# chicken soup for the puppy lover's soul?



## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

Anyone heard anything good/bad about this food? We are feeding a mixture of Eagle Pack and Nature's Variety but they are both really expensive foods. I was going to switch back to Canidae but I noticed the chicken soup is the same price about and seems a little better. Plus Elway was runny when he was on the canidae. Anyone have any good experience with this food as my husband really wants to switch Elway to something a little cheaper than the eagle pack and the nature's variety. Prince and our lab are both on the Wellness CORE and that's pretty expensive but once Elway is old enough we're just going to put all 3 on it I think because the other two are doing great on it.


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

A great website to evaluate foods (kibble) is Dog Food Analysis - Reviews of kibble Click on reviews and you can see ingredients, nutritional evaluations and a review. I've used Eagle Pack ( holistic ) and Natures Variety and found them both to be good. However, we've gone a raw/natural route and sometimes I use the Natures Variety raw for treats.


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## Bailey & Bentley (Feb 25, 2007)

This food was being sold at the last dog show they had in town last year. The people swore it was better than anything you were giving you dog right now. Maybe they were just trying to make a sale?? I don't know, but the ingredients didn't look to bad to me.


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## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

Bailey & Bentley said:


> This food was being sold at the last dog show they had in town last year. The people swore it was better than anything you were giving you dog right now. Maybe they were just trying to make a sale?? I don't know, but the ingredients didn't look to bad to me.


I hear people say a lot of good things about it.  Right now I'm looking for a good, fairly cheap, dog food until Elway turns one and can eat the wellness CORE so I can feed all three the same. We're spending a fortune on the CORE and the Eagle pack (we have coupons for free nature's variety which is why he gets the mixture).

I think if I can't convince my husband to keep up with the Eagle Pack I'll try it. I hate always switching him but he seems to enjoy the change when I do. It's comparable in price to the canidae and I like the price of canidae but it doesn't agree with Elway half the time.


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## Bailey & Bentley (Feb 25, 2007)

I am in the same boat. I have been trying to find a cheaper food that still has great ingredients. Right now we are feeding Nutrol Max Herring and Rice which agrees with the boys pretty well.


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## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

Bailey & Bentley said:


> I am in the same boat. I have been trying to find a cheaper food that still has great ingredients. Right now we are feeding Nutrol Max Herring and Rice which agrees with the boys pretty well.


We tried the wellness whitefish and sweet potato and they did really bad on it we only fed it for like 3 days and returned it. I fed the Nutro lamb meal and rice to our lab but she never did well on it either and Nutro around here is more than the Eagle Pack. We were paying $45 for a 40 lb bag and we pay like $38 for the Eagle Pack. The chicken soup was $21 for a bag that would last Elway all month. I think once the eagle pack starts running low I will get a small bag of the chicken soup for Elway and try it out for a week to see how he does mixing it with the eagle pack.


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## GoldenJoyx'stwo (Feb 25, 2007)

I think ArdeaGold used one of their foods at one time. I don't know if she still does though. AG???


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## Bailey & Bentley (Feb 25, 2007)

Wow, it is only $21 a bag. That is great. I have to look at the ingredients again, I may be switching again sometime soon. I am not sure where to buy it though, I haven't seen it around in the pet stores?


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## Bailey & Bentley (Feb 25, 2007)

Here are the ingredients for the Large Breed Adult Formula:

Ingredients Chicken, turkey, chicken meal, cracked pearled barley, whole grain brown rice, oatmeal, millet, white rice, ocean fish meal, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), potatoes, tomato pomace, duck, salmon, egg product, flaxseed, natural chicken flavor, choline chloride, glucosamine hydrochloride, dried chicory root, chondroitin sulfate, kelp, carrots, peas, apples, tomatoes, blueberries, spinach, dried skim milk, cranberry powder, rosemary extract, parsley flake, yucca schidigera extract, L-carnitine, Enterococcus faecieum, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Saccharomyces cerevesiae fermentation solubles, dried Aspergillus oryzae fermentation extract, vitamin E supplement, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate, manganous oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A supplement, biotin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin, vitamin Dsupplement, folic acid.


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## fostermom (Sep 6, 2007)

Bailey & Bentley said:


> Wow, it is only $21 a bag. That is great. I have to look at the ingredients again, I may be switching again sometime soon. I am not sure where to buy it though, I haven't seen it around in the pet stores?


For 20 lbs or 35? I used to feed Chicken Soup. I loved the fact that it was a fairly inexpensive quality dog food. I was paying about $35 for 35 lbs. My dogs got so itchy on it after about a year I had to change them. I have heard from other doggie people that it causes bad itchies. It may be fine for a short period, but it was not good for my dogs' skin.

I feed California Natural and my dogs are so healthy looking and have no skin issues. They have been on it for at least 9 months.


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

I would encourage you to read the dog food analysis of this food mentioned in my above post. Even though the first 3 ingredients are meat and meal, the two listed as meat only are not condensed so that 80% of the weight ( which is what got it to the top of the list to begin with ) is water. Once that is taken into consideration, they fall much further down the ingredient list which makes it pretty grain heavy. Could explain alot of the allergy issues others have mentioned, also why the price is so dramatically cheaper.. The website can explain further.


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## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

fostermom said:


> For 20 lbs or 35? I used to feed Chicken Soup. I loved the fact that it was a fairly inexpensive quality dog food. I was paying about $35 for 35 lbs. My dogs got so itchy on it after about a year I had to change them. I have heard from other doggie people that it causes bad itchies. It may be fine for a short period, but it was not good for my dogs' skin.
> 
> I feed California Natural and my dogs are so healthy looking and have no skin issues. They have been on it for at least 9 months.


I think it's an 18 lb bag we saw. He won't be on it for too long just until he can eat the CORE than they'll all be on that. He'll be a year in January so probably shortly after he'll switch to CORE.


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## Bailey & Bentley (Feb 25, 2007)

fostermom said:


> For 20 lbs or 35? I used to feed Chicken Soup. I loved the fact that it was a fairly inexpensive quality dog food. I was paying about $35 for 35 lbs. My dogs got so itchy on it after about a year I had to change them. I have heard from other doggie people that it causes bad itchies. It may be fine for a short period, but it was not good for my dogs' skin.
> 
> I feed California Natural and my dogs are so healthy looking and have no skin issues. They have been on it for at least 9 months.


I just looked it up,it looks like it may be for an 18 pound bag, which is alot, I think. I may $33 now for 40 pounds.


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## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

Penny & Maggie's Mom said:


> I would encourage you to read the dog food analysis of this food mentioned in my above post. Even though the first 3 ingredients are meat and meal, the two listed as meat only are not condensed so that 80% of the weight ( which is what got it to the top of the list to begin with ) is water. Once that is taken into consideration, they fall much further down the ingredient list which makes it pretty grain heavy. Could explain alot of the allergy issues others have mentioned, also why the price is so dramatically cheaper.. The website can explain further.


yeah I did read that. I looked at a lot of the dog foods on that site and never heard of most of them but they aren't available in the stores we go to. Orijen is sold in a store that's like 45 minutes from us and I think my husband passes it on his way to work but that's more expensive than the eagle pack.


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## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

Bailey & Bentley said:


> I just looked it up,it looks like it may be for an 18 pound bag, which is alot, I think. I may $33 now for 40 pounds.


I think it depends because I know I was spending $25 for a 33 lb bag of Canidae chicken meal and rice when other's were spending like 40 on the same sized bag. I walked into one store and bought it for $25 and a couple towns over they were selling it for almot $30. That 18 lb bag would be worth it though if Elway did good and it lasted him a month. We'll see though I think my husband will be too lazy to fight me over switching foods and will just cough up the extra ten bucks to feed the eagle pack. He's such a tightwad sometimes though I'm just exploring my options.


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## Bailey & Bentley (Feb 25, 2007)

Why do the husbands have to make it so difficult? LOL.

Same here, my husband is the one who wants to go to a cheaper food. Right now we blow through a 40 pound bag in close to a month, but we also have two hungry boys on our hands.:


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

Remember to factor in that with a "higher end " ( richer ) food you'll end up feeding less so don't compare just the price of the bag. Look at the amount needed to feed your size dog. True, most of these higher end foods are not found in the chain stores.


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## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

Bailey & Bentley said:


> Why do the husbands have to make it so difficult? LOL.
> 
> Same here, my husband is the one who wants to go to a cheaper food. Right now we blow through a 40 pound bag in close to a month, but we also have two hungry boys on our hands.:


Yup we have the three of them all of them over 50 lbs. I'm guessing the CORE will last our lab and Prince the whole month but Elway just goes through food like there's no tomorrow. Everytime we buy him a new bag of food my husband's like "didn't we just buy him food last week?"



> Remember to factor in that with a "higher end " ( richer ) food you'll end up feeding less so don't compare just the price of the bag. Look at the amount needed to feed your size dog. True, most of these higher end foods are not found in the chain stores.


Yup that's what I keep telling him. He knows too but he always looks at the initial price of the food. It doesn't matter if the food will last longer because they eat half a cup less than the food they were eating before he always looks at the initial price. 

We have a feed store that's a couple blocks away we usually go to that has quite a bit. I just don't like that when you go to websites of some foods it says their store carries it but when you go there they say "oh no we don't carry any of their products". Then they do the bait and switch and corner you in the dog food section for an hour until you just grab something and run to get away from them.

We got a couple towns over to Pet Supplies Plus because they have nice food and if they don't have something they will try to get it in for you. It's a few dollars more there but they employees don't bother you unless you need help so I don't mind paying the extra couple dollars for the silence.


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

EEWWWWWWWWWWW... I would hate those stores with the bait and switch!! I am terrible with salesmen...I would rather walk out not buying what I really want than to have to listen to their spiels.


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## fostermom (Sep 6, 2007)

Trust me, I deal with that with my sister all the time. She would prefer to feed her dogs Iams, even though she has to feed them more than to fork out the extra bucks for the quality stuff. Of course, her dogs are obese, literally. It's a step up for them to be on Iams, they were on Beneful before because there were plenty of vegetables in it, just look at the bag!

Fortunately, my husband lets me decide what the animals will be fed. He is a real softy that way!


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## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

fostermom said:


> Fortunately, my husband lets me decide what the animals will be fed. He is a real softy that way!


If it was completely up to my husband, the tightwad, the dogs would be fed Ol' Roy:vomit:! $10 for a 40 lb bag that you have to feed them like 9 cups a day what a bargain!


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

One other thought..... when I was using Eagle Pack, I would go their website and print out a $5.00 coupon. I do think from reading the ingre. list that the Eagle Pack is a better quality food. Good luck with hubby......could you work on the "how much better it is for them"???? approach.


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## Elway&Prince (Sep 6, 2007)

Penny & Maggie's Mom said:


> One other thought..... when I was using Eagle Pack, I would go their website and print out a $5.00 coupon. I do think from reading the ingre. list that the Eagle Pack is a better quality food. Good luck with hubby......could you work on the "how much better it is for them"???? approach.


I used to do that too, but our printer hasn't worked with our computer since we got the computer fixed. I could go to the library though and do it. I think the best approach to use on him is the "how much better would it be for *HIM* to keep feeding the eagle pack":roflmao:


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## Penny & Maggie's Mom (Oct 4, 2007)

Good one......if wifey aint happy, no one is happy !!!!!!!


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## parrothead (Nov 1, 2007)

Another thing to consider,what goes in must come out.Cheaper foods tend to have more grain and fillers,and because the dogs eat more they have much bigger stools.


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## Phoebe (Feb 8, 2006)

Phoebe was on Chicken Soup and it took me a while to link her diarrhea to the food. I switched to Eagle Holistic and she hasn't had any problems since. My cairns are on Chicken Soup and love it. 

Jan, Seamus, Gracie, Phoebe & Duke


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## Goldndust (Jul 30, 2005)

My biggest problem with Chicken Soup for the soul outside of it's name...lol, is it is put out by Diamond and we all know how many recalls they have fell too. Outside of that, years ago when it first came out I did try it with Bianka, I had no problems.


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## norabrown (Jul 20, 2007)

Elway&Prince said:


> I think it's an 18 lb bag we saw. He won't be on it for too long just until he can eat the CORE than they'll all be on that. He'll be a year in January so probably shortly after he'll switch to CORE.


A lot of breeders recommend getting puppies off of puppy food between 4-6 months. I'd say, put the dog on Wellness CORE. Make your life easy and just do it now.


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