# How To Choose a Good Dog Food



## Bailey&Me (Mar 8, 2010)

Since we usually get a lot of food and treat related questions on this forum, I thought I would share these videos I came across and found to be really informative. Ever since I got my Bailey, I’ve become really passionate about researching dog nutrition and trying to learn all that I can so that I am able to make healthy choices for my dog. I enjoy reading articles on nutrition by Dr. Karen Becker and watching her videos – I find her to be super knowledgeable and really good at speaking about the good and the bad of the pet food world. I recently came across these great videos by her on “How to Choose a Good Dog Food”. There are two parts – in the first one she goes over several options of high quality foods and what to look for in ingredients (she speaks about frozen raw vs. canned vs. dehydrated raw vs. premium kibble); and in the second one she describes what kind of foods to avoid and why. I thought these would be great to share especially with newbies who are interested in learning more about dog food. They are a little long (about 10 minutes each) but contain a lot of good, useful information.

Here are the links: 
Part 1
Part 2


Again, this is just something I found super helpful and wanted to share with anyone else who may be interested. Hope this helps!


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## Johita (Jul 10, 2009)

Thanks for posting this Nida. Very informative and it's a good resource for those with food questions.


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## RudyRoo (Jun 24, 2011)

Thank you so much! I'm going to watch them right now. I still have so much to learn and always appreciate the help and advice I get from SM.


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## Bailey&Me (Mar 8, 2010)

Johita said:


> Thanks for posting this Nida. Very informative and it's a good resource for those with food questions.


You're very welcome, Edith! 

I also wanted to point out that the website these videos are posted on is called Dog Food Advisor - it's not Dr. Becker's site but it contains a lot of info and reviews on pretty much all major dog food brands. I would recommend browsing through the Dog Food Reviews section of this website - you can search by brand or type of food or by ratings. Here's the link: Dog Food Advisor 

Other helpful sites are: DogAware and Dog Food Analysis


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## Bailey&Me (Mar 8, 2010)

RudyRoo said:


> Thank you so much! I'm going to watch them right now. I still have so much to learn and always appreciate the help and advice I get from SM.


Oh you're welcome!  What did you think of the videos? Hope you liked them and found them to be helpful! 

Another good video by Dr. Becker is: The Best and Worst Type of Pet Foods In this video, she talks about 13 types of dog food, from best to worst. What I found to be interesting about this list is that the best type of food (top of her list), according to her, is a home-made raw BALANCED diet...and the worst type of food (bottom of her list) is a home-made UNBALANCED diet (even worse than grocery store brands!) I've always been interested in home-cooking for Bailey but I've been a little intimidated by it, to be honest...not getting the nutritional balance just right worries me. It's scary to think that we might actually be doing our dogs harm if we're feeding them an unbalanced diet even though we may think we're doing a really great thing by home-cooking for them :w00t:


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## aprilb (Jul 9, 2010)

Thanks, Nida! Very helpful.:hugging:


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## RudyRoo (Jun 24, 2011)

Bailey&Me said:


> Oh you're welcome!  What did you think of the videos? Hope you liked them and found them to be helpful!


I loved them. They were very very helpful. Thankfully the food I feed Rudy stood up to the test! I was nervous for a bit though. :mellow:



> Another good video by Dr. Becker is: The Best and Worst Type of Pet Foods


Yep, I watched that one too! I also looked at the dog food reviews. That site is REALLY great. Thanks so much for sharing. I am about to go comb through it some more today. 



> I've always been interested in home-cooking for Bailey but I've been a little intimidated by it, to be honest...not getting the nutritional balance just right worries me.


Completely agree. I would love to home cook, but I'm a graduate student and can barely cook for myself! I really want to make sure that I give Rudy the best of those 13 foods that I can 1) afford, and 2) have time for. Right now, it's a balanced can/dry food diet with lots of protein. So I guess that's #3 and #4 on the list.


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## shellbeme (Mar 1, 2011)

I will say, I enjoyed these videos. I don't buy it though. I feel like the only vets we ever hear from are one extream or the other. My vet who says science diet, science diet, science diet, or like this vet who says raw raw raw. Frankly I'm kind of sick of it. No one has any real proof. When I read from the raw feeders, the only proof they can seem to muster is the opinion of holistic vets (half of which I don't hold much stock in) and that they see it every day in their dogs.

Well that's great, but it just isn't enough for me. I need more, facts-studies, something that has been prooven that can hold up.

When it comes to the other end of the spectrum, they have nice studies and reports, that in the end you find our are funded by science diet. Really? Come on! It's infuriating.

Who do you believe? Who do you go with? You have to take it all with a grain of salt and go with what YOU think is best for YOUR pets. That's all you can do. At least, that's all I feel like I can do. It's really frustrating.


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## silverhaven (Sep 6, 2009)

shellbeme said:


> I will say, I enjoyed these videos. I don't buy it though. I feel like the only vets we ever hear from are one extream or the other. My vet who says science diet, science diet, science diet, or like this vet who says raw raw raw. Frankly I'm kind of sick of it. No one has any real proof. When I read from the raw feeders, the only proof they can seem to muster is the opinion of holistic vets (half of which I don't hold much stock in) and that they see it every day in their dogs.
> 
> Well that's great, but it just isn't enough for me. I need more, facts-studies, something that has been prooven that can hold up.
> 
> ...


My dogs see a holistic vet. I have found myself agreeing with what they say in general. It all seems like common sense to me. They want me to feed real food. My particular one likes home-cooked, and loads of variety not one recipe. My dogs love it too and I have seen no tummy issues eating this at all. They have some kibble but mainly for convenience sometimes or treat. I have found the vet to be very practical, he has seen the changes in ideas of what is good and not good over the years and feels it is better to hedge your bets with a big variety of food. The only time Lola has ever had tummy issues was when I tried her on raw and dehydrated raw. I have also found when she is fed kibble she is really grumpy, and agitated. Maybe something in it disagrees with her. When I got a bit lazy for a couple of weeks with the new puppy here, I fed Lola more kibble and she ended up going to the vet with a bad tummy. Putting her purely back on home-cooked all issues resolved. I honestly can see a change in her health from one to the other. It is a lot easier to just feed kibble but I just know for her anyway, I can't.


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## silverhaven (Sep 6, 2009)

Bailey&Me said:


> Since we usually get a lot of food and treat related questions on this forum, I thought I would share these videos I came across and found to be really informative. Ever since I got my Bailey, I’ve become really passionate about researching dog nutrition and trying to learn all that I can so that I am able to make healthy choices for my dog. I enjoy reading articles on nutrition by Dr. Karen Becker and watching her videos – I find her to be super knowledgeable and really good at speaking about the good and the bad of the pet food world. I recently came across these great videos by her on “How to Choose a Good Dog Food”. There are two parts – in the first one she goes over several options of high quality foods and what to look for in ingredients (she speaks about frozen raw vs. canned vs. dehydrated raw vs. premium kibble); and in the second one she describes what kind of foods to avoid and why. I thought these would be great to share especially with newbies who are interested in learning more about dog food. They are a little long (about 10 minutes each) but contain a lot of good, useful information.
> 
> Here are the links:
> Part 1
> ...


I have subscribed to Dr. Becker on Mercola for a while now, after being directed there from here  Suzan I think. I find her vaccine,health and nutrition info very helpful. Several good videos.


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## shellbeme (Mar 1, 2011)

silverhaven said:


> My dogs see a holistic vet. I have found myself agreeing with what they say in general. It all seems like common sense to me. They want me to feed real food. My particular one likes home-cooked, and loads of variety not one recipe. My dogs love it too and I have seen no tummy issues eating this at all. They have some kibble but mainly for convenience sometimes or treat. I have found the vet to be very practical, he has seen the changes in ideas of what is good and not good over the years and feels it is better to hedge your bets with a big variety of food. The only time Lola has ever had tummy issues was when I tried her on raw and dehydrated raw. I have also found when she is fed kibble she is really grumpy, and agitated. Maybe something in it disagrees with her. When I got a bit lazy for a couple of weeks with the new puppy here, I fed Lola more kibble and she ended up going to the vet with a bad tummy. Putting her purely back on home-cooked all issues resolved. I honestly can see a change in her health from one to the other. It is a lot easier to just feed kibble but I just know for her anyway, I can't.


 
Hubby and I discussed home cooked diets today too, it's something I'd like to learn more about as well  do you have a specific recipe you follow or any suggestions on where to learn more about making a cooked home made diet?

That's one thing I dread with the kibble-we started on Fromm but Rocky doesn't like it and eats only what he has to, so we're switching to Wellness, which he loves but we are having tummy issues  he has a sensitive one too.


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## LJSquishy (Feb 27, 2008)

Thanks, Nida! I enjoyed watching her videos and it was nice to get a little "refresher" since as you know I am constantly researching dog food!


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## Bailey&Me (Mar 8, 2010)

Oh whoops...I just realized I put this thread in the wrong place. I meant to put it in the "food" section, obviously...any way to move it there???


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## lynda (Oct 11, 2005)

Thanks Nida, I found it very informative. I am feeding Now right now but I may look into raw. I doubt I would ever home cook cause I don't even home cook for my husband.LOL


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## silverhaven (Sep 6, 2009)

shellbeme said:


> Hubby and I discussed home cooked diets today too, it's something I'd like to learn more about as well  do you have a specific recipe you follow or any suggestions on where to learn more about making a cooked home made diet?
> 
> That's one thing I dread with the kibble-we started on Fromm but Rocky doesn't like it and eats only what he has to, so we're switching to Wellness, which he loves but we are having tummy issues  he has a sensitive one too.


My vet pointed me to DogAware.com and also from my vets office I got a cook book by Hilary Watson that also has a vitamin mix to make the recipes approved. I do one or two full recipes for the freezer but mix it up a lot day to day. Sometimes eggs and yogurt and fruit for breakfast.


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## Bailey&Me (Mar 8, 2010)

shellbeme said:


> I will say, I enjoyed these videos. I don't buy it though. I feel like the only vets we ever hear from are one extream or the other. My vet who says science diet, science diet, science diet, or like this vet who says raw raw raw. Frankly I'm kind of sick of it. No one has any real proof. When I read from the raw feeders, the only proof they can seem to muster is the opinion of holistic vets (half of which I don't hold much stock in) and that they see it every day in their dogs.
> 
> Well that's great, but it just isn't enough for me. I need more, facts-studies, something that has been prooven that can hold up.
> 
> ...


I can definitely understand your frustration - I felt the same way when I first got Bailey and started learning about different dog food options. I struggled with trying to decide what the best thing is for Bailey and read/heard so many different points of view, it got really overwhelming. I don't know what scientific studies or research has been done to support the holistic way of feeding - but to me, it just made sense. It made sense that I should try and stay away from ingredients like "meat by products" and "animal digest" that are in most of the "popular" mainstream pet food brands (once I knew what they meant!) - I found it to be gross and can't imagine how it could be healthy and knew I definitely wouldn't eat it so why feed it to my dog? And once I discovered what ingredients to avoid, the rest was more clear from there - looking for foods that listed real food products as ingredients - real meat as a source of protein, veggies and fruit, etc. In my opinion, if you just do that, then you're doing pretty well! There are many brands of dog food out there that use good quality, healthy ingredients and are affordable and easy to find (Blue Buffalo, Wellness, etc) and are really good options over the standard brands like Iams, Purina, etc. 

If you want to take it to the next level, you can look in to feeding raw or home-cooking. Raw, in my opinion, is still controversial so you will get a lot of push-back from people who are against it, including vets. Many people on this forum who have chosen to feed their pets raw have done so after doing a lot of research on their own and also doing trial runs to observe how their pets handle it. Feeding raw is not for everyone so if you don't feel comfortable with it, then it's absolutely fine to not go that route. There are a lot of other healthy options out there. 

I used to stress a lot about finding the right food for my Bailey. Now, I don't worry about it anymore because there's no ONE right food...he gets a variety of different things. I've fed him a few different brands of high quality kibble and canned food in the past, I've home-cooked for him, and I've tried several of the dehydrated raw foods out there as well. I do carefully watch him to make sure he doesn't have any issues with any of these foods - so far, he's done really well with a variety. If he gets an upset stomach or gains/loses too much weight, then I adjust his diet appropriately. I plan on getting annual blood panels done for him so that if there any deficiencies in his diet, I can address those. Other than that, I don't stress about it too much anymore! 

I hope that the info you find on SM is helpful to you. I know I found a ton of great information on here and the members are wonderful about answering any questions that I had!


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