# Too Many Dog Food Choices



## gold4me (Mar 12, 2006)

check Farmina Ancestral Grains, Fromm, or sport Dog Elite


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

Julia A. Manson said:


> I have been feeding Zignature. Now I was told it may have too many legumes. A pet store told me I should change proteins every month. Whole Dog Journal put out a list of about 40 approved foods for 2018. How do you choose? My 11 year old has allergies to white potatoes, barley, duck, and soy bean. She receives a shot each month. I'm looking for one dry food to feed her and my two year old golden if possible. I would appreciate any advice. Confused in Florida.


The last person I would ask for advice is the sales clerk at the pet food store. I rarely change foods so most of my dogs will only see one food over their lifetime. We've been feeding Pro Plan now for about four years. Before that we fed Eukanuba for nearly thirty years. Over that period we had numerous dogs and litters and had no food related problems, EVER. 

If you truly have a dog with special dietary needs find a food that works for them and stick with it. Find an appropriate food for the new dog. There is no reason to feed it as a special needs animal when it isn't necessary.


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## Piper_the_goldenpuppy (Aug 26, 2016)

I can not see how changing protein sources every month would be good for a dog. You're just more likely to come across things your dog gets hypersensitive to. Pet store employees are not canine dieticians. That literally contradicts most of what I've been told about dog food. My last dog had IBD and was on a hypoallergenic diet after many others failed, so I learned a lot about various dog foods. Stick with what works, there's no need to change unless you have to address a particular problem. Especially if your other dog has sensitivity issues. 

Who told you that your dog food had too many legumes, and also, who told you that it was a problem? Is your dog doing well on its current food? FWIW, Zignature has a high rating on dogfoodadvisor. I don't subscribe to WDJ personally. 

A person could literally worry themselves sick about dog foods. There is so much information (and misinformation) out there, so many people telling you what you MUST feed your dog for them to live a happy and healthy life. Remember that the dog food industry's goal, more than anything else, is to sell dog food. 

Personally, if your other dog has sensitivity issues and is on a high quality food that works, I wouldn't rock the boat. You could put your other dog on that, or just feed them separate dog foods. 

I like Fromm a lot as a brand. Piper was on Fromm from puppyhood, but stopped tolerating the Fromm Gold products, and also the Surf and Turf. She's on now Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach Lamb and Oat, doing quite well, and I determined that at the very least, poultry isn't a good option for her. I love her current dog food. Its got everything she needs, including probiotics. It has barley, so I'm not necessarily recommending it for your dog. 

If you're really set on feeding your dogs the same foods, get a limited ingredient diet that works for your other dog try your younger dog on that.


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## CAROLINA MOM (May 12, 2009)

Check out the Purina Pro Plan formulas, there are a lot of members feeding PPP.
I am one of them, I have fed my guys Purina Pro Plan for Sensitive Skin and Stomach for 7 years. My guys had sensitive stomachs, but it works great on their skin and coats. The protein is salmon, does not contain wheat, corn or soy.


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## sdain31y (Jul 5, 2010)

Sport Dog Elite formula changed recently.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Pro Plan and some of the other food mentioned are chock full of grains and not very good grains either such as corn wheat and soy. Those are the 3 highest allergens/sensitivities as food ingredients. Also, most of the time dogs aren't "allergic" but have sensitivities to ingredients. Allergies are like anaphylactic shock (hives, throat closes up). Dogs can not be sensitive to oils or fats. So for example, a dog that is sensitive to chicken can have chicken fat. Dogs have issues with amino acids (building blocks of protein). Another thing is that Fish is not unique in the sense that dogs see the red meats as beef, buffalo, lamb, venison, Kangaroo but the body doesn't see Whitefish, Menhaden Fish or Salmon, the body sees FISH. So if it can't have Salmon, it really won't tolerate any other fish, so fish is either ON or OFF. The more unique the proteins to your dog, the best odds they have no reactions. So if your dog never had Kangaroo or Buffalo or Rabbit, the odds are he/she won't have any issues.

A few things to know.... 1st is how to read a bag of food properly. The 1st ingredient is the highest percentage and the 2nd ingredient is the second highest and so on. What 90% of people don't know is that it is done based on WEIGHT PRIOR to process. Chicken is 70% water before you do anything to it. Kibble is almost always at 10% moisture so the chicken could lose 50-60% of its weight in a finished Kibble. So a fresh meat like Chicken will NEVER be your main or highest percentage of your food but more like your 6-8th spot in your ingredient list. So if you had Chicken, Brown Rice, Barley, Oatmeal, Corn and Soy, you actually have more Brown Rice, Barley, Oatmeal, Corn and Soy before any meat and of course, a vet will look at the food and instantly say your dog has issues with chicken and that is more likely not the case. What you truly want is a meat meal like Chicken meal, or Lamb Meal, Salmon Meal before any grains, fruit or vegetables. The deal is the meat meal already has the moisture removed so it will never change locations in the list of ingredients after processing. So if Chicken Meal is #1, then is stays #1 after the cooking/processing of the kibble. Grains like Corn Wheat and Soy are VERY high markers of protein.

2nd... with that in mind, and knowing dogs developing sensitivities by being on the same thing all the time and what they are exposed to in the highest concentrations, the idea is to rotate your food out with different and maybe exotic proteins Venison, Kangaroo among others. Foods that aren't designed to rotate should be changed roughly every 8 months to a year as they will take 4-6 months (short or long hair dogs) to change the skin and coat. Foods that are designed for rotations like Natures Variety and California Natural you can change bag to bag or do a few bags of this and a couple of that and it's fine.

3rd.... Limited ingredient diets (LID). The point of LID is not just to be able to possibly pin point the ingredient that's causing the sensitivity, but to make it easier for the system to handle the offending ingredient. If you have an issue with a certain ingredient but there are 20 or more ingredients in the food, the system has to digest and break everything down and think of the culprit like a 5 year in a store no one is paying attention to. The kid is going to wreak havoc. The same with the ingredient in a bag with 20 ingredients. In a LID you can have a food like Kangaroo, Red Lentils and Green Lentils and Sunflower oil that's only 3 ingredients so a mild sensitivity may not even present symptoms. The end result is the same. No sensitivities, no recurring ear infections, no paw licking and chewing, recurring hot spots.

So now you know how, why and what dogs develop sensitivities too. One last thing to note is environmental sensitivities are usually advanced, meaning if they have grass sensitivities, they usually will have food sensitivities. Hitting on the right food can lessen environmental Sensitivities by as much as 50% or more.

There are a few types of food out there that work really well. The best I've seen so far is California Natural Grain Free. Every bag is EXACTLY the same but the protein changes and it's totally rotatable. But any LID with 5 or less ingredients and a single protein source should do well. Also note that treats are the same way. You should ONLY feed a treat with the same exact ingredients as the food or you can sabotage what you're trying to accomplish with the food. Example... Cal Nat food in the Kangaroo and Lentil formula. I would not feed my dog beans as treats! PHEW! but I would feed a 100% Kangaroo Jerky treat.

I know this was a bit long winded but I have read a lot of posts on here with a lot of misinformation. I just wanted to help get you on the right track and getting your dog OFF those shots if possible because it's likely safe to assume they are steroid shots which will break your dog down over time. Plus in my experience, vets that give the steroid shots are give ups unless the dog is just tear itself up and bag hot spots or bloody paws.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Piper_the_goldenpuppy said:


> .
> 
> I like Fromm a lot as a brand. Piper was on Fromm from puppyhood, but stopped tolerating the Fromm Gold products, and also the Surf and Turf. She's on now Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach Lamb and Oat, doing quite well, and I determined that at the very least, poultry isn't a good option for her. I love her current dog food. Its got everything she needs, including probiotics. It has barley, so I'm not necessarily recommending it for your dog.



Pro Plan doesn't include Probiotics in their foods. That would be things like Lactobacillus Acidophilus and any other fermentation products Just FYI :wink2:


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

Maggie'sVoice said:


> Pro Plan doesn't include Probiotics in their foods. That would be things like Lactobacillus Acidophilus and any other fermentation products Just FYI :wink2:


So what. 

I don't agree with or follow the philosophical views on feeding that are advocated by the WDJ. The food rotation recommendations are not needed if you're feeding a good quality complete kibble. If you're not feeding a complete kibble you have to rotate in hopes that rotation from kibble "A: to kibble "B" fills in the shortcomings that kibble "A" has. This is a major problem shared by many of the grain free diets. They are not complete.

This is why the foods you feed your dog should have undergone long term life long feeding trials with numerous dogs.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Swampcollie said:


> So what.
> 
> I don't agree with or follow the philosophical views on feeding that are advocated by the WDJ. The food rotation recommendations are not needed if you're feeding a good quality complete kibble. If you're not feeding a complete kibble you have to rotate in hopes that rotation from kibble "A: to kibble "B" fills in the shortcomings that kibble "A" has. This is a major problem shared by many of the grain free diets. They are not complete.
> 
> This is why the foods you feed your dog should have undergone long term life long feeding trials with numerous dogs.


lol huh? I was just letting her know about the probiotics not being in her Pro Plan food in case it was important to her is all. The WDJ has it's own agenda and wouldn't advise anyone to really listen to what they had to say about dog food.

Also, the reason why you rotate dog food is 1st, they don't develop sensitivities which they can do but is not a certainty and 2nd, there is no such thing as a truly 100% complete and balanced dog food. They try and get close but the reality is it's not 100%


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## Piper_the_goldenpuppy (Aug 26, 2016)

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Maggie'sVoice said:


> Pro Plan doesn't include Probiotics in their foods. That would be things like Lactobacillus Acidophilus and any other fermentation products Just FYI :wink2:


I should preface this by saying that I'm a board-certified allergist :wink2: and also have Crohns disease. You and I are probably going to have to agree to disagree about some things and that is just fine. 

I should have clarified....what I meant was that the brand PPP has probiotics (Forti-flora, which I do use). Poor grammar. I already know far more about probiotics than I ever wanted.

Neither version of PPP SSS contain corn, wheat or soy. But I'm never going to convince you that its a good food any more than you are going to convince me it isn't.I do know that nutritionally it has more or less everything she needs. If you want to really split hairs and say no food is perfect, I'll agree, but then neither is my diet but I'm more or less doing just fine. 

I do have to say that allergies do not just include anaphylaxis and angioedema, which you referred to, but also things like hives, itching, seborrheic dermatitis, contact dermatitis, GI problems, etc. And if you want to get really specific, there is more than one way to have a hypersensitivity reaction. Also, we don't necessarily know what causes many food insensitivities, and while traditionally considered "non-immune mediated," thats probably only part of the story, as the whole food-gut flora-digestion/absorption-immune system is pretty complicated. The mechanism behind and symptoms of celiac disease are a good example of this. Its an allergy, but very different than someone who has anaphylaxis to shellfish. 

Dogs can get immunotherapy ("allergy shots"), so the OP's dog may not necessarily be on steroid shots. But deciding to put anyone on long-term steroids is a very personal decision and not something that most good healthcare (or vet care) providers take lightly. There are a lot of risks but if its needed, its needed. Its probably something the OP has not taken lightly either 

There is no rigorous, hard scientific evidence that a rotational diet ingredients prevents food sensitivities, but seems to me it will limit diet choices to try to diagnose them (since every ingredient your pet has eaten before is no longer available to be used for an elimination trial). There's nothing wrong with rotation feeding if you want to do it, and its important if you are feeding raw diet or certain LIDs, but most high quality dog foods have all the nutrients a dog needs already. But you can develop an allergy to anything at any time, even something you have been exposed to for years. Its not the exposure amount or duration thats the problem, its the body (or the dogs). Food intolerances can also develop suddenly and randomly: after a bad GI illness or extreme stress many people become temporarily lactase deficient and get lactose intolerance. Often, it gets better over time, but not always. But drinking milk doesn't cause lactose intolerance. But it would be easy to think that, given how many people with lactose intolerance had been exposed to milk, which is why association is not necessarily causation. 

Also, environmental hypersensitivity is more prevalent than food hypersensitivity. If you disagree, consider how many dogs are on flea preventatives than are on special diets. Also, because science. There are actual reasons for it, I'm not going to go into the details unless you would actually like, but this is a well-studied phenomenon of Immunology. They often come together because for whatever reason, that person (or dog's) makeup makes them more likely to just be hypersensitive in the first place. 

There is literally nothing wrong with picking a dog food because it adheres to your personal philosophies. There's nothing wrong with deciding to do something because it makes rational sense to you, or it makes you feel better, or you feel like its making a difference for your dog, or because you like the blue bag more than the green back (ok maybe not that far). Personally, I want to see the cold, hard data before I make a claim about science showing something and generally that means rigorous scientific studies. If not, I usually give my personal experience and opinions.

But FWIW, my childhood golden retriever lived to be 17 and was on corny, chicken Science Diet his whole life. I hope all our dogs are so lucky.


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## rabernet (Feb 24, 2015)

Maggie'sVoice said:


> There are a few types of food out there that work really well. The best I've seen so far is California Natural Grain Free. Every bag is EXACTLY the same but the protein changes and it's totally rotatable. But any LID with 5 or less ingredients and a single protein source should do well. Also note that treats are the same way. You should ONLY feed a treat with the same exact ingredients as the food or you can sabotage what you're trying to accomplish with the food. Example... Cal Nat food in the Kangaroo and Lentil formula. I would not feed my dog beans as treats! PHEW! but I would feed a 100% Kangaroo Jerky treat.


Are you aware of taurine-deficient dilated cardiomyopathy, which is becoming a serious problem with golden retrievers? Based on this recommendation, I suspect that you do not, and it's wreckless to recommend this line of food (IMHO). Particularly when peas and legumes are included in the grain free product? Out of curiosity - I went to look at California Natural Grain Free food and was shocked to see that they actually are PROMOTING peas in all of their grain free variations as either the 2nd or 4th ingredient!

This is the LAST food I'd be feeding my golden retriever or recommending someone else feed - it's so blatantly promoting the very ingredient implicated in the deficiency. 

You are obviously very passionate about your dog food, but you might want to more research on the issues of taurine-deficient dilated cardiomyopathy before you continue recommending this particular grain free food. 

Natural Dog Food, Cat Food and Puppy Food for Pets With Food Sensitivity ? California Natural

Natural Dog Food, Cat Food and Puppy Food for Pets With Food Sensitivity ? California Natural

Natural Dog Food, Cat Food and Puppy Food for Pets With Food Sensitivity ? California Natural

Natural Dog Food, Cat Food and Puppy Food for Pets With Food Sensitivity ? California Natural

Natural Dog Food, Cat Food and Puppy Food for Pets With Food Sensitivity ? California Natural

For your future research: 

Taurine-Deficient Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Taurine Deficiency in Golden Retrievers

And we even have a thread here about it. 

Study on Low Taurine, Grain Free Foods and DCM in Goldens


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

rabernet said:


> Are you aware of taurine-deficient dilated cardiomyopathy, which is becoming a serious problem with golden retrievers? Based on this recommendation, I suspect that you do not, and it's wreckless to recommend this line of food (IMHO). Particularly when peas and legumes are included in the grain free product? Out of curiosity - I went to look at California Natural Grain Free food and was shocked to see that they actually are PROMOTING peas in all of their grain free variations as either the 2nd or 4th ingredient!
> 
> This is the LAST food I'd be feeding my golden retriever or recommending someone else feed - it's so blatantly promoting the very ingredient implicated in the deficiency.
> 
> ...



I know all about the Taurine issue. It was an example of a food that is a rotational and extreme limited ingredient diet that was designed for rotation. I wasn't promoting it. Maybe I shouldn't have use it as an example but it was to get a point across. The point is an elimination diet to get them under control and then add back, not to stay on the food life time.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Piper_the_goldenpuppy said:


> I should preface this by saying that I'm a board-certified allergist :wink2: and also have Crohns disease. You and I are probably going to have to agree to disagree about some things and that is just fine.
> 
> I should have clarified....what I meant was that the brand PPP has probiotics (Forti-flora, which I do use). Poor grammar. I already know far more about probiotics than I ever wanted.
> 
> ...



I'm not disputing anything you said and I didn't say anything to the contrary. I just stated with the allergies and sensitivities in dogs relating to their foods. I was just explaining how to implement an elimination diet. I never said anything about scientific studies. Just there is info out there on rotational feeding as it has been shown that dogs develop allergies and sensitivities over time with exposure. It's not guaranteed to keep dogs from getting allergies/sensitivities nor is it a clinical study. I have been to the R and D labs and food plants of the Iams/Eukanuba company, Natura, Science Diet, Nutro, Purina, Wellness and a couple others I can't think of off the top of my head. In their feed trials and studies, they are providing insight on much of this.

I don't think anytime soon there will be specific studies on this as it's too wide ranging and long term of a study. I think it's going to be something that is maybe concluded by pulling data over time like it's been to this point. But when you see the results first hand over and over again, it is something I feel has substance.

Edit.... 

And as far as corn goes. It is the greatest grain. It has Protein, Fat, Linoleic acids Omega 6), Carbs. It's just that it is a grain that is a major culprit of allergies/sensitivities. If your dog has no issues with it, then there is no reason not to feed it. Soy and Wheat are a TOTALLY different story. Soy for example can, in dogs as well as humans, inhibit vitamin and mineral absorption. Soy protein isolate is a different story but is expensive.


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## Julia A. Manson (Apr 23, 2018)

Thank you for all the info. The posts were helpful. Have any of you had your dogs taurine levels checked? Should I have my dogs tested?


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