Beneful dog food

[Sannois]

[QUOTE=Mondo;8028022]
I fed Orijen for a while, but got really turned off when I read the ingredients on the label for their cat food. Cats are obligate carnivores - they do NOT need vegetables, fruit, rice, sweet potatoes or anything of the sort. Now - I do admit that my cats are always indoor/outdoor and they are permitted to hunt if they choose, so do not need dietary supplements from their prepared cat food. But it did give me pause: if they know so little about cat dietary requirements, what do they know about dog dietary requirements. If you want to make sure your dog remains healthy and happy well into old age, I recommend supplementing with Canine Health by LifeVantage. You can Google it. There are some great videos on YouTube as well.[/QUOTE]

See this is my beef too.
I cannot understand these better cat food companies with fruit and veggie in their foods.

[FalseImpression]

[QUOTE=Sannois;8029022]
See this is my beef too.
I cannot understand these better cat food companies with fruit and veggie in their foods.[/QUOTE]
It is still much better than grain… they get vitamins… would you just give them meat and only meat?

As I said I don’t have cats, but my dog LOVES vegies, fruit… I start making a salad and here he is, from being totally asleep on the other side of the house… he loves the hard part of romaine leaves, tomatoes, apples, pears. He does not like mushroom… I don’t give him grapes…

[minnie]

My daughter’s dog loves potatoes. LOVES! If you had a nice piece of medium rare steak in one hand and the leftover potato skin of a baked potato in the other she’ll pick the potato every time.

[Inke]

Looking at the ingredient list for Beneful makes me shake my head in disgust. Sugar? Seriously?

There are so many better dog foods out there, even for people who can’t afford stuff like Acana.

[QUOTE=FalseImpression;8028088]
I don’t have cats but my daughter stu. died animal biology and animal nutrition. Agree that cats need meat but they also need wet food as they used to get their meat from prey and there was water contents! My DD switched her husband’s cat to a wet food. It took a while for the cat to accept it and they lost some convenience, but the cat slimmed down and is doing very well.

Have you tried Weruva cat food? http://consciouscat.net/2013/04/23/weruva-cat-food-review/[/QUOTE]

^ Love Weruva! I switched my cat to an all wet food diet when I started working at a pet food&supply store and educated myself on proper animal nutrition.

Kitty goes wild for Weruva, particularly the chicken formulas, and she has slimmed down considerably and has become noticeably more energetic, despite getting on in years (she’s almost 11).

I also can’t stress enough the importance of wet food in a cat’s diet. Feeding a cat solely dry often leads to chronic dehydration and kidney/bladder issues.

[ThisTooShallPass]

TV news

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=937124662986821&fref=nf

http://www.wcpo.com/news/national/lawsuit-purina-beneful-dog-food-may-be-killing-dogs

Kroger has faced similar lawsuit

http://www.wcpo.com/news/kroger-has-also-been-sued-for-selling-dangerous-dog-food

[Xhltsalute]

[QUOTE=Inke;8029139]
Kitty goes wild for Weruva, particularly the chicken formulas, and she has slimmed down considerably and has become noticeably more energetic, despite getting on in years (she’s almost 11).

I also can’t stress enough the importance of wet food in a cat’s diet. Feeding a cat solely dry often leads to chronic dehydration and kidney/bladder issues.[/QUOTE]

What do you think of their b.f.f. line?

[Inke]

[QUOTE=Xhltsalute;8029144]
What do you think of their b.f.f. line?[/QUOTE]

I’m not a big fan of feeding cats entirely fish, particularly tuna, so for that reason, I don’t like the idea of feeding BFF alone. However, I’m not opposed to feeding it occasionally as I still consider it to be good quality.

[Xhltsalute]

[QUOTE=Inke;8029148]
I’m not a big fan of feeding cats entirely fish, particularly tuna, so for that reason, I don’t like the idea of feeding BFF alone. However, I’m not opposed to feeding it occasionally as I still consider it to be good quality.[/QUOTE]

I thought they used to have other flavors, but in looking just now I see everything is tuna and ________. Ya, not a good idea to feed tuna all the time. It was a number of years ago and I might be thinking of Fussie Cat.

[Sannois]

[QUOTE=FalseImpression;8029038]
It is still much better than grain… they get vitamins… would you just give them meat and only meat?

As I said I don’t have cats, but my dog LOVES vegies, fruit… I start making a salad and here he is, from being totally asleep on the other side of the house… he loves the hard part of romaine leaves, tomatoes, apples, pears. He does not like mushroom… I don’t give him grapes…[/QUOTE]

Umm yes they are true Carnivores!

[FitToBeTied]

They are not strictly carnivores. As my dogs regularly raid the gardens for tomatoes, strawberries, etc.

[Sannois]

[QUOTE=FitToBeTied;8029208]
They are not strictly carnivores. As my dogs regularly raid the gardens for tomatoes, strawberries, etc.[/QUOTE]

Not dogs, Cats!

[La_Gringa]

I don’t feed Purina to any of my animals horses included. Their quality is never consistent and their foods are just junk. I know a lot of people feed their products, but I haven’t feed them for over 15 years now. Beneful is horrible food, one of their worst

[Cashela]

Argh, my parents who are struggling have been feeding Beneful for years, they haven’t had an issue. I begged them to get their dogs off of it and told them they could buy a better dog food for the same amount of money they were spending.

They have the brother to my dog (Lab mix) and he has been vomiting off and on and I guess they didn’t think much of it. Then they got a new bag of Beneful, fed it, and the one dog got sick, was having skin issues, losing weight and had diarrhea and vomiting and he broke out into crazy hives. The other two dogs in the house hold seem to be ok (Lab and fat Dachshund).

The vet suggested they switch to Purina Pro Plan, I told them to ditch the Purina, I went to my local pet store that offers good food for not a ton of money like Pet Smart and Petco, etc. and I spoke with a couple of employees and we switched the dogs to Fromm adult food, because the price was comparable to what they are paying now. I feed the more expensive brand of Fromm now that I am down to two dogs (my Lab cross is super picky now that we lost my Lab for some reason-had to play the sample dog food game before I discovered she liked the Fromm) and they seem to be doing well on it.

My mom doesn’t like that they don’t devour the food like they did the Beneful sigh but they are eating it. Hopefully this sorts out the Lab mix’s issues, he is on prednisone and antibiotics right now so we will see what happens when he gets off of those.

On a side note, they fed their cat purina dry food I think or maybe it was friskies and the cat would throw up every time it ate. We thought ok lets try an expensive bag of cat food and bought him a bag of Fromm, he hasn’t thrown up in a week.

[cowboymom]

My cats actually stopped puking on Purina One. Mine have a tendency to bolt their food too so I think that is a major cause of their yakking.

When I try to explain dog food to customers and they tell me how much their dog loves the cheap crap, I tell them that nobody would eat Doritos unless they put all the nasty good-tasting covering on them. The cheap foods doctor up their food to make them extra palatable.

[La_Gringa]

Poor quality dog food can shorten your dog’s life quite a bit. If you have a breed that is already prone to tumors and other issues, feeding a low quality food really increases the chance that they have issues earlier in life.

I have raised Boxers that are very prone to cancer and heart problems. I learned the hard way. When I fed Pro Plan early on… my dogs lived to about 7 years. When I switched to a four or 5 star rated food, no grain, no fillers no crap, it prolonged their life about 4 years.

Of course I’m not a vet, but my experience with my own dogs has shown it makes a huge difference in their health, just like it does people, to eat poorly.

[Sannois]

[QUOTE=Cashela;8029352]
Argh, my parents who are struggling have been feeding Beneful for years, they haven’t had an issue. I begged them to get their dogs off of it and told them they could buy a better dog food for the same amount of money they were spending.

They have the brother to my dog (Lab mix) and he has been vomiting off and on and I guess they didn’t think much of it. Then they got a new bag of Beneful, fed it, and the one dog got sick, was having skin issues, losing weight and had diarrhea and vomiting and he broke out into crazy hives. The other two dogs in the house hold seem to be ok (Lab and fat Dachshund).

The vet suggested they switch to Purina Pro Plan, I told them to ditch the Purina, I went to my local pet store that offers good food for not a ton of money like Pet Smart and Petco, etc. and I spoke with a couple of employees and we switched the dogs to Fromm adult food, because the price was comparable to what they are paying now. I feed the more expensive brand of Fromm now that I am down to two dogs (my Lab cross is super picky now that we lost my Lab for some reason-had to play the sample dog food game before I discovered she liked the Fromm) and they seem to be doing well on it.

My mom doesn’t like that they don’t devour the food like they did the Beneful sigh but they are eating it. Hopefully this sorts out the Lab mix’s issues, he is on prednisone and antibiotics right now so we will see what happens when he gets off of those.

On a side note, they fed their cat purina dry food I think or maybe it was friskies and the cat would throw up every time it ate. We thought ok lets try an expensive bag of cat food and bought him a bag of Fromm, he hasn’t thrown up in a week.[/QUOTE]
Now that is a name I have not heard in a while. Wonder if I can find that around me. Good food with a good although not widely known reputation.

[McVillesMom]

[QUOTE=ThisTooShallPass;8027011]
Back to the Beneful, I would never feed my dogs food they color specifically to be appealing to the human eye.

I distinctly remember last decade, Beneful actually surveyed humans to find out what colors & shapes people liked. Trying to get us to associate the green food color with fresh peas. The orange with fresh carrots. I distinctly remember thinking at the time, who would fall for this?! Then instantly concluding-FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE WILL!

I was really bowled over by this marketing/survey.[/QUOTE]

When I was a small animal practitioner, my #1 rule for clients was “No colors, no shapes”!

[Cashela]

Yeah the only reason I ended up trying it was I happened to be in the pet store the day they had a rep there offering samples. She gave me a few to try and my picky eater scarfed it up the Salmon A La Veg and my little dog liked it as well so I made the switch.

[Sannois]

I think I will “Google” it~

[cowboymom]

IME experience which includes a sample of about 15 now-deceased dogs of friends and family, plain old Dog Chow enabled or at least didn’t stop dogs to all make it to the mid-double digits. This was largely before the trend of uber-quality foods and I’m not so sure that the quality of today’s Dog Chow is the same as it was maybe twenty years ago. I think everyone has an example in their life to influence their decisions, no matter what they are.