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Deceptive Thinker
Oct 5, 2005

I'll rip out your optics!

Rectovagitron posted:

She hates everything except the Honest Kitchen whole grain rehydrated food. She is the kind of dog that will spit out a treat if she is distracted by a squirrel, or excited in general. With Pro Plan, she'd just pick out the nuggets and barely graze everything else. Her weight is stable, and her vet is a little concerned that she is on the thin side, but she isn't losing weight so the vet isn't concerned about that.

Nonetheless, I'd prefer to have her on something more mainstream and less marketed at the raw/grainfree crowd, and would prefer a brand that did AAFCO testing instead of just formulation. Is there anything else we can try, or are missing here?

have you tried the honest kitchen clusters?

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Rectovagitron
Mar 13, 2007


Grimey Drawer

Deceptive Thinker posted:

have you tried the honest kitchen clusters?

Yeah! We use those as her primary treats for training. She loves them. I'm afraid to move to those as the main thing as its the only thing we train her with but, that might be what happens.

Is their non-grainfree stuff blessed by the thread, more or less?

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

Rectovagitron posted:

I've never had a picky dog before so am kind of at a loss.

My dog is a 1.5 year old 33lb Jindo that we've had since she was 4 months old. She had pneumonia and kennel cough when we got her (but is very healthy now), and the place we adopted her from had her on a raw-ish diet of Honest Kitchen's whole-grain stuff and some local frozen raw chicken for dogs, plus some added vitamins + probiotics.

Our vet recommended (and I preferred) switching to kibble instead of any raw food, both for the convenience, science behind it, and friends who are vets recommending kibble. But, our dog hates everything, and is not food motivated.

So far we have tried (at least):
- Several kinds of Royal Canin
- Hill's Science Diet
- Purina Pro Plan
- Eukanuba

We've tried a mix of wet and dry foods, just dry, just canned, making her do tricks for food, using food dispenser toys, only having food available for short amounts of time, and just about everything. We always do 2 weeks of transition time then at least 2 weeks of dedicated time on a food to see if she settles down with it.

She hates everything except the Honest Kitchen whole grain rehydrated food. She is the kind of dog that will spit out a treat if she is distracted by a squirrel, or excited in general. With Pro Plan, she'd just pick out the nuggets and barely graze everything else. Her weight is stable, and her vet is a little concerned that she is on the thin side, but she isn't losing weight so the vet isn't concerned about that.

Nonetheless, I'd prefer to have her on something more mainstream and less marketed at the raw/grainfree crowd, and would prefer a brand that did AAFCO testing instead of just formulation. Is there anything else we can try, or are missing here?

Honest Kitchen follows AAFCO guidelines. Get a better vet that doesn't expect you to shovel corn into a dog that clearly hates it. Give your 33 pound dog the food she likes if you can afford it. If not, I'm happy to try to help you more. If this is "WELL THE VET SAID-" talk to a nutritionist. I'm happy to give you phone numbers if you want'em. They're veterinarians that specialize in food and not holistic bullshit or "purina told us that they're good".

I wouldn't feed any of that list above other than Honest Kitchen.

Editing to add: https://www.thehonestkitchen.com/thk-blog/what-is-aafco This is all absolutely true. Check out NRC guidelines while you're at it and compare NRC vs AAFCO. NRC actually goes further in-depth. AAFCO is just the bare minimum to keep your dog's body from eating itself.

Second edit: Your dog is fine on grain-free and grained foods and a bunch of other stuff unless she's allergic to something in the food. Vets are using DCM as a huge "OH NO" scare and it's far less likely than the insulin resistance (that eventually became diabetes) dogs gained on heavily grained (primarily corn) diets that relied on grains for proteins/fillers.

DCM exists. There are a lot of other issues that have a higher percentile chance of happening (though still much lower than anyone should be strongly concerned about unless their individual pet shows symtpoms) than DCM because of lentils, peas, and such.

Fluffy Bunnies fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Jun 28, 2021

AnonymousNarcotics
Aug 6, 2012

we will go far into the sea
you will take me
onto your back
never look back
never look back
Vet checkup yesterday - apparently both my male cats (~2 years old) are overweight and he said I should completely cut out giving them dry food.

My kitten (~10 months) pretty much ONLY likes the dry food and is at an acceptable weight.

Are there any actual health issues as a result of cats being overweight? (i.e. Looking for causation, not correlation)

Cretin90
Apr 10, 2006
Recommendation please. My 10 lb 3 year old cat consumes about 200 calories of food per day.

I currently feed him Weruva https://www.chewy.com/weruva-paw-lickin-pals-variety-pack/dp/169209 1 can/day
https://www.chewy.com/solid-gold-indigo-moon-chicken-eggs/dp/112136 1/4 cup/day

I’m looking to switch to the healthiest all wet/canned I can get for $100/mo or less. Any suggestions? If I switch to 2/day Weruva canned it’s over $200/month which is just too much for me to stomach for one 10 lb cat. Not set on all wet I just hear it’s healthier due to keeping the cat more hydrated, feel free to correct me. :)

Cretin90 fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jul 20, 2021

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

Cretin90 posted:

Recommendation please. My 10 lb 3 year old cat consumes about 200 calories of food per day.

I currently feed him Weruva https://www.chewy.com/weruva-paw-lickin-pals-variety-pack/dp/169209 1 can/day
https://www.chewy.com/solid-gold-indigo-moon-chicken-eggs/dp/112136 1/4 cup/day

I’m looking to switch to the healthiest all wet/canned I can get for $100/mo or less. Any suggestions? If I switch to 2/day Weruva canned it’s over $200/month which is just too much for me to stomach for one 10 lb cat. Not set on all wet I just hear it’s healthier due to keeping the cat more hydrated, feel free to correct me. :)

It is. Any allergies?

Cretin90
Apr 10, 2006

Fluffy Bunnies posted:

It is. Any allergies?

None that I know of but we’ve only had him a couple of months and only fed him the above foods and the Purina Naturals or whatever the shelter was feeding him. I’m trying to avoid fish because I heard it’s not great for cats but otherwise anything’s game.

Cretin90
Apr 10, 2006
I decided on https://www.chewy.com/instinct-original-grain-free-pate/dp/34728. I have no horse in the grain free debate for cats but the ingredients and macronutrients looked great and the price comes out to about $65/mo to feed him only wet (1 can/day at $2.20, these things have double the calories of my Weruva stuff), so I’m happy.

InternetOfTwinks
Apr 2, 2011

Coming out of my cage and I've been doing just bad
Couple pages back but saw something that made me think the question, pricewise, how does raw diet feeding cats compare to like, decent cat food?

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

WombatCyborg posted:

Couple pages back but saw something that made me think the question, pricewise, how does raw diet feeding cats compare to like, decent cat food?

depends on your area and your storage capacity. I've got two huge deep freezers, a meat grinder, a really great butcher shop that thinks I'm a crazy girl, and I'm a little bit insane when it comes to pet nutrition.

If you're buying from publix vs weruva wet, probably about the same for your average sized cat.

gay for gacha
Dec 22, 2006

I have a three year old Great Dane. When we got her we she had really bad pustules all over her skin. We worked with several vets and discovered she had a food allergy to chicken. Our vet put us on royal canine but any time we tried to transition off she would start getting allergies again. I started thinking that maybe there was some by product or something that gets into the food that was causing this. Anyhow, after about a year we found a food that she wasn't allergic to and unfortunately it's a grain free food, Pro Pac Ultimates Overland Grain-Free Red Beef & Potato. At the time the vet just said it was fine to use since we couldn't find anything else, but I've been worried about heart disease from grain free diets. In my ignorance I've been adding scoops of cooked rice to her food because I thought the problem was the grain, but now I've read the thread and realize it's the other ingredients in the food.

I'm looking for a new dog food one that preferably has grains and will keep my dog happy and healthy. She has a very high activity level, she runs around every day we walk a few miles a day together, and we even do agility (though much slower than the other dogs).



I was thinking about these foods
Annamaet option formula

Natural balance beef and brown rice

Earthborn holistic ocean fusion


It's one beef food and two fish foods. I was thinking about fish because we give her fish treats and cod skins and she loves them and doesnt seem to react. On the other hand, when we were doing the dog food dance a few years ago she reacted to beef foods, but since we are on a beef food now it seems logical to try.

Am I thinking about this correctly? Is there another thing I should try? I just want to do what's best for my dog.

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

gay for gacha posted:

I have a three year old Great Dane. When we got her we she had really bad pustules all over her skin. We worked with several vets and discovered she had a food allergy to chicken. Our vet put us on royal canine but any time we tried to transition off she would start getting allergies again. I started thinking that maybe there was some by product or something that gets into the food that was causing this. Anyhow, after about a year we found a food that she wasn't allergic to and unfortunately it's a grain free food, Pro Pac Ultimates Overland Grain-Free Red Beef & Potato. At the time the vet just said it was fine to use since we couldn't find anything else, but I've been worried about heart disease from grain free diets. In my ignorance I've been adding scoops of cooked rice to her food because I thought the problem was the grain, but now I've read the thread and realize it's the other ingredients in the food.

I'm looking for a new dog food one that preferably has grains and will keep my dog happy and healthy. She has a very high activity level, she runs around every day we walk a few miles a day together, and we even do agility (though much slower than the other dogs).



I was thinking about these foods
Annamaet option formula

Natural balance beef and brown rice

Earthborn holistic ocean fusion


It's one beef food and two fish foods. I was thinking about fish because we give her fish treats and cod skins and she loves them and doesnt seem to react. On the other hand, when we were doing the dog food dance a few years ago she reacted to beef foods, but since we are on a beef food now it seems logical to try.

Am I thinking about this correctly? Is there another thing I should try? I just want to do what's best for my dog.

then speak to a nutritionist that is board-certified.

Earthborn was one I worked with for years but recently Midwestern (who makes it) has been getting pinged a lot for loving up and in need of recalls so I no longer recommend it. Acana has a lot of decent fish varieties.

MikeyTsi
Jan 11, 2009

AnonymousNarcotics posted:

Vet checkup yesterday - apparently both my male cats (~2 years old) are overweight and he said I should completely cut out giving them dry food.

My kitten (~10 months) pretty much ONLY likes the dry food and is at an acceptable weight.

Are there any actual health issues as a result of cats being overweight? (i.e. Looking for causation, not correlation)

YES. High weight leads to joint issues for one, and is a causal factor for a lot of other health issues, just like every animal.

If you need to continue feeding one of the cats dry, one option is to lock the dry behind a feeder that will open for that cat only, there's several on the market, including ones that will tag off of the cat's microchip.

Might be a good idea to just do all three so you can ensure portioning.

Kilometers Davis
Jul 9, 2007

They begin again

Hey just double checking, my 12 year old dog has been on acana grain free poultry (can’t remember the exact name right now) for 5+ years. She’s super athletic, happy, beautiful coat, barely any stomach issues since switching to it back then. I should just keep her on it right? I know about the issues, at least from when I read about them when the big blowback against grain free happened, but I also know if a food seems right for a dog you should probably stick to it.

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

Kilometers Davis posted:

Hey just double checking, my 12 year old dog has been on acana grain free poultry (can’t remember the exact name right now) for 5+ years. She’s super athletic, happy, beautiful coat, barely any stomach issues since switching to it back then. I should just keep her on it right? I know about the issues, at least from when I read about them when the big blowback against grain free happened, but I also know if a food seems right for a dog you should probably stick to it.

don't change your dog's food if she's doing good on it. the DCM thing is largely overblown and represents an incredibly tiny amount of dogs. this thread's title is awful and doesn't explain anything. I've spent more time in here helping people than I intended to because the OP made a lousy first post and hasn't really shown back up to do a goddamn thing to help people find good food.

If your dog works on Acana, keep her on Acana. And show us your girl. And give her a good pat for us.

Julet Esqu
May 6, 2007




My senior cat had a health scare this weekend and the emergency vet I was able to get him into (his normal vet wasn't able to see him) suspects he's starting to have kidney problems. She recommended I switch him over to wet food (no specific brand recommendations) to help get his water intake up.

Thing is, I tried to get him on wet food a couple of years ago and he doesn't like it. He just licks off whatever gravy he can get to and leaves the rest. I'm going to try again, but before I do, anybody have any tips on how to transition your cat to wet food if they just want kibble?

Other maybe/maybe not useful info:
He currently free-feeds CORE. His weight is fine, maybe a little low. He has a fountain that he's happy to drink out of. No problems peeing that I've seen; vet's thinking kidneys because of his bloodwork results.

khysanth
Jun 10, 2009

Still love you, Homar

Julet Esqu posted:

My senior cat had a health scare this weekend and the emergency vet I was able to get him into (his normal vet wasn't able to see him) suspects he's starting to have kidney problems. She recommended I switch him over to wet food (no specific brand recommendations) to help get his water intake up.

Thing is, I tried to get him on wet food a couple of years ago and he doesn't like it. He just licks off whatever gravy he can get to and leaves the rest. I'm going to try again, but before I do, anybody have any tips on how to transition your cat to wet food if they just want kibble?

Other maybe/maybe not useful info:
He currently free-feeds CORE. His weight is fine, maybe a little low. He has a fountain that he's happy to drink out of. No problems peeing that I've seen; vet's thinking kidneys because of his bloodwork results.

Went through something similar with our old cat. Kidney problems are very common unfortunately in older cats.

We mixed the dry food into the wet and she would eat the wet to get at all the dry kibble.

Can also try different textures - pates, actual shredded meat (Tiki Cat brand) etc.

Harrow
Jun 30, 2012

I need some help with transitioning two cats to a feeding schedule rather than free feeding.

My partner and I have two cats, and while we used to feed them wet food, we felt like we were often wasting a lot of food (parts would go uneaten and need to be thrown out, etc.). We found that just letting them free feed on kibble was working well and saved a ton of money. We'd put out a measured amount of kibble a couple times per day and neither cat would ever gorge themselves--they were very good about controlling how much they wanted to eat, and both of them drank tons of water, so hydration was never a concern.

Thing is, we know that might not last. One of our cats is almost 10 now and while she seems very healthy and energetic now, eventually she'll get some kind of sick and maybe need a special diet that our younger cat doesn't. We're eventually going to need to feed them separate things, so we're trying to transition to a) feeding on a schedule, and b) feeding wet food again (just so we're feeding them something better for them).

We found a wet food they seem to like (Wellness CORE, usually the bits in gravy more than the pate or shreds), but the problem is that we can't seem to get them to eat enough while their food is out, and that leads to our older cat being super hungry in the middle of the night and waking me up at like 4 or 5 to beg for food.

Does anyone have tips for making this transition? It's been a couple weeks now and I still can't get either cat to even eat half of a small can of wet food in one 20-minute mealtime, and they need about 3 full cans each per day for their caloric requirements. I've resorted to giving them each a small bit of dry food before bed just so they're getting a few more calories in them, but maybe I need to stop that?

Kramdar
Jun 21, 2005

Radmark says....Worship Kramdar
Cats are weird. There's no figuring out what system is best until you just try it and stick with it for a bit. We have two females, they never ask for food if the bowls are empty. But then we have our male orange tabby who will do anything in his power to get me up to feed him in the morning. Mind you, there might be food out still. He is just too lazy to walk downstairs and check. I will pick him up in a fit and plop him down in front of a food bowl that's loaded. And he just goes "Oh" and started eating.

We had started isolating our other cat when he was diagnosed diabetic. We would feed him separately in the bathroom while everyone else ate. Now all the others were fine with eating dry, and they wouldn't hound us while he was off eating his fancy wet food in the bathroom. But if they got enough dry, they would wait outside the bathroom hoping that when we released him that there would be scraps left.

Slowly over time, the diabetic one got sick his wet food and preferred dry. It was Tiki Cat before. Now he eats Fancy Feast and just sucks it down. It's obviously not quite as low carb like the Tiki Cat Ahi, but he doesn't get tired of it. At this point, my wife just wants him to enjoy what he eats. He's been diabetic now at least 3 years.

But unless you have the time and dedication to feeding both separately, you'll have to find a happy medium regarding food. There's so many different brands of quality dry foods right now. We feed one dry food to all our cats, and that was after trying several different brands to see how they all received it. Solid Gold Winged Tiger is the one we use now, because it's one of the more readily available brands with a low phosphorus level.

But as it is now, the cats aren't really free-fed. We put dry food out twice a day, maybe a small amount before bed. The diabetic one eats wet the second feeding time. It works. None of them eat it all at once, they will graze for like 20 minutes or more until the bowls are near empty.

We have one korat too, he's the only one that may gorge. And that only happens when we are late feeding them in the evening. Once in a while he'll throw it up. But that's after he like tops off with water and sprints around too much. loving cats.

And their ages are 6 to 16 roughly.

Boogalo
Jul 8, 2012

Meep Meep




I have two cats, they're free fed. One is on a special diet and thus both are on the special diet and doing fine. It's expensive food but at least the cat that doesn't need it is tiny and doesn't eat much anyways.

WhatEvil
Jun 6, 2004

Can't get no luck.

One of my cats has just been prescribed a urinary diet. Are there any prescription urinary foods which aren't total trash quality?

We give our cats 2 wet (with extra water mixed in) and 2 dry meals a day, and for the dry food it seems we basically have a choice between Royal Canin, Hills and Purina.

Ingredients for Royal Canin:

quote:

Brewers rice, chicken by-product meal, wheat gluten, corn flour, powdered cellulose, corn gluten meal, chicken fat, natural flavors, potassium chloride, fish oil, salt, vegetable oil.... [vitamins and stuff]

Terrible. The others seem to be similarly bad in terms of grain content. We've been feeding our cats Orijen dry food up to now, the ingredient list for that:

quote:

Fresh whole pacific pilchard (26%), fresh whole pacific hake (9%), fresh whole pacific mackerel (8%), fresh whole pacific flounder (5%), fresh whole rockfish (5%), fresh whole sole (5%), whole mackerel (dehydrated, 5%), whole herring (dehydrated, 5%), whole blue whiting (dehydrated, 5%), herring oil (5%), alaskan cod (dehydrated, 5%), whole red lentils, whole green lentils, whole green peas, sunflower oil (cold-pressed), whole sardines (dehydrated, 1.5%), lentil fiber, whole chickpeas, whole yellow peas, whole pinto beans, cod liver (freeze-dried), fresh whole pumpkin, fresh whole butternut squash, fresh whole zucchini, fresh whole parsnips, fresh carrots, fresh whole red delicious apples, fresh whole bartlett pears, fresh kale, fresh spinach, fresh beet greens, fresh turnip greens, brown kelp, whole cranberries, whole blueberries, whole saskatoon berries, chicory root, turmeric root, milk thistle, burdock root, lavender, marshmallow root, rosehips... [vitamins etc.]

And the urinary food costs 20% more than the Orijen stuff.


E: I've just found the Blue Buffalo W+U stuff which seems better, but I can't seem to find it in Canada. Anybody know if it's available here and where from?

Also there are tons of non-prescription, urinary foods for cats, with much much better ingredients. Are any of those sufficient, or does it absolutely have to be the prescription stuff? The cat in question has been on the prescription diet for a few days now and his poo poo absolutely stinks. It wasn't so bad before when he was on better quality food.

WhatEvil fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Dec 27, 2021

MikeyTsi
Jan 11, 2009

I was feeding mine a Farmina vet diet. You'll probably have to order it and have it shipped if you want to go that route.

Gangringo
Jul 22, 2007

In the first age, in the first battle, when the shadows first lengthened, one sat.

He chose the path of perpetual contentment.

I've been feeding my cat nom nom fresh food because I love lighting money on fire. I was considering switching him to 50/50 dry and fresh food not for budget reasons, but so that I can leave for a weekend and set an auto feeder of dry food now and then without it being a huge disruption.

Is this a bad idea?

WhatEvil
Jun 6, 2004

Can't get no luck.

Gangringo posted:

I've been feeding my cat nom nom fresh food because I love lighting money on fire. I was considering switching him to 50/50 dry and fresh food not for budget reasons, but so that I can leave for a weekend and set an auto feeder of dry food now and then without it being a huge disruption.

Is this a bad idea?

I don't see why it would be. Some people feed their cats exclusively dry food for years with no problems.

That said, could it be a thing that they're used to the amount of water they have to drink whilst eating fresh food, and if you switch them to dry they may not realise they need to drink more and become dehydrated?

In any case, switching their food up should be done gradually.

MikeyTsi posted:

I was feeding mine a Farmina vet diet. You'll probably have to order it and have it shipped if you want to go that route.

Seems like it's not available in Canada.

WhatEvil fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Jan 9, 2022

MikeyTsi
Jan 11, 2009

WhatEvil posted:

Seems like it's not available in Canada.

You have to order it from them and have it shipped.

https://www.farmina.com/us/eshop-cat/cat-food/75-farmina-vet-life-feline.html

drk
Jan 16, 2005
Took my ~12 year old cat to a vet appointment today, and the vet said grain free is linked to heart disease. As near as I can tell from online research, this is maybe true in dogs, but there isnt any evidence one way or another for cats. She is healthy per the exam, pending some blood work. The vet didnt seem to be suggesting a particular brand or anything, just that I consider some sort of animal protein + rice based food as opposed to grain free.

The thread doesnt seem to take a strong opinion one way or another on cat food other than feed what works. If I can feed something that costs less and is as healthy or more healthy than grain free, I will certainly consider new foods.

MikeyTsi
Jan 11, 2009

drk posted:

Took my ~12 year old cat to a vet appointment today, and the vet said grain free is linked to heart disease. As near as I can tell from online research, this is maybe true in dogs, but there isnt any evidence one way or another for cats. She is healthy per the exam, pending some blood work. The vet didnt seem to be suggesting a particular brand or anything, just that I consider some sort of animal protein + rice based food as opposed to grain free.

The thread doesnt seem to take a strong opinion one way or another on cat food other than feed what works. If I can feed something that costs less and is as healthy or more healthy than grain free, I will certainly consider new foods.

It's not the case for cats, cats are obligate carnivores and get no value from grains.

The issues they "had" with foods in the past was that they're unable to synthesize taurine, they have to consume it, and that wasn't properly included in foods in the past. That's been resolved for a loooong time though.

I've gotta say, I'm kind of concerned that your vet doesn't know this, that's REALLY basic level feline biology.

Ragnar34
Oct 10, 2007

Lipstick Apathy
My sister wants to feed her elderly cat w/ liver problems fresh raw food from the butcher because she's generally disgusted with all store bought food, including Hill's. I've pointed at the CDC recommending against it and the American Kennel Club and such, but she cited other things and now we're just sort of lecturing each other. What does this thread think?

GoodBee
Apr 8, 2004


I think the thread consensus is if you are going to feed raw or make your own pet food, then you should talk to a veterinary nutritionist and not listen to internet randos.

I think that's especially true if your pet needs a special diet. And the nutritionist should probably see your pet or at least medical records and bloodwork if necessary.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Iirc the issues with grain free food aren't just with the absence of grain, but the suspicion that legume proteins aren't good for dogs. Dunno about cats.

Kramdar
Jun 21, 2005

Radmark says....Worship Kramdar
A raw diet is going to need to consist of primarily organ meat, since that is literally where all nutrients are concentrated. Lysine is the big one, and that is added to cat food due to lack of it from all the meat waste that is used to make cheap cat food. Much like the dinos in Jurassic Park, the cat won't be surviving long without it.

And I have heard mixed things about the availability of organ meat at the butchers too. So she should see what is available to her.

She should try Tiki Cat canned food. The sardine cutlets is straight up whole fish chunked up into the can.

Cats are carnivores. They are supposed to eat the whole animal, head to toe.

Pheel73
Apr 15, 2009
We recently brought home a Doberman Puppy (12 weeks).

The breeder highly recommended a Dr. Gary's Best Breed Puppy Food.

https://bestbreed.com/product_detail/puppy-diet/

I've been sent home with a bag and of course the dog loves the stuff.

Can someone with more experience than me tell if this is good stuff? Seems highly rates on dogfoodadvisor but I'd like a second opinion.

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



Pheel73 posted:

We recently brought home a Doberman Puppy (12 weeks).

The breeder highly recommended a Dr. Gary's Best Breed Puppy Food.

https://bestbreed.com/product_detail/puppy-diet/

I've been sent home with a bag and of course the dog loves the stuff.

Can someone with more experience than me tell if this is good stuff? Seems highly rates on dogfoodadvisor but I'd like a second opinion.

I saw in the vet thread that your puppy has some knuckling over going on which is often a nutrition issue so if it were me I'd probably be looking for something else to see if that helps. Sometimes it doesn't matter how high quality the food is but how the dog does on it. Here's a link about knuckling over which has food and supplement recommendations. It's from great dane folks because those are the people I know that deal with knuckling over the most but it should be helpful for your pup too!

first move tengen
Dec 2, 2011
So one of my cats recently started vomiting her food back up frequently out of nowhere. Both cats eat the same Solid Gold Indigo Moon chicken/egg food and haven't run into any issues until now (in fact, back when we switched to that brand, we noticed improvements in the cats' health compared to before).

We took the vomiting one to the vet, subsequently put her on a bland diet of chicken & rice wet food for a week, and she stopped vomiting, and only started again a few days after going back to Indigo Moon. So, seems like she's somehow become allergic or intolerant to that particular cat food, right? We trust the particular brand we've been feeding them so I was thinking of switching her diet to Indigo Moon pollock/egg, but I wanted to run it by other people first. What do you all think? Or would it be a better idea to just switch permanently to wet food for this cat since switching to it seemed to help her?

Kramdar
Jun 21, 2005

Radmark says....Worship Kramdar
We had two cats vomit quite regularly, but we attributed it to gorging. Half the time the kibble was still whole. And cats really aren't the smartest. Half the time I'd hear them run up a flight a stairs at mach speed right after eating and then out of nowhere they'd proceed to retch it all up. Or they'd eat, and then fill up on water. Basically, their barf would look like Cap'n Crunch left in a bowl of milk all swelled up.

Easiest fix was to just put less food in the bowl, and refill later. Making them graze fixed it.

Tamarillo
Aug 6, 2009

MikeyTsi posted:

It's not the case for cats, cats are obligate carnivores and get no value from grains...I've gotta say, I'm kind of concerned that your vet doesn't know this, that's REALLY basic level feline biology.
You should be less concerned because this is incorrect. Cats are able to digest and access nutrients from cooked grains, backed up by the vet nutritionists at WSAVA and nutritionists writing for VIN

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Tamarillo posted:

You should be less concerned because this is incorrect. Cats are able to digest and access nutrients from cooked grains, backed up by the vet nutritionists at WSAVA and nutritionists writing for VIN

From the VIN page you linked:

quote:

Cats have unique metabolic adaptations that do not allow for transition to completely vegan or vegetarian diets.

And from WSAVA:

quote:

Cats are obligate carnivores. Cats cannot thrive on vegetarian diets and these types of diets
should not be fed to cats.

Tamarillo
Aug 6, 2009

Arsenic Lupin posted:

From the VIN page you linked:

And from WSAVA:

What you are quoting does not negate what I said. Both of the quotes you've referenced refer to vegetarian and vegan diets, which are not recommended for cats. That doesn't mean they can't derive nutritional value from cooked grains; the cooked grains by no means constitute a nutritionally complete diet in isolation but can still be used as a component of a nutritionally complete product. The cooked grain content in nutritionally complete commercial diets have rendered it into a bioavailable form for feline digestion so saying cats get no value from grain content is not accurate.

From both articles -

WSAVA posted:

Cereal grains are ingredients that mostly provide energy (in the form of starch), but they also provide essential nutrients like essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. Moreover, many cereals also provide fiber, which has beneficial effects on the intestinal tract among others.
Dogs and cats can digest cereal grains if they are properly cooked and as long as the overall diet is complete and balanced and there is no evidence to show they are harmful for our pets.

VIN posted:

Dogs and cats can digest cereal grains in species appropriate amounts as long as they are properly cooked and the overall diet is nutritionally balanced. Every ingredient in a pet food must have a purpose, whether nutritionally (cereal grains provide energy in the form of carbohydrates as well as nutrients such as essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals). Cereals also provide dietary fiber that while considered “non-essential” in the diet is functionally essential for optimal intestinal function.

Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Feb 26, 2022

Dogwood Fleet
Sep 14, 2013
I have a mystery age chihuahua who's been on Purina Pro Plan, but I'm thinking about switching because he farts. The grain free blowback has me REALLY leery about exotic grains, potatoes, and legumes in dog food at all, but when you start to look at fancier dog foods it's hard to get away from that. It feels like there's no middle ground for every other ingredient being unnamed animal by-product meal and having amaranth in dog food.

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unlimited shrimp
Aug 30, 2008
I apologize if this has been answered in the thread. Our cat is currently recovering from a bad bladder infection with crystals in the urine, and the vet has recommended Hill's Prescription Diet Urinary Care dry food for our cat. I was wondering if it is better, as good, or inferior to something like the dry Acana or Orijen stuff.

We fed him Orijen when he was a kitten but it's been Kirkland for a few years now.

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