FOOD

At Agility class last night we had a fruitful discussion about dog food. Eric and his wife, who works for Pet Pros in Lake City, have done in-depth studies of what to feed dogs.
Here are the conclusions we reached –
1. Dogs need variety in their meals. Feeding them one kind of protein, especially beef, can lead to allergies and other problems. Best to feed them different foods on a rotating schedule – dry food in the morning, canned food in the evening. Or chicken one week, lamb or a different protein the next.
2. Raw food is good. We didn’t pursue this topic in depth, but it seems to improve their energy, their coats and their dispositions. Raw can be mixed with store-bought. Caution – this is controversial. Do your homework here.
3. Grain is bad. The consensus was it’s best to go grain free, just like for humans.
4. Don’t leave food out. If a dog doesn’t finish his meal in 20 or 30 minutes, pick it up and feed it to him at his next meal. Eric explained that the dog will quickly learn the routine. This does a couple of things – it shows the pet that you are the source of food, and, once the routine is set, and he doesn’t eat, it alerts you that something may be wrong.
We originally started Winston off on Blue Buffalo puppy food kibble. After a while though he started turning up his nose and leaving most it uneaten. At the same time, he was having bouts of gastric distress, leaving messes that I had to clean up. I hate cleaning up messes, especially the ones that stain the carpet. I’ve since learned that a number of Blue Buffalo products were recalled due to excessive vitamin D in the formula.
So we tried some Newman’s Own Organic, but same result – a turned up nose and the runs. Was it too rich?
I stopped by the Mud Bay at University Village, and the nice clerk there gave me some samples that met my criteria. What a useful service this is. I narrowed it down to Evo and Instinct. After learning that Evo was recently purchased by Proctor and Gamble, I settled on Nature’s Variety Instinct Grain-Free Nutrition. We’re starting with some Chicken Meal Formula and a variety of their canned foods, even one with rabbit. Dogs eat rabbits, right? Winston’s been on that diet for about a week. So far, so good. He likes the canned food best, but does OK with the kibble.