A lot of people seem to focus on the quality of the stool as an indicator of the quality of the dog food. While taking into account gas, weight gain, physical appearance, health of teeth is very important, I am not convinced from the research that I have done that having a tiny firm stool is ideal for a dog or for anyone. I would argue that dietary fiber is necessary for many dogs digestive health and that corn provides a source of dietary fiber as well as lowers the protein content of some foods which can prevent upset stomachs for many dogs and allow them to eat slightly larger meals without gaining weight.
Now for the anecdotal information which has no factual basis:
My family has had large dogs live into their late teens with a high quality of life and minimal weight problems, no arthritis until after 16, etc when fed science diet. These were active working dogs with healthy teeth, good energy levels, and no gas.
We recently took care of a dog that was on a “high quality” all meat diet and has been fed raw. She had greasy coat and was overweight. The poor dog strained and strained to poop, but her owner exclaimed how wonderful her small stools were and how this indicated good health. She would strain so much that she would bleed. At her owner’s recommendation, we added pumpkin, sweet potatoes, slippery elm, etc to her already extremely expensive food with no results. We switched her to science diet and she immediately became happier, had slightly larger poops, and had no more stomach discomfort. She lost weight and became more active with being fed slightly more food so she was also less hungry.
I am not a science diet or nothing kind of a person, but I do feel that they have significant and comprehensive research on their foods, something that some of the newer and smaller companies do not have. I have not found corn to be problematic for my dogs, unless they have a specific corn allergy. My dogs have always done better than on other foods such as solid gold or even wellness when they did not thrive.
We fed our one show golden solid gold and the quality of her coat, muscles, and her nose pigmentation went down hill. Back to science diet and she did great in the show ring and lived a good healthy life.
I am always researching dog food to determine what is in the best interest of my personal pets and have seen too many dogs die or become very sick from raw to consider that. I also work with people with immune deficiencies and do not want to put them at risk for what I see as very little benefit.
When I see corn in a food (depending on the part) I often consider it a fiber or bulk source to help with food digestion and digestive processing. Other foods likely meet the same requirements at a higher cost, but I have not yet jumped completely from the corn bandwagon and have been lucky to have relatively healthy, active, and happy pets with clean teeth and high qualities of life baring genetic problems of my one cat who still lived 5 years longer than his vets predicted.
To each his own. I would not feed an exclusively corn based diet, but I would not corn as an ingredient in an otherwise high quality food it unless I had a specific reason that it would not work for my pet. I think understanding the protein levels and other nutrients of the food is much more important that just finding a “no corn” food. Some things that are put in pet foods such as avocados, fruits, etc. sound good to people but are really not good for dogs. If I have to scoop up a slightly larger stool in the yard, that is no biggy to me, especially if it means my dog can stool without discomfort. If I want a shinier coat on my dog, I can achieve that from supplementing with omega fats instead of feeding all meat with no fiber.
This is a good topic and one I am glad was brought up.
