I feed my two Portuguese Water Dogs the BARF diet - Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.

I can buy organic ground chicken which includes ground up bones and add ground raw vegetables from my garden. I also add organ meats. I freeze the mix in 2 pound containers - a day's supply for my Girls. If I happen to forget to thaw the food, breakfast is sardines or mackerel with some shredded carrot or kale for a veggie. I also have powdered kelp on hand and add it often for their coats. For a real treat, they get chicken necks for a meal - outside so I don't need to hear the crunch! (hicken bones are risky only when cooked as they splinter. )

This has worked well for both my Girls - the litters they had while on this diet have been incredible - best yet! Even my vet, who pushes commercial foods, agrees.

I got into this when I started reading the ingredients on commercial foods. What they heck is a chicken by-product? A corn by product? Maybe ground husks?

here's my view...from a vet standpoint...some natural diets are great. but you have to watch some. NEVER feed a raw diet. You could expose you animal to e. coli and salmonella. If the natural diet have been formulated and checked to meet all the animals nutritional requirements than it should be okay. As for cats and salmon...you have to be careful mainly because salmon can carrry a particualr fluke (type of worm) that can damage a cats liver. If there is minimal processing of the food, that fluke may not be killed. The other biggie for cats is to never feed them a vegetarian diet. Cat are carnivores plain and simple even if their owners are not. Cats require meat to get Taurine into their diet. Without taurine cats can develop blindness, weakness, neuro signs, and death. So i always tell ppl its every one's personal choice..neither right nor wrong...but you do have to watch some of the mumbo jumbo propagand that a lot of these companies put out. My own pets are on a high quality processed kibble (Nutros) and i personally like it. But to each his own and what ever works on your animal.

btw...you cannot believe the flood of calls we've had today at our clinic regarding the food. We are just telling ppl if they have been feeding that food they need to bring their animals immediately in for blood work to check their kidney function. Whatever the problem is, it is calling severe kidney failure in the animals. So we'll see what comes about with this.

Recalls up here in Canada too!

the recalls are in the US and canda folks...check it out...there's a lot of brands going to both areas. cnn.com has a good press release about it. Not sure what's causing the kidney failure...but its definately something to check out if you are feeding canned food.

I was very surprised this weekendto find the Science Diet cat food I buy for my monster on the list. The first reports were for foods that were purchased at Safeway and walmart.. etc so i thought I was safe. Thank God the codes on the bottoms on my cans did not match the recalled food!

that's the biggie...checking the codes on the cans to see if they match

I feed Solid Gold Wolfking, and Hunden Flocken to my two great danes. It has been the best food, and all human grade. It cost a little more than the Eukanuba I used to feed, but well worth it. Danes do not have long lifespans, and I want to help prolong it any way I can.

I only feed my dog raw, natural foods. That is the BARF diet
She is a Bullmastiff from a litter of 13. She is the biggest, healthiest and the only one with a shiny coat !!
While my vet is horrified :) He has to agree that she is far healthier than her litter mates who have a host of different problems ranging from indigestion to allergies.

The bones help her keep her teeth clean (and no dog breath here !).
And the fresh meat is purchased for $2 per 10kg box !! Way cheaper and far healthier.

My previous Bullmastiff only had cooked dog roll and had a host of problems.

I realise commercial food is so much more convenient for people and seems to do no harm to their pets.....But I guess there are at least 13 families in the US questioning this. (After the recent rat poison scare...).

I think my biggest objection to the commercial foods is the fact that they are cooked (harder for dogs to digest) and the presence of Benzodiazepines (sp??) in many.

But that's just me ;)

Rachel.

I think the most disturbing part of the whole recall, aside from our pets being the victims of rat poision! Is that people who think they are buying a "better" brand are getting the same as the Old Roy for more money! this plant packaged the SAME EXACT food under 95 names. To me this means that there is no difference in the quality of what people buy as bargin food and what others buy as prime.

I am realistic to know that recalls hapen all the time (tylonol comes to mind at the moment) but I am also really disturbed that the consumers are the last to know.

I just feel like this is more good reason to really think about what you are feeding your pets...95 brand names from 1 plant!

actually L145 what a plant does it has different "lines" in otherwords one food will be made first then the line cleaned and the next food made. There are several basic ingredients that may be shared..but others that arent. That is why the plant knew it was wheat. It was the one ingredient that ALL foods have in common. And no they all don't share the same ingredients. It just meant that all the foods are assembled in the same plant. The only common ingredient between the old roy and the Iamms was wheat. Other than that...iams is still a good food in my oppinion. I'm not a fan of moist food anyways. but that's a different story. But i had to correct you under that discrepency. They did not pack the SAME food under different labels. They just used at least one similar food source...Wheat. Everything else is packed in seperate lines. You have to understand plants. They have multiple lines at once. In fact this plant may pack dog food for 3 months and the flush and clean the systems and plant canned veggies for 3 months. Plant lines and equiptment are very expensive..so usually they have dual purposes. And like i stated before...they ARE NOT the same foods under different lables...they just had ONE common ingredient. Just had to clarify that point. None the less i think its sad that so many animal were effected and died. I think it is also sad that they went cheep and imported grain that was contaminated.

Like gg says...this isn't an accurate statement at all. I spent 7 years as a chemist in the pet food industry. Each different product has it's own "formula" or "recipe". Ol' Roy formulas are propietary as are all branded foods. Sometimes specialty foods will even have "secret" ingredients that they provide to the plant and the people making the food don't even know what it is. So no, they are NOT all the same. Generally, the ARE made with the same ingredients...which is what caused this problem. Contaminated ingredients. If you buy hamburger contaminated with e.coli no matter what you put it in it would make you ill. However, there is no way you would start saying that chili and hamburgers are the same thing just because they both made you ill and happened to be cooked in the same kitchen with the same ingredient.

Although sometimes they are identical, in human food as well. As in Hellman's mayonaise. I don't eat much mayo, but I am very particular about the brand. There are only a couple brands I enjoy, and very possibly only one mayo recipe marketed under several names. The Hellman's recipe or formula is sold under several labels, including Best Foods, and I believe some store brands, such as (at least at one time) the Kroger brand.

The assumption is that a person buying the premium brand is being "ripped off," rather than the person buying the lesser known or generic brand is "getting a bargain." I don't think either is true. From a marketing stand point it just makes sense for companies, because of human behavior.

Companies pay big bucks for developing and advertising and marketing a product, including store placement, and those costs are passed along to the consumer. The name brand gets more shelf space and more desireable placement (eye level, rather than the floor or top shelf). Ironically, the poorest and wealthiest shoppers are the most loyal to brand names (because they perceive popular brands to be the highest in quality). The companies also want to get the business of the cost-conscious shoppers who do not value brand-loyalty. It doesn't make sense to spend more money to develop an intentionally inferior product, so they just slap a new label on the jar and sell it for a lower price. Also, sometimes a product is sold under different names in different regions (possibly because marketing research has proven that one name is "preferred" over another in different areas).

The companies aren't telling us that they sell the same product under different labels (whether there is a price difference or not) which does seem rather dishonest (but some studies have shown that many people even when informed that two brands are identical, will choose the "name" brand, because of status concerns - embarassment over buying generics - or because of preference for the packaging which may be more convenient (a box over a bag of cereal for example, or a bag that is resealable), or even just more appealing visually).

It pays to be an informed consumer and realize that cost does not mean quality. You have to be able to recognize quality, independent of cost (reading nutrition and ingredient labels, and being a bit familiar with how food is marketed).