed

III. Herbivores
-Fewer glands
-Large, complex digestive tract
-Food is simple, typically low in nutritional value so it needs extra time and processes to break down.

Herbivores only consume plant material which is very difficult to digest. No vertebrates make an enzyme capable of breaking down cellulose. As the diet includes large amounts of fiber, the digestive tract of herbivores is comparatively much longer than carnivores, due to fiber being much more difficult to digest.

To overcome this, herbivores have developed a symbiotic relationship with a population of microflora that inhabit a specialized region of the gut for fermentation e.g. the caecum or rumen of ruminants. The microflora population of the gut is able to breakdown cellulose and use the glucose for its own metabolic needs. As a waste product of this process, the microflora population releases volatile fatty acids which the herbivore utilities for energy. The production of these fatty acids is known as fermentation (fermentation also produces heat which keeps the animal warm).

There are two types of fermenting herbivores, those which ferment in the foregut and those which ferment in thehindgut. The difference between them is the site of fermentation and the organ used for fermentation; the attributes of the fermentation chamber remain the same however – Anaerobic, plenty of fluid, regulated pH, steady nitrogen supply and the correct temperature.

2 approaches to herbivory:
1. Ruminant/foregut digestion
- Macropodid and potoroid marsupials have a “sacciform” foregut
- Forage and chew the food up (some breakdown through salivary glands)
- Food goes to rumen (not the stomach) and can occupy ½ the room in the abdomen
- Copious amounts of saliva produced (200L/day for cows), purpose is to have neutral pH in rumen using bicarbonate
- Saliva also contains urea which provides protein source for microbes in rumen
- High concentration of microorganisms to digest plant materials, which are difficult to digest.
- Fix nitrogen in urea
- Break down cellulose that cows are eating, turn into glucose which is used by microflora in rumen as their source of starches
- Byproduct of that is volatile fatty acids (VFA’s) which is the primary source of carbon for the ruminant
- Food sent to reticulum, brought back up esophagous and then to mouth to be rechewed (chewing cud)
- Reswallowed and goes back to rumen
- Food then goes to omasum
- Finally goes to abomasum (true stomach)- acidic pH, acids kill microflora and they are digested (get it’s protein), gets carbon from VFA’s released from rumen
- Benefit is that you get efficient digestion of plants before it even hits the stomach (carnivores lack all of this)

2. Cecant/hindgut digestion
- Small stomach, large intestine w/ a big cecum
- happens after acidic digestion so less efficient overall
- have to eat a lot more food as a result of eating low nutritional foods in order to compensate
- Frequently partake in coprophagy, where they re-consume their feces in order to get all the nutrients possible from a food item
- Rumen is big so it means ruminant has to be big
- need less water to get rid of nitrogenous waste products because it’s getting recycled (urea)
- Poor quality food hard for them to digest
- tannins and microresins can “gum up” the system or hurt the microflora
- Food passage in cow is 70-100 hours
- Cecant digesters fair well even if food quality is poor, they just churn it out, but they need to eat more of it
- Goal is to eat, eat, eat and then go home and chew cud

I'm not really going to take the time to explain everything. But animals that can digest plant based materials have complex digestive tracts for a reason. Plant based materials are difficult to digest and absorb, which is why their digestive tracts are so long. Their nutritional value is low compared to animal content, which is why these animals have to be constantly feeding and rechewing their food over and over again. In short, dogs and other carnivores lack this complex system.

I don't really care if people feed kibble or not. I know many people don't like raw and there are plenty of quality commercial foods out there. Heck, I feed my dogs partial kibble.
HOWEVER, I don't think advocating Science Diet is 'right' either. And that was the main point of the above post...

Dogs can digest some plant based materials, but not a lot, which is what low quality kibble is jammed packed with.
When the bulk of a dog's diet is full of grain/corn/rice fillers rather than meat, something is truly wrong in my opinion.

I think everyone should feed what works for them and their dogs so long it is quality I really don't see an issue with either raw or kibble whatever works.

I feed Solid Gold Bison based dog food.

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Ingredients

Bison, Ocean Fish Meal, Cracked Pearled Barley, Oatmeal, Brown Rice, Rice Bran, Tomato Pomace, Canola Oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols) , Flaxseed, Natural Flavor, Salmon Oil (source of DHA), Choline Chloride, Taurine, Dried Chicory Root, Parsley Flakes, Pumpkin Meal, Almond Oil, Sesame Oil, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Thyme, Blueberries, Cranberries, Carrots, Broccoli, Vitamin E Supplement, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Thiamine Mononitrate, Manganese Proteinate, Manganous Oxide, Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, Calcium Panthothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Sodium Selenite, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (vitamin B6), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin, Vitamin D Supplement, Folic Acid

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Works for them, nice coat, healthy stool (yeah I am one of those crazy people that examine the stool of their dogs ;)), healthy dogs.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

so long it is quality

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This right here.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

I think everyone should feed what works for them and their dogs so long it is quality I really don't see an issue with either raw or kibble whatever works.

I feed Solid Gold Bison based dog food.



Works for them, nice coat, healthy stool (yeah I am one of those crazy people that examine the stool of their dogs ;)), healthy dogs.

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This is what I've been waiting to hear :) what a simple statement, and a simple answer to a simple question. Thank you. Agree One Million Percent!!!


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Originally Posted by Skiploder

The BS blanket statement that dogs do not benefit from fruits or vegetables is just that - BS. Cats don't, dogs do.

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You're not paying attention. Nobody here says dogs don't benefit from vegetables. Quite a lot of raw feeders follow the BARF (as opposed to PMR) that includes vegetables. But many here are telling you that dogs DO NOT NEED vegetables. You can eliminate veggies completely out of their diet and it will not harm them any. On the other hand, if you completely eliminate animals out of their diet, they will be unhealthy dogs. And even - if their diet consists mainly of plants more than animals, they will be unhealthy too. Yes, that's why Science Diet changed their formula to have meat as the first ingredient. No, that did not make them quality food. It's still a scummy food for many other reasons.

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

Dogs - as do many members of the order carnivora - will eat anything they can in the wild. Dogs may not have amylase in their saliva, they secrete it from their pancreas - something that cats cannot do. Amylase is the enzyme that digests starches. Again, come to the argument with facts, not blanket statements, and certainly not your individual preferences.

Dogs have evolved/adapted to eat plant material - period. They can extract nutrition and sustenance out of it.

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Yes, Americans have evolved to eat McDonalds and can extract nutrition and sustenance out of it. And your point is?

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

I have had dogs lead long and healthy lives on kibble and I know people who have had dogs lead long and healthy lives on proper raw diets. I have fed my dogs raw in the past and have been honest that I saw absolutely no difference healthwise.

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Sure, and nobody here... .NODOBDY... said your dogs are going to get sick on kibble. Everybody here is saying there are better kibble than Science Diet... or gasp!... Purina! (Yes, a vet tech just claimed in this here thread that Purina is just as good as Blue Buffalo).

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

All of this talk about allergies and other problems with digestion has less to do with canine nutrition and more to do with the epidemic of inbred and functionally deficient dogs that dominate the landscape. Food allergies and environmental allergies are issues in which diet can play a factor, but which poor genetics is an undeniable cause. Most food allergies in canines centers on intolerance to proteins - not grains. Talk to someone who tests dogs for food allergies and ask them what the number one food allergy is for dogs.......hint - it involves proteins - not carbs.

I mountain bike with my patterdale and hunt with her 9 months out of the year. Like most patterdales, she comes from stock not burdened by out of control line breeding, or by fads that promote physiological mutations that favor form over function. On her grain free kibble diet, she can hunt on a 90 degree day, digging into den after den for 4 to 8 hours, or run along a mountain bike for miles. Your pugs, bulldogs, et al cannot do that on a raw diet, a kibbled diet or on any diet.

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AMEN. I have 2 English Bulldogs. I'm not sold on grain free. I'm on LOW CARBS. Or as low a carbs as possible. Grain Free food is useless if you're just swapping rice for white potato unless your dog is allergic to rice. But, grain free food is corn free so you have one good thing about grain free - GMO ingredient is highly unlikely.

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

For all of you that think that being a carnivore means only eating raw meat - what is a bear classified as? How about a bamboo eating panda bear?

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And you don't even stop to wonder... not even a smidgen... why Panda bears sleep for most of the day? Or why they have a very hard time pro-creating?

Here's some info for you from http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=379:

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Why Do Pandas Eat Bamboo?

Why do pandas eat bamboo? It seems bizarre that a creature whose ancestors were carnivores would turn towards an almost exclusively vegetarian diet, and in particular to a nutritional source as poor as bamboo. It has to spend more than half of every day sitting and eating just to extract enough calories. [Source: Henry Nicholls, The Telegraph, September 28, 2010]

When you think about it objectively, though, the prolific growth rate of these hardy plants, their year-round availability and widespread distribution (until humans appeared on the scene) actually made bamboo a pretty attractive snack. And the panda goes about extracting what little nutrition there is in great style: a sixth digit fashioned from its wrist bone allows it to grasp at stems and strip off leaves; its hefty skull and strong teeth provide the means to crush through the tough bark to the goodness within; and its digestion is aided by an intimate symbiosis with some very powerful gut microbes. So effective are they that Japanese scientists were able to use bacteria extracted from panda faeces to achieve “the complete digestion of kitchen refuse” – a finding for which they rightly won the biology category in the 2009 Ig Nobel awards for improbable research.

Interestingly, when geneticists sequenced the panda’s entire genome in 2009, they found a messed-up gene that means they probably can’t taste flesh, which may explain why they don’t seek it out that often. But when the opportunity presents itself, pandas will happily tuck in. Researchers carrying out the first proper fieldwork in the 1980s found droppings that contained hair from a golden monkey and the hair, bones and hooves of a musk deer. The panda genome still contains all the enzymes needed for digesting meat, and these rare lapses into carnivory might be crucial in providing important trace nutrients that are absent from bamboo. They have also helped researchers, who have baited traps with goat heads and pig bones to lure and then collar their quarry.

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