The dog food dilemma
I’ve fed Eagle Pack Holistic for several years, and until recently I was happy with the results. The boys maintained good weight and had great coats.
Since the move, though, and especially since fencing the yard, Drummer’s on the skinny side and Thunder is positively gaunt. The Eagle Pack doesn’t seem to be nutrient-dense enough to keep the BusyBoys at a good fighting weight while they’re running running running in the new yard. I’ve also been unhappy with (not to put too fine a point on it) the volume of doggy “output” that I’m having to pick up in the yard. Since our standard lamb & rice formula didn’t seem to be suiting Thunder, I first tried a different Eagle formulation, but the fish & oatmeal didn’t help, so the next phase of the quest was to find something completely different. This time the goal was no grain, minimal carbs, and more protein and fat.
[lj-cut text=”food, food and more food”]
The last time I read all the bags at my favorite purveyor of pet food, they didn’t have anything substantially better than what I was already feeding. This time, though, I found two possibilities, one with 10% more protein than the Eagle Pack and the second with 20% more.
COMPARISON
EAGLE PACK BEFORE GRAIN 3 EVO RED MEAT Protein 22% 32% 42% Fat 15% 15% 22% Fiber 4% 3% 2.5% kcal/cup 403 383 487 1st ingred. lamb meal buffalo, deboned beef 2nd ingred. ground brown rice chicken meal lamb meal 3rd ingred. ground white rice potato, dehydrated potato 4th ingred. chicken fat turkey meal egg 5th ingred. oatmeal canola oil sunflower oil
So… current plan is to feed a mix of the BG and Evo, starting w/ mostly BG and converting over to mostly Evo by the time the current 6.6 lb bag of the BG runs out, then I’ll feed the Evo for a couple of months and see what happens. Since both have more fish oil in them than the Eagle Pack had, I’ll reconsider which supplements I’m adding. I think I’ll keep adding probiotics for now, at least until Thunder’s perpetual yeast infection in his ears finally clears up.
[/lj-cut]Things I like about the Evo Red Meat: After the five ingredients listed above, four of the next five are meat (and the fifth is oil), and four of the next five are fruits and vegetables. Only thing I don’t like about the Evo, at least so far? It’s 50% more expensive than the Eagle Pack, which was already pricey. Ouch. I hope they do well on it!!
Entertainingly, this experiment in food means that the dogs are now eating a higher-protein kibble than the cats, who are of the opinion that the dog food smells really really good now.
So, dog-people… what do you feed, and why? (And yes, I’ve heard all the arguments for feeding raw, and that’s not a path I’m ready to go down.) Anybody with experience with either the BG or Evo Red Meat?
Tags: dogs
This entry was posted on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Snicks and Seeky eat fish and grains – specifically Salmon with Dr. Harvey’s Canine Health and/or long grain brown rice. I started feeding Snickers fish several years ago based on the idea of an “ancestral diet” and he really flourished. (Shibas have been with people in Japan for thousands of years, so his ancestors probably ate fish and rice!)
December 1st, 2008 at 3:28 pm
We use the Evo kibble, but mix it with Bravo raw meat or just raw meat from the good ol’ fashioned supermarket (we use bone meal when not using the Bravo). Our dogs don’t smell at all, no bad breath, and their teeth are wonderfully white (Barbie’s are getting better, they were awful when we adopted her, God knows what her original owners fed her). Raw meat isn’t much harder than opening a can of food, but you have to be ready to do it and do lots of research first! We’ve had Caleb (Barbie’s bro) on it for 4 years, and Charlie the cat for 6 years. I can tell you this, we haven’t had to visit the vet as often! And MUCH less poop to clean up! We love the Evo, we switched from PHD Products kibble and they love it, both dogs and the cat (they make cat food, too). Good luck! There’s lots of info on Bravo’s website, just do a google search for Bravo Raw Meat if you’re ever interested.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
We feed a raw diet (chicken backs in the morning, beef and veggies at night)to our Tollers and Tibetan Terriers. Recently though we found Wellness Core, it is Wellness’ response to the Raw movement, and it is GOOD we can interchange it with our raw diet with out getting upset stomachs or diarea. (Most kibbles AREN’T interchangeble because the high carb levels in kibble means dogs digest them slower than raw. Resulting in poor stools.)It cost’s less than EVO or Nature’s Variety Instinct(grain free). This is what we feed when we go on the road to shows. (traveling with home made raw takes a lot of coolers) If you do go the raw route it’s not that hard. We have 15 dogs we feed raw and it doesn’t take any more time in the morning than kibble did, and cost’s less than it did to feed kibble. If you go raw and you have any large number of dogs it will be cheaper to make it yourself. I also think our homemade raw is more compleat than pre made raw, and I know exactly what goes into my dogs.
Another plus, I don’t have to give my dogs suplements anymore! (with the exeption of fish oil, that’s just because I refuse to feed raw fish)
If you want to know more about the raw just send me an
e-mail I can send you the instructions for our diet.
Happy Hunting,
Leslie Hettinger
CH.Littleriver’s Shoot for the Moon
CH.Keepsake’s Windy City Beekauz