Dog Food Enlightenment Success Stories?

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I wanted to share a quick story with my fellow Food Groupers:

 

My mother has never fed the best food to her dogs.  She always did Nutro or something she thought was high quality - even though I tried my best to enlighten her on what really constitutes "good" dog food. 

 

About a year ago, I found out about Taquito's kidney damage, which we are 99% sure was caused by the recalls 3 years ago when he became very, very sick from the melamine.  At that point, she FINALLY started to ask me about what foods I thought would work well for Lucy, her cairn terrier.  She started buying California Naturals (Lucy has a sensitive stomach) chicken and rice.  When we found out that Proctor & Gamble bought CN, I told mom we needed to start transitioning her to another food. We have talked briefly about it and I told her we would just watch the news and check the bag each time to ensure the ingredients had not changed.

 

Today she called me out of the blue and said "honey, I have done research and bought Natural Balance Sweet Potato & Venison for Lucy - she loves it - I am transitioning her off of CN since P&G bought the company.  I don't want Lucy to ever get into a situation like Taquito did".

 

I was shocked - told her that is what I was going to recommend!  Mom sounded very pleased with herself and said "I thought you'd be impressed".  HA!

 

So, any other success stories out there?  Have you turned anyone on to better food with the help and knowledge you have learned from fellow Food Groupers???

[Kim]

I'm trying SO HARD.... with my Sister who feeds her Choc. Lab IAMS!!!! I have sent her numerous links to some of the FG discussions, but she won't have any of it. It is sad because the dog has had a few seizures, and is very overweight, and they believe they are doing good, because the Vet doesn't see a problem with it. I have tried to tell her about Vet's knowledge when it comes to food, but it is doing no good =( My Doggie Niece is doomed.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Good news Allyson, sorry for your struggle Kim. I had a visiting Jack Russell over the weekend. He's 10 and he's fine so it's hard to convince someone to think about switching food when the vet approves and the dog's OK.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Yep - that's the hardest part of it F. I agree. I try to use Taquito's story to show people what they can avoid....

[Ann Kendig]

My dogs are on Natural Balance Sweet Potato & Venison due to being on food trials for allergies. They seem to do well on it
but I can't wait for the day when I will be able to switch them to something else. I wish I could rotate their food and give them some variety like I did before food trials. I'll keep an eye on this discussion for future reference! Thanks for posting Allyson!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I have found this is a tough conversation. My neighbor feeds her two dogs Science Diet (on the recommendation of her Vet). I also shared the link to the Food Analysis site with her, and she says she did look at it, but has not changed their diet. My own family thinks I'm crazy to spend what I do on dog food, even though I've explained why it is so important. It's a very delicate discussion, because I don't want to come across as judgmental, and everyone is entitled to make their own choices for their dogs. I'm just trying to be sure they have all the information to make informed decisions. You must be doing a better job convincing people than I am, Allyson.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I try very hard not to sound judgmental - I have found that in my case a simple reference to Taquito has helped. It has worked on a few friends. They usually ask what I feed and why I feed it and if it makes them think about switching, I think that is better than nothing!!!
I agree with you - just giving someone the information so that they can make a new choice if they decide to do that but no pressure. That's what happened with my mom.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I meant to add that the funny thing with my neighbor is that she originally told me she was going to switch to Orijen or Acana after looking at the analysis, but then later when I asked her how it was going, she told me she had changed her mind and seemed very embarrassed. I'm guessing that she was just trying to "make me go away" initially.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I think she was probably embarrassed to say she didn't switch because of the prices.

[HeatherA]

I just had a frustrating conversation with two of my friends on Facebook. I thought I would ask them if they've ever researched dog foods... and what foods they are using. One is buying Purina One, and the other commented "Oh maybe I will try that."

I told them it's basically a one star food, explaining about the fillers... how it's mainly rice, marketing, and convenience they are paying for. It's not like it's incredibly cheap. The response I got back was that her dog eats rocks, he eats out of the cat's litter box - he's not picky - and he's healthy. It is hard if it's "not broken" don't fix it - right?

I urged them to look at
http://www.petfoodratings.net/dogtable.html
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

And told them they could spend the same and get better quality ingredients... better to have your money go to nutrients and protein then some big marketing company?

I feel like the dog food conversation is akin to the breast verses formula argument. People get very passionate about it, and those that don't... have a hard time understanding what the big deal is.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Very true. People are sensitve about it. I don't even discuss with my sister who feeds Beneful (gasp here). No sense in trying to push something on her and create a fight!
She is still obsessed with her dog and is a wonderful dog owner...

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

What the dog food ratings sites don't mention, and what is equally important to the ingredients themselves, is where the ingredients come from. The goodies in the cat box may be nasty, but they don't contain melamine, which is what killed thousands of dogs & cats in the 2007 recalls. Cat poop won't kill your dog. Melamine will. It isn't even about chicken by-products as opposed to real chicken; it's about plastic as opposed to chicken. Sometimes talking about the company itself and their practices of using ingredients purchased through brokers from third world countries without any quality control is what convinces people more than the overall nutritional content of the food. After all, most people don't make great food choices themselves, in terms of nutrition. Many men i know could take a PhD course in nutrition and that still wouldn't get them to eat vegetables, lol. So if they don't care about their own nutrition, they won't care if the dog isn't eating perfectly, either. But they might care about poisoning their dogs.

[F, Calla & Luca]

This all reminds me of the people who lived to be 110 and smoked, drank and ate a dozen eggs a week or some such thing. Sometimes I wished I paid as much attention to my food as I do to the dogs. Every now and again I eat something that I wouldn't dream of feeding them but usually it tastes very good and my GI tract tolerates whatever it is much better than theirs would : )