Advice on Dogfood Please!

[Aliqu]

I need some advice. I have located a website:

http://www.technopet.co.za

and I desperately need to know if this sounds like a good quality food.

Any replies would be appreciated.

Thanks
[img]smile.gif[/img]

[lou3]

looks fine to me.
Lou

[LoveNewfies]

This food does have too many fillers. Also, you should look for a food where the protein source is listed first in the ingredients and not just listed as a meat or poultry source. The protein source can be from a meal, however, the actual source of the protein should be listed specifially, ie. chicken, beef, lamb, turkey, etc. Anyting listed as meat can be meat of any kind, of any body part, of any quality and origin. The same goes for poultry - it should be listed diretly as chicken. Anytime an ingredient is vague like that, you just don't know the actual protein source or just how digestable it is.

One more important factor in this food is the salt. Salt should never be added to a dog's diet as their systems cannot flush out the excess salt as the human body can.

There are many great dog foods with great protein sources and minimal fillers available. I would be more than willing to list some for you if you'd like.

[lou3]

where did you find the ingrediants list? i couldnt find that.

[Dax]

It was under products. A lot of MEAL vs Meat and lots of moisture.

[Aliqu]

Thank you, guys. I am very scared to try new food for my babies but I had to find out. We don’t have a lot of variety on premium quality pet food here and those that are available are really expensive. This site looked great at first, the prices are very good but I can’t switch to a cheaper product that is not a good quality! Then I can just as easily go and buy the cheap rubbish food in the retail stores (sorry, I feel very strongly about that cheap stuff!). It even crossed my mind to order from www.frr.com (a site that Rosie recommended) but I couldn’t afford that! Wish they would do some marketing in my country!

What our vets have on offer (that’s the only places here you get premium pet food, I am not sure if it is like that in other countries):

Royal Canin (good but probably the most expensive one)
Vet’s choice (this is a local one and highly recommended here, also the most “affordable”)
Hill’s Science Diet (also a good one)

There’s another one, I can’t remember the name but it’s a hypo-allergenic food with ostrich meat. My dogs didn’t bother to even smell it! My chow have allergies and we/all the vets we have seen can’t figure out yet what the cause is, I tried to see if it was food related. I use Vet's choice at the moment, they love it.

I would like some good names or just some tips on what to look out for, what should the food not have in and what should it have.

[LoveNewfies]

Science Diet I would never feed my dog - I did try a prescription Science Diet and after a few days, my dog started having some problems and wouldn't eat it any more. Anyone I know that feed Science Diet has had a lot of problems.

Vet's Choice - at least the first ingredient is a good protein source. Brewers rice is useless, wheat flour is a common allergen and poultry by-product is by-product of an unkown poultry source. Not only is the source unknow, but the digestability is also unknown.

Royal Canin is definitely the higher quality food.

Some things to look for: Protein source should be the first ingredient and identifiable. This should be listed directly as the meat name or listed as a meal (ie. chicken meal, lamb meal, etc. not listed as poultry or meat meal) Products with corn, brewers rice, by-products and salt should be avoided. Avoid anything preserved with chemicals. This is just a guideline to start with. Good nutrition is one of the best things you can do for your pet. You may not want to spend the money on the more expensive foods now, but, consider this: Poor nutrition leads to more vet bills.

If you don't mind me asking, what are you feeding now?

[sambucca/whiskey]

Well I feed nutro natrual and my puppy has never been better, also reccomended are nutrience, wellness both very good nutrience is a good product cheaper.

[sambucca/whiskey]

What country are you in?

[Aliqu]

Hi,

I feed Vet's Choice at the moment. My cats eat Royal Canin because between that and Eukanuba that's the only good food for cats here and my Siamese don't eat Eukanuba (to stuck up I guess! ). I will defenitely go work out my budget again to see if I can feed Royal Canin to my dogs as well. I thought that Vet's Choice was defenitely a good product but that just shows how little one knows about what you feed your pets! And according to all the vets I have been to, Vet's Choice is defenitely a good choice and usually I listen to them, should I reconsider?

Unfortunately we don't have Nutro Natural or Nutrience, not that I know of.

[ June 07, 2004, 12:57 AM: Message edited by: Aliqu ]