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Ragnarok the Red
Jun 21, 2002
I have a 5-6 year old Yorkshire Terrier I adopted a half-year ago that's a really picky eater. We bought him some Blue Buffalo when we first got him, the Petsmart folks recommended it and I found the online reviews pretty favorable. He's never really truly treated it as anything more than "begrudgingly tolerable", eating it but only in smaller portions than what was recommended at meals. We tried switching him to wet dog food for awhile, but it's given him loose and messy stools which is a big problem if he goes in the house. So we're swapping him back to dry and a co-worker of mine recommended Royal Canin: Terrier and the reviews I've read about it are some of the most divisive I've ever seen.

Most of them rave about it, saying how great it is, that their terrier would gobble the stuff up, even picky terriers who various reviewers had tried 4-10 different dry dog foods finally hit the magic bullet with this one, and it's apparently good for their dental hygiene as well. Then I read several negative reviews complaining how many fillers are in it and what utter overpriced poo poo it is. Every review was either a five star rave or a one star put down with no middle ground whatsoever....til I came to this thread and found it ranked "Acceptable" (or average I would presume) in the OP :v:

So is it worth trying for a dog that didn't like the supposedly superior Blue Buffalo, or does anyone else here own or know another picky Yorkie that likes another kind of kibble more?

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Gothmog1065
May 14, 2009
I think generally your best best is just to try things off the premium list (If you have it available). If your dog will only eat Royal Canin, then that's all he'll eat. Acceptable is just that, it's not poo poo (Like most of the common wal-mart foods) but it's not the filet mignon of dog foods. See what your dog likes and go from there.

HelloSailorSign
Jan 27, 2011

For the most part, the Royal Canin OTC "breed specific" diets are a load of hooey. The right diet, though, is one your pet will eat, do well on, and not break your wallet. As long as he wasn't losing lots of weight on the food (or being really skinny) it might've been enough to eat. Caloric concentrations can differ widely between foods. I haven't heard that the Terrier diet is any better with teeth than any other dry diet (which is no help).

However, there is some interesting research in the pipe about one particular breed of dog (not Yorkies) having a significant nutrient requirement difference from other dogs. It may turn out that the examined dogs thus far are all just the results of bad inbreeding and so it's not the breed at large, but there may be breed specific diets in the future that are actually useful.

Piggycow
Jun 27, 2007
This may be a really dumb question, but I can't find much on it directly. Is there any reason I can't just buy some chicken breast for $2/lb, stick it in the oven, rip it apart, and throw it in my cats bowl? Works out to cheaper than any of the "high quality" foods and it is pure protein. If I wanted to be really lazy/have something in storage, I have had cans of chunk chicken breast from Costco for $2.50/lb that taste perfectly fine to me. I'd still leave out a bowl of decent dry food and probably mix in some regular wet every so often just for some variety. I don't quite get why more people wouldn't at least go the canned chicken route if they were so worried about having too much junk in the food when it is cheaper.

Piggycow fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Jun 24, 2013

Dr. Chaco
Mar 30, 2005

Piggycow posted:

This may be a really dumb question, but I can't find much on it directly. Is there any reason I can't just buy some chicken breast for $2/lb, stick it in the oven, rip it apart, and throw it in my cats bowl? Works out to cheaper than any of the "high quality" foods and it is pure protein. If I wanted to be really lazy/have something in storage, I have had cans of chunk chicken breast from Costco for $2.50/lb that taste perfectly fine to me. I'd still leave out a bowl of decent dry food and probably mix in some regular wet every so often just for some variety. I don't quite get why more people wouldn't at least go the canned chicken route if they were so worried about having too much junk in the food when it is cheaper.

The general recommendation is to have no more than 10% of calories come from an unbalanced food source. Treats are usually not balanced; table food scraps, chicken breast, and canned chicken certainly are not. Canned chicken also usually has a lot of sodium. As a treat, human food, especially plain lean meats, are not bad, but if you use it as a major part of the diet you miss out on the correct amounts of various vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids. Note that plain boiled or baked chicken breast is often recommended as part of a "bland diet" to help pets get over gastrointestinal illness, but that is usually only recommended for a week or so.

Braki
Aug 9, 2006

Happy birthday!
Because chicken breast alone is not even remotely close to a balanced diet for a cat and would be missing many important nutrients. If you want to give your cat chicken breast, then make it a treat, which means it shouldn't be over 10% of your cat's regular daily caloric intake.

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

So Balen had some protein in his urine (did a billion tests and he's healthy as a horse) and after talking to the vet, we're heavily considering swapping him to a lower protein diet, probably with grains. And probably Amy with him since she's getting to be "old" for a dane too. I eyeballed wellness's senior but why the hell does it have garlic in it? I'm also eyeballing earthborn's adult formula and a few others. What would you guys do? Everyone's currently on Taste of the Wild, lamb formula/sierra mountain.

wtftastic
Jul 24, 2006

"In private, we will be mercifully free from the opinions of imbeciles and fools."

Fluffy Bunnies posted:

So Balen had some protein in his urine (did a billion tests and he's healthy as a horse) and after talking to the vet, we're heavily considering swapping him to a lower protein diet, probably with grains. And probably Amy with him since she's getting to be "old" for a dane too. I eyeballed wellness's senior but why the hell does it have garlic in it? I'm also eyeballing earthborn's adult formula and a few others. What would you guys do? Everyone's currently on Taste of the Wild, lamb formula/sierra mountain.

How do you feel about Blue Buffalo or Wellness? Both those brands have lower proteins content and I think both offer senior and lamb formulations. Bailey has done well on both, but he's young yet.

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

wtftastic posted:

How do you feel about Blue Buffalo or Wellness? Both those brands have lower proteins content and I think both offer senior and lamb formulations. Bailey has done well on both, but he's young yet.

The Wellness is confusing me because I don't know why they have garlic in it. Garlic's not great for dogs. What're you doing, Wellness?

I'm a little wary about blue just because when they have a recall it's not usually for something relatively minor.

HelloSailorSign
Jan 27, 2011

Garlic isn't good for dogs, but the amounts present in almost all commercial dog food is negligible to the amounts needed the cause clinical signs of garlic or onion toxicity. I too am not a fan of those ingredients showing up in many of the "premium" foods but it doesn't seem to do any harm currently.

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

HelloSailorSign posted:

Garlic isn't good for dogs, but the amounts present in almost all commercial dog food is negligible to the amounts needed the cause clinical signs of garlic or onion toxicity. I too am not a fan of those ingredients showing up in many of the "premium" foods but it doesn't seem to do any harm currently.

See, I'm still wary of it because Balen's 8. 8 is not young for a dane no matter how you slice it. What would you do in my shoes?

Dogdoo 8
Sep 22, 2011

Fluffy Bunnies posted:

The Wellness is confusing me because I don't know why they have garlic in it. Garlic's not great for dogs. What're you doing, Wellness?

I'm a little wary about blue just because when they have a recall it's not usually for something relatively minor.

I bought whatever the grain free version of Blue Buffalo is called. I didn't notice it had garlic in it until long after I got home. Then today I picked up some Canidae brand treats, got home and noticed garlic on the ingredients list. I think some company bigwigs got together somewhere and decided that garlic was trendy for some reason.

Supercondescending
Jul 4, 2007

ok frankies now lets get in formation

Dogdoo 8 posted:

I bought whatever the grain free version of Blue Buffalo is called. I didn't notice it had garlic in it until long after I got home. Then today I picked up some Canidae brand treats, got home and noticed garlic on the ingredients list. I think some company bigwigs got together somewhere and decided that garlic was trendy for some reason.

Nutty dog ladies who are into holistic medicine tout garlic as a natural flea repellant and never shut up about how they never have to harm their dog with "chemicals" to repel fleas because they cram them full of as much garlic + food-grade dichotomous earth as possible. Maybe something to do with that.

Dogdoo 8
Sep 22, 2011

Superconsndar posted:

Nutty dog ladies who are into holistic medicine tout garlic as a natural flea repellant and never shut up about how they never have to harm their dog with "chemicals" to repel fleas because they cram them full of as much garlic + food-grade dichotomous earth as possible. Maybe something to do with that.

Are you loving making GBS threads me.

Supercondescending
Jul 4, 2007

ok frankies now lets get in formation
Nope, I used to post on dog forums full of aging hippies and crazies when I was like 19 and didn't know better and that was definitely A Thing.

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



Garlic and DE are still super popular among new age-y farmers who refuse to do fecals but think worming with chemicals is evil somehow. That and apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar (not the processed kind!) does everything from get rid of lice to increase the number of female animals you have born apparently.

wtftastic
Jul 24, 2006

"In private, we will be mercifully free from the opinions of imbeciles and fools."

Instant Jellyfish posted:

Garlic and DE are still super popular among new age-y farmers who refuse to do fecals but think worming with chemicals is evil somehow. That and apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar (not the processed kind!) does everything from get rid of lice to increase the number of female animals you have born apparently.

Yeah garlic is hippie magic and I have had people tell me to use that instead of frontline.

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug
You folks laugh but I've been giving Tater a teaspoon of garlic a day and last week's supermoon was only the third time that he's turned into a werewolf.

Dogdoo 8
Sep 22, 2011

Eegah posted:

You folks laugh but I've been giving Tater a teaspoon of garlic a day and last week's supermoon was only the third time that he's turned into a werewolf.

Small wonder he's having that problem! Did you know the more of an ingredient you use, the less effective it is? The best thing you can do is to grate up that fresh garlic and then dilute it in water until you need to use ppm to measure it. You see, the water holds a memory of the substances it has in it, and the less there is, the harder the water has to remember. On top of that, garlic in that quantity is an offlabel use, all you're going to do is prevent rabid bats from attacking. I've got Beartato down to a 5 ppm garlic, 2ppm chamomile solution and I have not seen one vampire since the first few days I had him.

wtftastic
Jul 24, 2006

"In private, we will be mercifully free from the opinions of imbeciles and fools."

Dogdoo 8 posted:

Small wonder he's having that problem! Did you know the more of an ingredient you use, the less effective it is? The best thing you can do is to grate up that fresh garlic and then dilute it in water until you need to use ppm to measure it. You see, the water holds a memory of the substances it has in it, and the less there is, the harder the water has to remember. On top of that, garlic in that quantity is an offlabel use, all you're going to do is prevent rabid bats from attacking. I've got Beartato down to a 5 ppm garlic, 2ppm chamomile solution and I have not seen one vampire since the first few days I had him.

I was about to have an aneurysm and then I realized you were joking.

Shnooks
Mar 24, 2007

I'M BEING BORN D:
My mom is into that hippie crap and used to give the dog garlic in her food and have her wear a stupid pennyroyal collar until she got a really bad flea problem and now everyone (cats and dogs) get frontline monthly! And there's no fleas!

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug

Dogdoo 8 posted:

Small wonder he's having that problem! Did you know the more of an ingredient you use, the less effective it is?

Well yeah, it's no silver bullet.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
Is olive oil actually good for dogs' skin?

HelloSailorSign
Jan 27, 2011

Martello posted:

Is olive oil actually good for dogs' skin?

Orally or topically? Either way, eh. There are better oils for skin - those that have Omega 3s, like fish oil.

scunish
Feb 27, 2006

A doggy rescue!
I knew my cat was fat, at just shy of 16 pounds, but after his annual checkup at the vet yesterday it turns out that he is ENORMOUS. The vet did a metabolic exam and concluded that he's supposed to weigh 8 pounds. The problem isn't that we intentionally overfeed - we have two cats, and each gets 1/4 cup dry (solid gold indigo moon) and 3oz wet (solid gold blended tuna) per day. The problem is that we haven't found a good way to keep them separated, and so McFatty almost always winds up eating at least some of skinnycat's food. Prior to the vet visit, we'd been feeding fat cat on the ground, and skinny cat on the counter. What often winds up happening is that skinny will eat some of fatty's food, so then we put skinny's down on the ground to compensate. Defeats the purpose I know. Our next plan was to feed fatty in another room, skinny on the counter, and see if that works.

Anyway, the vet prescribed Hills Metabolic for weight loss. I know from this thread that prescription Hills is supposed to be fed as prescribed even though the ingredients may be horrible, but I wanted to as you guys, does that rule follow for the Metabolic line? It seems like just poor quality food to me, of the weight loss variety. We started feeding it to him last night, but wanted to get your guys's input. I know he won't die from eating corn gluten meal and chicken byproduct meal for a few months, and the vet DID prescribe it, but yuck. Personally I'd rather just try our new isolation feeding method to see if that works, but if he actually needs this stuff, I won't.

HelloSailorSign
Jan 27, 2011

It's a new product from Hill's with extra fancy things behind it - they say they are using "synergistic blends of nutrients" to "alter the animal's gene expression to that of a skinny pet from a fat pet."

There's not any fancy genomic research behind it so far. What they did was to provide it blinded to vets and clients as another weight loss diet option, and they claim 88% of the pets lost weight.

Anecdotally, I've seen vets posting that animals who have been on weight loss diet regimens that haven't lost weight to begin losing on this diet.

I have not tried it in any patient myself yet as I'm not one to jump on the newest product to come out unless there's a really good reason to do so. In my opinion, every animal's metabolism is different and different diet strategies will work in different animals.

However, a big problem with obesity are the genetic changes that make an animal prone to obesity. If this diet actually does influence genetic expression and is able to move animals away from the obese profile then it has huge value. I'm watching to see what happens. At this point, for an overweight animal, can't hurt, might help. Fat cats in particular are hard due to the danger for fatty liver syndrome, and Hill's says that they don't know of any cats that developed it while on their diet, even those losing the amount of weight where I would consider fatty liver to be extremely likely.

scunish
Feb 27, 2006

A doggy rescue!
What an awesome response - thank you! We'll keep him on it and report back his svelte new frame. :)

LoreOfSerpents
Dec 29, 2001

No.

scunish posted:

The problem isn't that we intentionally overfeed - we have two cats, and each gets 1/4 cup dry (solid gold indigo moon) and 3oz wet (solid gold blended tuna) per day.
The amount of food needed for a cat to safely lose weight can vary wildly between cats, but this actually seems like a lot of food to me.

Solid Gold Indigo Moon is 450 calories per cup, so even if you split them up, you would've been feeding them 112.5 calories each just in dry food. The small cans of food used to be 132 calories (I don't know if they still are, though).

Assuming the calories are still the same, you were trying to feed each cat 244.5 calories per day. That's more than my 18-pound cat was eating to maintain his weight. He's a lazy indoor cat, so obviously it'll be different for others, but that's a lot of calories.

I'm really curious how the new food works out for you! :) My cats were jerks and became picky eaters when I started their diets. How many calories is your cat getting with the new food?

Dr. Chaco
Mar 30, 2005

LoreOfSerpents posted:

The amount of food needed for a cat to safely lose weight can vary wildly between cats, but this actually seems like a lot of food to me.

Solid Gold Indigo Moon is 450 calories per cup, so even if you split them up, you would've been feeding them 112.5 calories each just in dry food. The small cans of food used to be 132 calories (I don't know if they still are, though).

Assuming the calories are still the same, you were trying to feed each cat 244.5 calories per day. That's more than my 18-pound cat was eating to maintain his weight. He's a lazy indoor cat, so obviously it'll be different for others, but that's a lot of calories.

I'm really curious how the new food works out for you! :) My cats were jerks and became picky eaters when I started their diets. How many calories is your cat getting with the new food?

This is true (both that all cats are different and that amount of food may be a lot). My cats are both 10-11 pounds, and eat 165kcal each per day. When they were fat-asses and I was initially trying to get them to lose weight, it took about 200kcal per day to get them to start losing anything, and then as they lost weight I had to adjust downward to where we are at now.

scunish
Feb 27, 2006

A doggy rescue!
Wow. I seriously thought we've been skimpy with the food. Imagine the money I'm going to save! Ha ha :)

Dr. Chaco
Mar 30, 2005

scunish posted:

Wow. I seriously thought we've been skimpy with the food. Imagine the money I'm going to save! Ha ha :)

Exactly! I don't understand why people don't take pet weight loss more seriously for the cost savings alone.

Gothmog1065
May 14, 2009
I was actually coming here to ask about feeding my cats. I have 4 of them, and I"m doing a mix of dry and wet food. I use Blue Buffalo Indoor formula dry and a mix of Innova and Blue Buffalo canned. Right now they get a can of innova (6 oz I think, the REALLY big can), or two cans of Blue Buffalo (3.0oz)in the evening, and in the morning about 2 cups of dry cat food. Is this about right? I might be feeding them too much dry food. I used to just fill the bowl and let them graze at will.

None of my cats are hugely obese. They all eat from the same bowl, and there's usually a little wet food left over for grazing for a few hours, and enough dry to last them through the day mostly.

LoreOfSerpents
Dec 29, 2001

No.

scunish posted:

Wow. I seriously thought we've been skimpy with the food. Imagine the money I'm going to save! Ha ha :)
Hah, I had the same reaction before I started counting my cats' calories. :) I figured they were just stealing each other's food and that's why two of them were fat, but it turns out they were stealing each other's food and I was over-feeding.

Gothmog1065 posted:

I was actually coming here to ask about feeding my cats. I have 4 of them, and I"m doing a mix of dry and wet food. I use Blue Buffalo Indoor formula dry and a mix of Innova and Blue Buffalo canned. Right now they get a can of innova (6 oz I think, the REALLY big can), or two cans of Blue Buffalo (3.0oz)in the evening, and in the morning about 2 cups of dry cat food. Is this about right? I might be feeding them too much dry food. I used to just fill the bowl and let them graze at will.

None of my cats are hugely obese. They all eat from the same bowl, and there's usually a little wet food left over for grazing for a few hours, and enough dry to last them through the day mostly.
Based on that, it's hard to tell whether you're feeding too much. Innova and Blue Buffalo both have a number of different foods and if you're letting them eat out of the same dish, there's no control over who is eating how much.

Also, Innova had a pretty big recall recently. You should go here and make sure none of your food is on the list. I don't know if any canned food of theirs was recalled, but it can't hurt to look.

If any of your cats are fat and you want to get that under control, you should actually separate them for feeding and not leave food out in between meals. That will give you an idea of how much food each one needs individually, so you can start tweaking amounts to get them to lose weight gradually. I know it seems like a hassle but it really isn't as bad as it sounds. That also lets you see if any of them ever start eating less than usual, which can be an indication of a health problem.

Braki
Aug 9, 2006

Happy birthday!
That still looks like a lot of food. 2 cups of food for 4 cats... my cats never ate 1/2 cup per day, plus those cats are getting wet food too. For reference, both my cats are at their ideal weight at 8lbs. each, and one eats one 5.8oz can a day, and one eats 2/3 of a can a day to maintain their weights. They're on Urinary SO and Hill's d/d venison too, so it's not even a brand that's super calorie dense. I think that's like 140-160kcal/day for them.

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug
I'd like to get serious about maintaining Tater's weight. He's around 20 pounds and while it's tough to judge by sight because of his bigass fluffy coat I can feel his ribs fine so I think he's right about ideal. He's an averagely active 18-month old whose activity is two hours at the dog park chasin' and wrasslin' and tuggin' and havin' shitloads of fun, but not a whole lot on top of that.

Right now the kibble of choice is Nature's Variety Instinct, which according to the bag is 3810kcal/kg. I'm armed with a digital food scale and have been offering up to 140g/day for the hell of it, which would be ~530kcal/day if he ate all of it. He doesn't, however. I think he's eating more around 100g/day for 380kcal/day (he only seems to really chow down every other evening, which is weird but whatever dude, your stomach). Throw in treats and let's call it 425.


This link says an ideal intake would be almost 700/day but that seems really high... I'd practically have to force feed him that much which can't be right. The Waltham calculator also there says 570-650 which seems a bit more reasonable. Any ideas?

Braki
Aug 9, 2006

Happy birthday!
Calculations are guidelines and starting points. Every animal is different. If you had no idea how much to feed, then it would be good to use that and see how he does. If he's eating his food and he's maintaining his weight and you don't think he's too skinny or too fat, then what you're feeding is a good amount.

NarwhalParty
Jul 23, 2010
My two year old dog has been on Iams her whole life. I live in the middle of nowhere, so it's hard for me to find anything other than worse brands. Problem is, she has been having digestive troubles lately. Mostly it's a gurgly stomach, occasional diarrhea, and occasional vomiting. She was put on Science Hill digestive for 2 wks (with a combo of Carafate) and did fine those weeks. The food contains corn, though. She's going to be on her prescription diet for the rest of the month and the vet told us to change foods.

How can her problem be fixed with a corn filled food? Also, how does 4health rate on the list? The ingredients look similar to TOTW and the guy at the store said it was very similar.


Edit: found a link with ingredients
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/4healthtrade%3B-salmon--potato-formula-for-adult-dogs-18-lb-bag
then they have a grain free formula
http://www.tractorsupply.com//Produ...51?cm_vc=-10005

Second edit : according to Consumer Affairs, there has been several complaints for the same Iams mini chunks the past few months. Looks like probably a bad batch. I've contacted the company.

NarwhalParty fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jul 5, 2013

Tayter Swift
Nov 18, 2002

Pillbug

Braki posted:

Calculations are guidelines and starting points. Every animal is different. If you had no idea how much to feed, then it would be good to use that and see how he does. If he's eating his food and he's maintaining his weight and you don't think he's too skinny or too fat, then what you're feeding is a good amount.

Sounds like a plan, thanks.

phosdex
Dec 16, 2005

Looks like Felidae is being renamed to Canidae to have both their dog and cat food under the same brand or something.

I also have a note that says we can't sell Wysong anymore because something on their label doesn't meet a req in MN.

phosdex fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jul 6, 2013

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Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
My Cane Corso puppy is 28 pounds at 2 and a half months. She's grown 10 pounds in just the past three weeks since I took her home. She's full of energy and has a great personality and temperament. I'm pretty sure I'm feeding her right, but the cups per day guidelines I was able to find on Google are all for adult dogs, as is the guidelines on the Taste of the Wild bag. Am I supposed to use her predicted adult weight as the guideline, or her current weight? I'm feeding her 3-4 cups a day twice a day right now.

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