Downgrading to dog food w/grain?

[JamieCatheryn]

I know it's great to have a grain free dog food, and that's what we've been feeding since we phased it in bringing our coonhound home. But it's very costly and I don't like the smell of the Taste of the Wild we get (and she smells like it, and her gas smells like it). I've read beef or chicken are better for her breed and lamb is not. We could save a lot of money going to a chicken and grain based feed like 4health. That still doesn't have corn and has chicken and chicken meal before the grains in ingredients. Do you think it would be ok to phase in a bag and see how she does on it? If we could afford it and could find it here we'd switch to the poultry based TotW but the store here doesn't carry that kind.

[starrlamia]

absolutely, go with what you can afford and what works for your dog, not every dog does well on the same foods.

[LeahBoo]

I've noticed that as long as I keep the corn out, and feed a food with a relatively high amount of meat, my dogs do as well as when I was feeding TOTW.  They do great on 4health.

[Triniity]

I totally don't know anything about dogfood in the U.S., but where I live I can get fresh beef meat from the slaughterhouse, which is even a regional one, they only slaughter cattle from around here and do no mass-slaughtering, that means only one animal at a time (the still sounds horrible, doesn't it)

for very cheap - this is regional and species appropriate care animals. It is actually cheaper to buy this meat than to feed any kind of dogfood (without grain that is - she is allergic) - for the veggies I just put our dinner veggies in there (raw or cookes - depending) - and our vet says that she is in formidable form. Her teeth are blinking white.

We can even get the meat from a butcher (still regional and humanly raised) - which is much more expensive but still cheaper than dogfood. plus it has to be "safe for human consumption - otherwise they are not allowed to sell it down here)

Can you find something like that at your place?

[dog groomer89]

Not every dog is going to do well on a grain free food.  However, it's still essential to go with a high quality food.  Just as long as it doesn't contain the cheap crappy fillers like by-products, corn, gluten, etc.  However, there is no specific "meat source" that is good for a particular breed in general lol. :)  Every single dog is different, even dogs of the same breed, and what works for one dog may not work for another.  For example, dogs with allergies and intolerances usually have issues with lamb and chicken.  Salmon, duck, venison and rabbit are good meat sources for dogs that can't tolerate lamb or chicken.  Just as long as you keep an eye on her once you make the switch, and make sure she does well on it, 4 health is a pretty good food. :)

[JamieCatheryn]

By the way, she did very nicely with the new food. It's free of fillers unless you count the barley and such as a secondary thing after the chicken and chicken meal. Smells way better and looks just as healthy, digestion seems fine too.

[Basylica]

This just made me think of my cats years ago....I got caught in a dotcom bubble and basically worked about 4 or 5 months total in over 2 years. It was not fun at all. I started off feeding my cats a higher quality food and when the layoffs started happening I switched down to the run of the mill cheap blue purina cat food.

When things finally started going better and work picked up I bought the previous more $$ brand again.

CATS REFUSED TO EAT IT!

Even if I mixed the two dry cat foods together i'd come home to a bowl filled with the $$ bits and none of the cheaper ones!

And one of my cats was part siamese and was extremely vocal about being fed (and everything else)....if I didn't give him the cheap food he'd follow me around the house whinging loudly.

After several days of this I finally gave in and tossed out the $$ stuff and stayed with cheaper.

It's my theory the worse-for-you petfood must be like fast food for humans. Totally not good for you, but in general people would prefer to eat it anyway. *shrug*

I felt so guilty after that, that I could afford better food and care for my cats but was buying the $14 for a pretty large bag of cat food type food.