Our Dog Blog

7 Responses to Commercial Dog Food

1. Hudson
   January 30th, 2010 at 7:10 pm

   A few brands that are considered the best in our books are Halo, Acana and Orijen.

2. Paul
   February 4th, 2010 at 8:17 pm

   Alternative dog food on the whole is better than most commercial kibble or canned dog food. But just because you pay more for something does not mean it is better. You need to be an educated consumer and understand the ingredients. Example – human grade ingredients are better than by-product ingredients. Alternative dog food tends to have fresher, higher quality ingredients. It is not a matter of the amount of protein, it is the quality of the protein that goes in to the product. Alternative foods tend to have stabilizers in the them such as Vitamin C, ascorbic acid, vitamin E rather than chemical preservatives such as copper sulphate. There are some commercial dog food products that are better than others such as Halo, Orijen and Acana. Kibble is more attractive to dog owners because of the convenience. These particular brands are consider higher quality because they do not contain the chemical preservatives and the animal ingredients are free of ethoxyquin which is a preservative and pesticide. They also tend to be wheat free, gluten free and corn free which are ingredients that are often associated with food allergies in dogs. They are steam cooked at low temperatures to maximize the nutrients. Some of the alternative brands are Mountain Dog, K9 Cuisine, and many more . There is also the option of cooking for your dog yourself. You can consider fish, lamb, eggs, chicken and lots of different vegetables. Whatever method is chosen, the owner needs to do their research and make sure that they are providing their dog with a balanced diet that matches their own individual requirements. Our dogs are not cut from the same cookie cutter. The same as people require different diets our beloved dogs do as well, especially if there are already under lying health issues.

3. Penny Caldwell
   February 6th, 2010 at 4:50 pm

   Our friends, who operate a farm in Tuscany and are part of the slow food movement, feed their dogs raw food. So dinner might be uncooked chicken legs, bones and all. We feed our nine-year-old golden retriever Iams, as we did our previous golden, who lived a happy 17 years. We’ve tried different brands over the years, but found they changed the dogs’ behaviour too radically.

4. Diana Robinson
   February 9th, 2010 at 6:58 pm

   You couldn’t pay me enough millions to feed commercial kibble dog food to any of my dogs. I choose QUALITY over convenience. For about 15 years now, I’ve had great success feeding a combination of cooked (Dogs We Love meat loaves from Orangeville, and NO, I don’t get a commission!), raw meat and lots of raw bones, plain yogurt, raw & cooked vegetables such as sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. Also, because of the northern origin of the Alaskan Malamute, they love and do well with salmon fish heads, (eyeballs and all) cooked slowly in a water broth, and raw deer meat and bones, when they’re available from neighbours who hunt. My dogs have all been living well past 14 years old, have teeth as white as snow even into their teens (no ridiculous, expensive dental work needed at any vet’s, no teeth needed brushing EVER), and energy enough to competitively race in skijor or dogsled events into their 13th years. My dogs don’t die of cancer if they’ve lived their lives on decent food (and weren’t rescued dogs acquired well into adulthood), and there are no auto-immune system problems. Their energy levels don’t spike from processed, extruded garbage in their system and their waste is a fraction of those poor smelly dogs on kibble, whose skin has to purge all those transfats somehow! One needs to do their homework not only pertaining to their own breed, but also to meet the individual requirements of their own dog(s). Quality or convenience… it’s your choice. Yeah, I’m a bit passionate about this issue of nutrition. I’m still learning everyday…

5. Rick Allen
   March 17th, 2010 at 2:56 pm

   Orijen/Acana, Natures Variety, Halo. RAW FOOD!

6. Jane
   April 3rd, 2010 at 8:43 pm

   I have recently heard about another brand of kibble that is really high quality and it is Canadian. The name is Cani-source. Do a Google search and check out the details, it sounds really good (if you don’t have the time or the money to home cook) and comes recommended by a number of holistic vets.

7. husky puppy training
   January 30th, 2012 at 9:20 am

   I just added this blog site to my feed reader, excellent stuff. Can’t get enough!

Leave a Reply