Frugal, but good, dog food?

[my4littlebuffaloes]

So we got a dog in June and he is growing like crazy. The vet wants him to be on an adult dog food now, but we are having trouble finding one that doesn't have nothing but junk and is affordable. how do y'all handle this? Do you just get whatever is cheapest or do you go for the good stuff. Of course we want him to have the best, but is that really neccessary? I have hear that by products and corn shouldn't be in the top few ingredients, but it seems that all affordable dog foods are loaded with those things. We were feeding him science diet puppy (large breed) food, but now that we need to switch him we can't find anything. Any ideas? Right now he goes through a 40 pound bag each month.

[DonnainME]

We buy our dog food at WM. We don't get the cheapest, the next level up. Our dogs are going thru a 44 lb bag every 2 weeks (2 doggies - Labs). I think it's something like $18 for the bag. The cheapest stuff is like $14 a bag.

Good luck on finding something that fits both of your requirements.

[Grayce]

The Kirkland brand of dog food from Costco is pretty good. I switched my dog from a more expensive food to it. It does not have corn in it which many dogs are sensitive to.

[jdr250]

I feed IAMS large breed, it's more expensive but I found that I feed a lot less. I have 2 large dogs a mastiff mix and a st. bernard and I only go through about 80 lbs/ month. I pay about $36.00 for a 40 lb bag. My friend has a boxer and feeds the alpo and she goes through about 60 lbs/month. So I'm positive it's more cost effective to feed a better dog food that has more nutrition per bite.

[madhen]

I feed my boys a raw diet and have found that cost to be comparable to feeding kibble/canned. When I absolutely have to feed kibble, I use Canidae. As others have mentioned, you can't compare cost by pound, as you can feed a bit less of the better kibble AND the dogs won't produce as much waste, so more of it is efficiently absorbed. I did notice, during the last pet food recall, that Canidae was not among those brands affected, which makes me feel like they must have a decent QC policy in place.

[jdr250]

Madhen, what kind of dogs do you have. I considered changing to a barf (bones and raw food) diet and talked to my vet about it a few years ago. He said that he doesn't recommend it, and especially not for giant breeds as he sees a large connection between a barf diet and bloat in his practice.

[Lori Biever-Launder]

The Kirkland food is the same as Nutranuggets and is made by Diamond Foods, which manufactures high quality dog food. Their lamb and rice formula is especially good.

I do NOT like what's in Science Diet thes edays. Also you pay waaay too much for that food. You will feed less of the Nutranuggets/Kirkland and it will cost less int he long run. BTW, if you have a Kroger, it will probably carry this food. a 40lb bag is about 22.00. One of these lasts me about three months. I supplement with raw meat scraps for Gypsy as well.

FWIW, they also make two cat formulas that are great foods as well. A 20lb bag is about 15.00 and lasts quite awhile. Also, it has no red dyes in it. Many cats are allergic to red dyes and it will cause them to have diarrhea.

[madhen]

Traditional vets almost never recommend BARF/raw diets. I could tell you stories about going round and round with vets who admitted that my dogs were 100% healthy and who actually marvelled over the dogs' speed of recovery from various illnesses (which is how I ended up with the dogs in the first place - rescue rejects ). One even made a comment about how I must be feeding one of my dogs a great diet, given how fast a broken bone knitted, and when I told him that I fed raw, he actually lectured me about how bad it was. You need to find a vet who is actually up on the science or you need to just lie to your vet about what you feed. In their defense, when people say they feed their dogs raw, I think the vets believe that "raw" equals table scraps. If you do feed raw, you have to know what the dog's nutritional requirements are and feed accordingly.

To answer your question, my dogs are both large breed. One is a lab/pit, and his ideal weight is 85-90 pounds. The other is a Chow mix, and he is at a good weight at 80-85. Both have been on modified BARF (sometimes I cook their meat and sometimes I do feed high quality kibble/canned) since they were five months old. I supplement with multi-vitamins. Both are seven years old now, almost eight, and going strong. My vet did recently suspect that my lab mix had arthritis, because the dog didn't like his back leg being pulled on, but we figured out that he (my dog) had just overdone the exercise a few days before his exam. My Chow was diagnosed with panosteitis and hip dysplasia when he was a puppy (and was considered unadoptable, as the vet said the dog would need total hip replacement surgery by age two). He also had severe skin allergies and would have huge bald/hot spots all over, despite being on flea meds. He has never had the surgery, and runs around the property with my lab, and I have not seen a hot spot since I switched him to raw. Could be coincidence or just good luck, but since they come back with clean bills of health every year (and I get blood and fecal work done), I figure I must be doing something right, as well!

[madhen]

...and in a weird karma kind of way, I just got an email from one of my BARF groups that they are ordering chicken necks at .45/pound and checking to see who wanted in on it! Woo hoo!!

[SaucyCranberry]

I empathize and my little guy is only 14 lb at full grown. (Your puppy is just precious, btw, I want to rub that his belly.) I decided to make room in the budget other ways and feed my pets the best we can afford, since it does help keep them healthier in the long run.

I'm not impressed with Science Diet and Iams adding so much grain to their products *and* still charging such high prices.

I suspect because of your dog's size my dog feeding won't help (my little guy goes through a small bag of his Royal Canin Shih Tzu blend a month, LOL). But having four cats I did have the issue of cost vs. feeding what I felt was inferior food. After a year of having my girls constantly throw up on Iams and Science Diet they are now thriving on Purina One sensitive forumla. Purina also was one of the few pet food manufacturers that was NOT involved with the tainted pet food a few years ago. So you might want to give them a second look, because they do seem to provide a quality food (certainly not the best) but decent and much less expensive than other Iams/Science Diet.

[peanut]

You know. I don't own a pet, but pet food came up in recent conversation with a friend. She has a cat and was feeding it deluxe food from the vet. But she got comparing nutrition and ingredient labels and found the same stuff 2/3 cheaper at the health food store. So check around. You might find it cheaper in unexpected places.

[rrm84]

First, take heart - once your dog is fully grown, he probably won't eat as much as he does now, while growing! We have always had larger dogs, and they never eat as much as it says on the dog food bag.
We have been using Purina One, and our dog does very well on it. If that is too expensive for you, you really can't go too wrong with regular old Purina Dog chow. It has been tested over the years and used by millions, and every dog I have ever met fed on it, does just fine.

[Persimmon Lace]

We feed a dog food called Meat Lovers. It's meat, no bht, corn is way down on the list and it's 22.00 for 50 lbs. I get it at the farm and ranch store. I also am glad to have found it as it's made in Oklahoma. The dogs do not have any problems at all with it and neither have any food allergies. I used to feed Pedigree to my big dogs and they did very well on it but the formula was changed and Bella had the itchies.

[Goodwin17]

I feed my 2 cocker spaniels Purina Beneful. I've tried them on different things, and most things make them throw up. :dog:

[crunchycon]

My mother bred and showed Labradors back in the day, and my dad has a Ph.D in animal nutrition, so I've always trusted their advice. They've bought the one-or-two cuts above lowest level dog food for years. For most of my childhood, I remember big bags of Purina Dog Chow around the house. I myself have a Lab and two Jack Russells, and they get the Lamb and Rice kibble from Sams (mostly because the Lab itches if I don't buy it -- I've raised dogs on Purina before), and always get a clean bill of health from the vet. Because they get tartar on their teeth like many dogs, they also get a nugget or two of dental dog food as a treat (when they've done something good) that we do buy at the vets -- it is a bit of money up front, but is much cheaper than traditional dog treats, and much better for their teeth. HTH!