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food question

Lexie

Well-known member
I'm considering switching Lexie's food. She is currently eating Purina Pro Plan puppy.
She is 5 months old,11.5 lbs (25.3 kg) :shock:
I want to pick a good quality food that will easy for us to find.
I go to the store and end up buying the same stuff.
I have been looking at: Pro Plan Select, Nutro Ultra & Royal Canin
Any advise or suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Lily was on RC baby, and now at 6 mos. I switched her over to RC adult, because I thought she was growing a little too fast on puppy food. I have had no problems, and her poops are firm, and she goes only about 3 times a day. She seems to like it and her coat is very shiny. I would recommend it as a high quality food. I originally switched to RC from recommendations by members on the board.
 
Here is a good site that rates the food (the list is very close to Whole Dog Journal ratings). I picked about five I liked and searched for product customer reviews. Some I found might be a 6 star but had a rep for causing looser stools or higher incidence of allergies do to long food ingredient list. In the end if you stick to a 4-6 star your doing well.
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/index.php/cat/1
 
Personally, between the three you mention, I'd go for Royal Canin. It's a well established top quality dog food- if you can afford it! I find it ridiculously expensive for two dogs, so I took the principles (holistic, no fillers, real protein source etc) and shopped around for a cheaper version that I was equally happy with.
 
She is 5 months old,11.5 lbs (25.3 kg) :shock:
:sl*p: :oops: 5.22 kg I forget how to convert, I always have to ask my hubby.

Thanks everyone for the input.

Debbie:
I love your avatar. Thanks for the link. It rated RC as a 2 star and Nutro Ultra as a 4 star. Pro Plan Select was not rated.

Charleen:
Thanks for the link. Pro Plan Select was already scored as a A+(103).
I scored the RC mini adult 27 at a A [98] and the Nutro Ultra was a B [88] I'm not sure if I did the scoring correctly but it is probably close.

I'm probably overthinking the whole thing but I want to pick the right food. I do purchasing where I work and I tend to pick things apart even at home. :roll:
I think she is growing pretty fast and she doesn't seem to like the regular Pro Plan Puppy (the breeder already had her on this food) I started putting a small spoon of shredded chicken meat in her food and she will wolf it down now. Do you think adult food would be okay? Would RC 27 be the correct adult food?

Sorry for the long post.
 
I'd take ratings from sites like this with a very large dose of ... well, not exactly skepticism, but certainly, caution. Remember: anyone can put up a website. I have problems with sites that are run anonymously without revealing who is doing the reviews, what their qualifications for reviewing are.

Beware what you read about foods; an awful lot of it sounds like it must be based on nutritional fact but actually is pretty questionable. And a lot of it simply has no meaning for most dogs. For example, while it is useful to caution that wheat and corn can cause allergies in dogs, it causes them in tiny minute fractions of dogs. And the argument that dogs don;t eat grains in nature -- well, actually, they clearly will eat grasses and so forth and value the roughage... and get semi-digested grains regularly from eating the stomach of small rodents or grass eaters wild canids would feed on... they also don't dig up and eat carrots but a lot of us offer fruit and veg as healthy low cal treats and for roughage etc (and coyotes for example are known to scavenge berries, windfall fruits, etc). And keep in mind that in the wild, canids eat primarily sickly, dead and decayed protein sources -- not nice fresh human grade sources. Even top canid predators such as wolves do not hunt and kill healthy animals. They cull the sick, the elderly, the weak, the dying. They scavange dead and rotting animals. So feeding a raw diet based on nice human grade meats in pretty little medallions to echo the menu at your local bistro is pretty far from what any canid on the wild would ever go near. Definitely good healthy food choices for your dog, but it is not anywhere near the 'best replica of what dogs would eat in nature".

All that is why I say to not get overly worried about what you feed a dog as long as the quality is good. Supermarket-available foods are all pretty low quality ultra cheap foods with lots of fillers and preservatives. Find a good quality dry or tinned food or homecook or raw feed something that suits your own preferences and your lifestyle Personally I think variety and freshness and quality should top the list of desireables and those can be satisfied in many different ways.

As a guideline for foods, I recommend the Whole Dog Journal's list (where Royal Canin's natural blend is regularly one of their top 30 foods and they pretty much rank the rest of the RC foods, with similar if not organic ingredients, to also be a good choice).
 
Lexie said:
Would RC 27 be the correct adult food?

I think it is fine to switch her now. Some of the members mentioned adult food for puppies, as well as Karlin, as they can sometimes grow too fast with puppy food. I decided to try it. Lily at 6 mos. is about 13.5 lbs. I have noticed that her growth rate is slowing down now. Could be her age too. But at any rate, I'm glad I switched. I can now buy bigger bags of food. I could only buy the RC puppy food in 3 lb bags, and she was going through a bag in a little less than a week and a half.
 
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