Problems with Blue Buffalo?

[Sonesta]

I look at it like this:

Feeding Science Diet and others of it’s ilk is like a family raising its kids on nothing but corn chips, McDonalds hamburgers and fries and mac & cheese.

They don’t die. They grow up. But do ANY of you think that is a healthy way to feed kids?

And feeding SD is even worse, because its like purchasing plain old cornchips, but paying quadruple the price because they market them well. Might as well feed Old Roy or Purina and save money.

Now, I’m not saying that if all you can afford is Purina that you are a bad dog owner. But if you have the bucks to pay for SD, you have the bucks to buy a decent food.

[Sonesta]

Try reading some of these sites that analyse the ingrediants of the commercial dogs foods.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

http://dogfoodchat.com/

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/

http://www.dogaware.com/diet/commercial.html

and many others.

[supaflyskye]

This thread has upset me! I did my research and chose to feed my puppy BB. I just bought her last bag of large breed puppy food and was planning to start transitioning her onto a BB adult formula over the next couple months.
She looks fantastic and makes nice poops, but she does eat a lot of it and has horrendous gas.
Perhaps I should be looking into something else?

[HenryisBlaisin]

[QUOTE=CrazyGuineaPigLady;5872789]
What are the benefits of corn as the main ingredient in SD?

Even if you don’t believe in the latest fads or that grains should be eliminated for meat eaters, it’s hard to justify feeding less nutritious corn over meat or other other grains and vegetables. Well… it is cheaper and it won’t kill them.[/QUOTE]

This exactly. Corn as the main ingredient is like eating Wonder Bread as your main grain source. Sure, you can survive on it, but an upgrade to whole wheat has many health benefits. There are much better energy sources than corn for dogs. The first ingredient on dog or cat food should NEVER be corn any more than the first ingredient on a box of human cereal should be sugar.

My main issue with SD is, as others have said, is that it’s of no higher quality than many other commercial foods, but is certainly more expensive. Because they market well and have the word “science” in the name, people fall for it when they could get the same or even better nutrition for less money.

I agree that if a dog does well on a diet, that is the main thing and it will vary between dogs. But I also wonder if those feeding low-quality foods have ever tried better ones to see if there is a difference. My dog pooped two or three times as much on a lower-quality food, because he wasn’t able to utilize most of the ingredients, but he looked fine. But he was horribly itchy and got constant ear infections. Those cleared up almost immediately once he was switched to a better food with no corn or wheat. My vet advised the change because corn and wheat, both very common ingredients in dog food, are also two of the biggest allergy culprits. Now he’s on a higher-quality food and SO much happier and healthier! For him, that’s Nature’s recipe, which is actually a mid-grad food. He gets gassy on really rich stuff, so he gets what works.

I’d be willing to bet that many owners don’t know that and attribute itchyness/ear issues to seasonal allergies or other factors without realizing that diet can be a major cause, or spent a small fortune on shampoos, sprays, or ear drops that don’t clear the issue because they don’t get at the root cause, which could well be diet.

I’m of the mind that pets should be on the best food within budget that they do well on. Just because they do ok on a low-quality food doesn’t mean they won’t thrive even more on something better.

[Big_Tag]

Pumpkin

How much pumpkin are we talking here? I feel like this could be a colon blow disaster if not carefully measured.

And how would you feed it?

My beagle/doxie/JRT-ish sort will eat pretty much anything so I bet he would like it and maybe even little miss turns-her-nose-up-at-anything-not-cheese might try it. So, how would you serve it? With their food? Maybe frozen in a Kong?

[Larksmom]

another dog food thread, oh my!

I had the old dog eating whatever I brought home, Gravy train, Kibble and bits, whatever. :eek: After all the dogs died from the dog food problems in about 2007? I started looking more into the food she was eating. I decided since she was old, about 14 or so, I would just feed her, whatever. But the newer dog, Toffee, would start to get better food. Well, I lost Amy at age 18 this year. So I have been shopping around for a different type of dog food. I would PREFER to buy it at grocery store so I don’t have to make a special trip to Petco, ot TC.
[By the way LauraKy, I tried to get the dog food you recommended from TC, and I left there with another dog!:lol: Toff didn’t care for the dog or the food!]
I have sort of settled on Chef Michaels, which is usually available at grocery store-except when i was completely out! So I went to Petco. they immedietly tried to steer me to something else. Probably correct, but I don’t like being told to try something else when I walk in with a specific request. Had I ASKED her…
anyway, another helpful employee helped me find the stuff, and we went over the ingredients. Everything seemed ok till he said PROTIEN 28%!
WOW I don’t know anything about that but it seemed really high. He also said that could be one reason Snickers is so hyper. Jeeze louise! I had just tht day requested Hy Vee start carrying this stuff, [because I had bought it at a different location] :mad: Now what to do? They had the Rachael Ray stuff. But I am disinclined to feed corn in any form if i can avoid it. [It is in Chef M but it is WAY down the ingredient list. ] the Dogs seem to like it too.
Just for my own information, what IS a good rule of thumb for protein? How much is ok?

[Mara]

[QUOTE=Larksmom;5873129]
I had the old dog eating whatever I brought home, Gravy train, Kibble and bits, whatever. :eek: After all the dogs died from the dog food problems in about 2007? I started looking more into the food she was eating. I decided since she was old, about 14 or so, I would just feed her, whatever. But the newer dog, Toffee, would start to get better food. Well, I lost Amy at age 18 this year. So I have been shopping around for a different type of dog food. I would PREFER to buy it at grocery store so I don’t have to make a special trip to Petco, ot TC.
[By the way LauraKy, I tried to get the dog food you recommended from TC, and I left there with another dog!:lol: Toff didn’t care for the dog or the food!]
I have sort of settled on Chef Michaels, which is usually available at grocery store-except when i was completely out! So I went to Petco. they immedietly tried to steer me to something else. Probably correct, but I don’t like being told to try something else when I walk in with a specific request. Had I ASKED her…
anyway, another helpful employee helped me find the stuff, and we went over the ingredients. Everything seemed ok till he said PROTIEN 28%!
WOW I don’t know anything about that but it seemed really high. He also said that could be one reason Snickers is so hyper. Jeeze louise! I had just tht day requested Hy Vee start carrying this stuff, [because I had bought it at a different location] :mad: Now what to do? They had the Rachael Ray stuff. But I am disinclined to feed corn in any form if i can avoid it. [It is in Chef M but it is WAY down the ingredient list. ] the Dogs seem to like it too.
Just for my own information, what IS a good rule of thumb for protein? How much is ok?[/QUOTE]

I don’t have the answer on the protein, but I bought a bag of Chef Michael’s once when we were low on food and it was going to be a few days until I made it to Costco for more.

Both dogs LOVED it, except for the dehydrated peas! They ate everything else but left a small pile of those peas in their dishes every time.

[wendy]

Are you trying to say our dogs and those that feed any one dog kibble “all looked terrible before by comparison”, before the new, heavily marketed dog food came to be

? what do you mean by “heavily marketed”? most of the really high quality foods aren’t “marketed” except by word-of-mouth; most of the “heavily marketed” foods are seriously over-priced extremely low-quality foods.

Science diet is a travesty of science- it was invented decades ago when it was the “fad” to try to come up with a “totally complete and balanced diet” for humans and animals (“meal in a pill” idea) that didn’t consume expensive resources like meat. So they invented “dog foods” that would keep dogs alive. That’s pretty much it. Most research by the big dog food companies is aimed at the consumer, not the health of the animal.Your average consumer is interested in three things: cost per bag; will the dog eat it or not; and “marketing” strategies. Look at the marketing for most of the main-stream low-quality pet foods: they seize upon “healthy” concepts for humans, such as “whole grains” and “vegetables” and trumpet those proudly. When in actual fact your kitty may be harmed by being fed “whole grains”, and your puppy dog is likely to just fill your pooper-scooper up with those whole grains. What ignorant consumer is going to eagerly go out and buy the food advertised as “No vegetables! not a speck of whole grains! nothing but offal and dead animal parts! No sugar or fake flavorings so your pet may not gobble it up! price per bag is WAY more than that other brand because corn is cheap and meat isn’t!”

The idea that “what your dog is doing well on is what you should feed” is totally flawed. If your dog is doing awful on a food, yes, don’t feed it. Dogs doing awful on foods are easy to identify. But dogs “doing well” on foods can’t be identified. Most diseases related to poor quality diet don’t manifest until middle- or late- age and are often not obviously linked to diet. In humans, for example, the top killers of people are all strongly linked to poor diet choices: heart disease, diabetes and its complications, obesity and its complications, cancers, even many cases of dementia. What is it that kills dogs? same diseases. Diet related? most likely. So your pup you thought was “doing well” because he wasn’t puking comes down with cancer at age 9. Did he do so well?

There are a LOT of studies that together build a picture of the ideal diet of the typical dog, and most dog foods don’t even come close. High in protein, high in fat, very low in carbohydrates. Most dog foods, especially the lower-quality ones (which are not always the cheaper ones) are mostly carbohydates.

Have heard all sorts of rumors about problems with Blue Buffalo, but only the vit. D link has been confirmed. I’m turned off by the fact they push it so hard at the consumer.

[grayarabpony]

[QUOTE=wendy;5873383]
In humans, for example, the top killers of people are all strongly linked to poor diet choices: heart disease, diabetes and its complications, obesity and its complications, cancers, even many cases of dementia. What is it that kills dogs? same diseases. Diet related? most likely. So your pup you thought was “doing well” because he wasn’t puking comes down with cancer at age 9. Did he do so well? [/QUOTE]

Well it would help not to overfeed the dog and make sure he gets plenty of exercise. And to pick a dog breed where every other one doesn’t die of cancer by the age of 9. Genetics do play a role.

@wendy;5873383

There are a LOT of studies that together build a picture of the ideal diet of the typical dog, and most dog foods don’t even come close. High in protein, high in fat, very low in carbohydrates. Most dog foods, especially the lower-quality ones (which are not always the cheaper ones) are mostly carbohydates.

I don’t know why a dog’s diet should be high in fat. Fat is even more calorie dense than carbs, and wild game is NOT high in fat. In fact game meat has a different fat profile altogether than typical meat from livestock, sinced it’s higher in omega 3’s.

The Blue Buffalo cat food looks like it’s half fat. It’s disgusting.