Fellow dog owners - what food do you feed?

[sorraia]

To all who are feeding raw diets: Keep it at a minimum, raw diets are ALWAYS deficient in certain vitamins and minerals that are present for a reason in dry, semi-moist, and wet manufactured pet foods.

Remember: Dogs are NOT obligate carnivores. No, not even wolves.

And Science Diet is not bad food, it was once top of the line. The bar has just been raised and now it's a mid-grade food that can easily sustain good overall health in many many breeds.

It's not false. Nor is it objective research. It's me sitting in my Animal Nutrition course, which is aimed entirely at the nutritional requirements of canine/feline diets what good methods are for providing them with solid maintenance nutrition throughout all life stages.

I'm not going to repeat everything everyone has already said. I am going to say I disagree with your assessment of raw diets. I have to ask, what kind of animal nutrition course you are taking, and who is funding it (or who is funding the professors). Nutritional research is notoriously flawed to show results in favor of the funding source. I’ve been doing nutritional research for a few years, including reading articles from scientific journals (over 100 articles downloaded). This is the trend I’ve seen in doing my research. If the funding source says “xyz” nutrient or food is healthy, then the research study will show the same. If the funding source says “xyz” nutrient or food is unhealthy, then the research study will show the same. It’s a flawed system, and there are ways to tweak studies without outright lying. What this means is you need to take everything you read and hear with a grain of salt, and do your own research.
Dogs are carnivores. They are not obligate carnivores like a cat is, but they are carnivores. Canines are only opportunistically omnivorous. Some species (i.e. foxes) are a little more opportunistic than others. Typically the plant matter canines will consume are sweet tasting fruits. Courser plant matter that is available year round (i.e. leaves) can’t be digested by canines, as they do not have the digestive system. (I say this not only from my independent research on nutrition and physiology, but also as a biologist by trade.)
As I stated in my other reply, my dogs and cats are on a purely prey-model raw diet. They have been for years. They get blood work done at least once a year, and are regularly seen by the vet. Everything always comes back normal, and ideal. If a raw diet weren’t complete and healthy for them, I’d be seeing that by now.