Food Opinion & Extras
Skippy had his first birthday last week. He's doing absolutely tremendous and has not exhibited any health problems. He's extremely calm, fun loving, obedient, easily trained, etc. Yes, for the most part, I can say I've got the perfect dog. We are a family of routine so it's pretty easy for him to have adapted.
I guess I'm just looking for opinions from the "Shiba Experts" out there. Skippy has been on Eukanuba: Small Breed Puppy since I got him at 4 months of age. He's content with eating approx 1 cup a day and is lean and doesn't exhibit hunger - he's approx 21 lbs - his dad was very small and Skippy was the runt. How long do I stick with this food? What would you suggest I switch him to after this? What type of "extras" should I be giving him for his health? Pros and Cons from what you've seen. thanks for the opinions...
I guess I'm just looking for opinions from the "Shiba Experts" out there. Skippy has been on Eukanuba: Small Breed Puppy since I got him at 4 months of age. He's content with eating approx 1 cup a day and is lean and doesn't exhibit hunger - he's approx 21 lbs - his dad was very small and Skippy was the runt. How long do I stick with this food? What would you suggest I switch him to after this? What type of "extras" should I be giving him for his health? Pros and Cons from what you've seen. thanks for the opinions...
Comments
If you think he could do better - then it can't hurt to compare and contrast other foods for him. In my opinion, there are better foods out there, yes, because not all foods are appropriate for all dogs all the time.
Some good sites for comparing food brands:
dogfoodproject.com
dogfoodanalysis.com
How old is Skippy?
How to read a dog food label:
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=labelinfo101
Identifying better products:
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=betterproducts
Ingredients to avoid and why:
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=badingredients
After that, I would go to dogfoodanalysis.com
And look up the current formula of Euk that you feed, and get the ingredient list for comparison..
Then perhaps explore some other brands that are available to you locally. I don't know where that is, but some brands that seem to be almost everywhere these days are:
Wellness
Nature's Variety
Solid Gold
Blue Buffalo
Canidae
Innova
EVO
Orijen
Acana
Taste of the Wild
Merrick
We rotate foods, right now they are on a rotation of the Evo Red Meat and coming up will be the Evo Small Bites, I really want to incorporate a fish based food, but I can't deal with those farts! Even with probiotics they were Lethal!
This is written by Canidae foods but applies:
http://www.canidae.com/transitioning.html
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/
They have like a regular brand, a grain and corn free brand, and also a raw variety. Going to try the raw on my pups next.
If you ever make it east, we've got 3 Shibas and a big backyard
I have tried many different foods...as I am always looking for the best for my pups. Orijen is a fantastic food, however, as some of the members here mentioned...it seems too rich for my pups and they can't seem to digest it well. Lots of stinky farts :X
Right now I have been rotating from EVO Small Bites, Before Grain Buffalo, and Wellness CORE Ocean. However, I will switch between Wellness CORE Ocean and Solid Gold Barking At The Moon. My dogs do extremely well on all of those. When I do try something new, I try to get the 5 lb. bags to see how the transition goes. If it doesn't go well, I just donate it to the local shelter, and if it does go well, I buy the bigger bag and continue to feed it.
I also add The Honest Kitchen dehydrated RAW with their dinners. I switch between Embark, Force and Thrive. They loooooove this stuff!
As for supplements - I use Solid Gold Seameal, NaturVet Enzymes & Probiotics, and Grizzly Salmon Oil
Not all dogs are the same, so just buy a few sample bags of foods you are really interested in and try them out. Even though my dogs do fantastic on EVO Small Bites, he might not even touch it! It was a lot of trial and error when trying to find the right foods for my pups.
*Kristin - Have you tried Solid Gold Barking At The Moon, Wellness CORE Ocean, or Acana Pacifica? Those are all fish based kibbles too. Even though my dogs had the nastiest farts on Orijen 6 Fresh Fish - they do great on Solid Gold BATM and Wellness Ocean. Haven't tried Acana Pacifica yet though.
And we're in the same boat as you, Romi... my dogs (well, Tsuki) did NOT fare well on Orijen 6-Fish with gas and a flare up actually like she had when she was eating Nutro as a pup. It was bizarre, but its definitely a food we unfortunately cannot feed. She (they) do very well on Wellness Core Ocean and we just did a three week trial of Acana Pacifica and its been beautiful all along! Great stuff!
Our next trial will be Nature's Variety Instinct Turkey and Duck...
p.s. I have a lot of info on The Honest Kitchen foods if its something someone is seriously interested in trying, just whisper/email and I can send you brochures and two small sample packs. I'm a demonstrator!
I'm glad you're trying some good foods! I didn't know how crappy most dog food was, either. I just kind of figured that it was dog food, so it's meant for dogs, right? Anyway, the breeder I got Tojo from really opened our eyes to proper canine nutrition. It hasn't been unreasonably expensive, either. In fact, it might be less expensive because they don't need to eat very much to get all their nutrients. I had to buy a small bag of craptacular food in a pinch once and the dogs had to eat 2-3 times the amount they normally do just to maintain their weight! Really, those crap ingredients are just poop-enlargening agents, and a pain in the butt, considering you have to carry that bag of poop-enlargener around and buy food more often.
Beth: For a moment I thought you were referring to goldfish crackers (human food) instead of goldfish flakes (fish food). Must...learn...to....read...thoroughly...
Jesse