Dog Food Help...Need to Save

**5XMom** · 11-25-2008, 03:47 PM

I have 2 large dogs that we take very good care of. Always try to buy the good dog food, Nutro. We really need to cut back and I would like to know what is still o.k. I feel guilty when I buy the store brand. Please explain what the important ingredient is and how to stretch the "dog food dollar". Daisy is a 10 year old Golden and Buddy is a 6 year old Golden/Lab mix.

College tuition is a killer!!

THANKS for any helpful input.

**mandi0808** · 11-25-2008, 03:51 PM

With my BF not getting hardly any work, we had to cut back big time on everything.
Our dog was on Science Diet. I switched her to Aldi's dog food.
She's eating it, and doing well on it.
She's a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, so she's not a small dog.
I had switched her to Pedigree then Beneful, and she was inhaling both, like she was never full.
When I switched her to the Aldi's she started eating normally again.
The food is decent looking, not tiny bits, and it's keeping her full.
HTH

**tervsforme** · 11-25-2008, 04:56 PM

Reading the ingredients is most important. A lot of the lesser expensive foods have a lot of fillers in them. Feeding a more expensive food is usually cheaper in the end because they eat less food to feel full and get the proper nutrition. The first ingredient should be meat. I have some friends that feed Purina One and they swear by it. I feed Wellness Core and love it. Some of the websites will let you compare food and will show you the ingredients so you can do some research. HTH

**madhen** · 11-25-2008, 05:01 PM

In addition to the list of ingredients, pay attention to percentages, specifically of protein and carbs.

**Lori Biever-Launder** · 11-25-2008, 05:13 PM

Many dogs are allergic to corn, so steer clear of that. IMHO (backed up by our animal control officer and various vets) Beneful is akin to feeding your dog Play Dough. Check out the ingredients if you don't believe me.

Our animals get Nutranuggets, made by Diamond foods. It is a high quality food but is marketed as a store brand. Fred Meyer (owned by Kroger) and Costco carry it around here. A 40 lb bag runs about $22.00 for the lamb and rice formula. The cat food runs about $15.00 for a 20 lb bag.

I don't feed the cheap brands (like Ol' Roy) because you end up feed a LOT more. it is actually cheaper to feed the better stuff and you deal with a lot less poop to clean up! Less junk in=less poop out.

**misscas** · 11-26-2008, 12:39 AM

I have been feeding my dog Beneful for three years. He couldn't be happier. I don't think he poops excessively either.

I feed my cat Purina One. She won't eat anything else.

**Nishu** · 11-26-2008, 10:35 AM

I went here to find my dog her food.
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

According to that site, nutra nuggets isn't much better than beneful, and the lamb and rice is the only nutra formula that doesn't contain corn and they all contain wheat. I'm not sure that dogs are any less likely to be allergic to wheat.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_f...t=1489&cat=all

We feed my puppy Evo now, but we fed her beneful for years. If money were an issue for me, I'd probably just feed her something like beneful and supplement with the occasional bit of meat products. I still give my dog cuts of raw meat that don't make it to our table.

**Cookimon3** · 11-26-2008, 04:13 PM

I just bought the 35lb bag of Nutro Max (large breed for puppies). It was on sale, and I had a $3 off coupon!
Usually I buy the dogs whatever is on sale, but with the breed of the new pup, I've been told that it's important to watch what she eats, so now i guess it's Nutro for everyone

Luckily, since I adopted from the humane society, I now get a discount at their store on everything that i buy!and their prices are pretty cheap too

**shadowfax** · 11-27-2008, 08:48 PM

I have found that the better the food the less you spend.

I use California Natural for my two dogs.
Pippin is a 10 pound Chihuahua mix with allergies and Merri is a 23 pound beagle mix with a high metabolism.

I buy a 20 pound bag of California Natural for about $23. That bag lasts my two dogs about two months. Because there are no fillers they use more of the food they eat and there is less waste.

Cheap foods are full of fillers. Those filers do not get digested they get passed as feces. So a large part of what you are buying in that bag is poop.....Therefore the dog will generally eat twice as much as he would if he got a higher quality food. The price of higher quality is really not that much more and in most cases less than you are probably spending on your less expensive foods.

and that is not even counting the medical costs/savings.

check out www.dogfoodproject.com for some really good information on dog food ingredients.

**Laura2** · 11-30-2008, 12:17 AM

I always keep my eye out for sales that I combine with coupons to get very cheap or free food. This I mix with the food that I already have (so I don't upset any tummies).

You can always look for discount meats like hamburger or chicken to mix in with the kibble (I don't like to feed raw, personally I always cook meat before giving it to my two).

**cheles2kids** · 11-30-2008, 09:01 AM

What I look for is corn.
I also have a lab/golden retriever mix along with 3 large Greyhounds & a little chihuahua, so you can imagine how much food we go through in a months' time.
Our lab/golden mix is highly allergic to anything with corn, and as you know alot of dog food makes it their number one ingredient or at least it's in the top 5.

But if your pups don't have any kind of allergy, then obviously corn would be okay for them.
Corn is used alot in dog foods as a "filler", which means they can add more to the recipe and limit the other more nutritious ingredients.

There are several grocery store brands that *I* would consider okay:
Iams
Purina One
Rachel Ray's Nutrish

If you have a Costco nearby and have a membership, they have one of the best foods for the money out there. They have two varities: lamb & rice or chicken & rice. It runs about $20.00 for around 40 lb. bag (I can't remember exactly the size of the bag since it has been almost a year since I last bought it. But it is a huge bag for the money).
Both varieties are excellent quality.

Now that we are moved back to Tennesse, we no longer have a Costco within driving distance so I have found a suitable substitute: Diamond Naturals Chicken & Rice. It has almost the same ingredient list as the Costco and for just a few dollars more.

A couple things you want to take into consideration:
The higher up on the ingredient list something is, the more concentrated that particular item is. In other words, if you have corn listed as the third ingredient, you can be guaranteed that product has a significant amount of corn.
Although if it's located down towards the bottom of the list, then it has a much less amount.

Also remember, the bigger the bag, the cheaper per serving it is.

Research, research, research. I did alot of reading for months before our move because I knew that we would have to change their diet once we were moved and it was important for me to find a similar food to what they had been recieving for around the same price.

(TMI alert here)

Most of the time, the more "fillers" a food has, the less good stuff goes into it, and that means more 'poo.
A good way for me to determine if my dogs are doing well on a food is the consistency & frequency of their 'poo.
If they go fewer times and it's nice and firm, then I know that they are acquiring more of the nutrients from that they need from their food and it's not just going straight through.
(Sorry for the details here, but looking at your dogs 'poo is a good indicator of their diet)

I think at the end of the day you have to decide what will work for your pups *and* for your budget and go from there.