Your Questions About Organic Dog Food Sensitive Stomachs

admin answers:

It really depends on what she is sensitive to in the food. Have you ever tried Merrick dog food? It is organic can be found online even if you can’t find it locally. If you can make her food at home you can feed boiled chicken and white rice and see if her tummy settles down.

admin answers:

Congrats on wanting to help your dog! A lot of people think it’s okay to feed their dogs crap food…

When switching your dog’s food, make sure to keep a reserve of her old food. I like to use 20% increments–so the first day of the switch, use 80% Pedigree, and 20% new food. From there, you can change the levels to 60/40, 40/60, 80/20, and then finally 100% new food. You can also do it in 25% increments. Ideally this should take about a week (or two weeks if your dog’s stomach is sensitive). If your dog got sick last time you switched her, it was probably done too quickly. Innova is a fantastic food; it’s just really hard on a dog’s system to immediately go from a cruddy food to a high-quality one since there’s way more protein in the good food. It may take your dog the full two weeks to get her used to the new food.

Some great, premium/ ultra-premium foods are EVO, Blue Buffalo/ Wilderness, Pinnacle, Acana, Instinct, Wellness, Solid Gold, Taste of the Wild, Timberland Organics, Fromm Family… A good site to peruse is http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com Check out all of the 4-6-star foods they have on there–you local pet store (or farm supply/feed store) is bound to carry a couple of them.

(Science Diet is crud, by the way. Sorry, kids.)

admin answers:

There is no food that is the *best*, different individual dog may thrive on different foods. What is best for one may not be the best for the next.

You can do MUCH better than Pedigree. Pedigree has a lot of fillers, byproducts, low-quality grains, and overall just bad ingredients.

What you want to find is the high-quality food that *your dog* does best on.

If you are on a budget, I recommend Canidae and Chicken Soup brand dog foods. They are very reasonably priced, and are still high-quality.

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Read the ingredients on the food you buy. Go with a high quality dog food.

Here is my “short list” of rules when I am looking at dog ingredients:
1) When I chose a dog food, I chose one high meat content. I want to see preferably at least 2-3 out of the top 5 ingredients be meat or meat meal (first ingredient must be!).
2) I want to see higher quality grains, such as barley, brown rice, and oatmeal, instead of seeing wheat and corn. Or an alternative starch/carbohydrate such as potatoes or sweet potatoes.
3) I don’t want to see any byproducts.
4) I don’t want to see a lot of fillers.
5) I don’t want to see preservatives that are believed to be carcinogens (BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin).
6) I don’t want to see artificial colorings such as the Red, Blue, and Yellow dyes.
7) I don’t want to see added sugars (sugar, corn syrup).
8) I don’t want to see mystery meats (meats identified only as “meat” or “poultry”.)

Here is an article about byproducts:
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=ingrd

And an article on what ingredients to avoid:
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=badingredients

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Some GOOD foods are :
* Artemis – http://www.artemiscompany.com/
* California Natural – http://www.naturapet.com/brands/california-natural.asp
* Canidae – http://www.canidae.com/
* Chicken Soup – http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul.com/
* EVO – http://www.naturapet.com/brands/evo.asp
* Fromm – http://www.frommfamily.com/
* Innova – http://www.naturapet.com/brands/innova.asp
* Merrick – http://www.merrickpetcare.com/
* Nature’s Variety – http://www.naturesvariety.com/
* Orijen – http://www.championpetfoods.com/orijen/orijen/
* Solid Gold – http://www.solidgoldhealth.com/
* Taste of the Wild – http://www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com/
* Timberwolf Organics – http://timberwolforganics.com/
* Wellness – http://www.omhpet.com/wellness/

Or check this website for good foods: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
(I recommend only feeding foods rated 4, 5, or 6 stars. Anything 3 stars or less, I would stay away from.)

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Stay away from grocery stores brands. They are low-quality foods chalk full of fillers, preservatives, dyes, etc.. (Grocery store foods are those like Beneful, Old Roy, Alpo, Pedigree, etc.)

Beware “premium” foods. “Premium” does not mean good nutritionally, and is not a nutritionally high quality food. It has the same types of ingredients as grocery store foods, just a bit better quality of those not-so-good ingredients. (Premium foods are those like Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, etc..)

Another thing to be wary of: A lot of vets will recommend what they sell in their office. They get profit from the brands they keep on their shelves, that’s why they push it. Truth is, vet schools don’t focus a lot on nutrition. It’s not saying that a vet is a bad vet because he recommends those foods, a lot of vets just are told “this is good food”, so they pass the message along without proper nutrition knowledge. Also, some dog food brands (like Hills) support vet schools, so vets have heard of it from the time they start college, which makes them think it’s good as well.

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Higher quality food may seem more expensive at first, but it evens out. The higher quality the food, the less fillers eaten (and therefore the less poop comes out the other end). Your dog eats more to try to get the nutrition it needs, and most of the food just passes right on through. Also, it will make your animals healthier, so you save money on vet bills in the long run.

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“Big box” petstores like Petco and Petsmart rarely have quality foods. (I do believe that PetCo sells “Solid Gold” and “Natural Balance” brands and Petsmart sells “Blue Buffallo”, which are all quality foods, but most of the foods aren’t.)

Also, grocery stores and Walmart aren’t good places to buy food either.

Your best bets for getting quality dog food are:
– small, locally owned petstores
– dog boutiques
– farm supply stores

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When switching foods, do it gradually. I do this over about a two week timespan:
25% food A, 75% food B
50% food A, 50% food B
75% food A, 25% food B
100% food A
.