I posted this in Hunting dogs as well daily because I didn't know we had a pets forum on here and well he is a hunting dog as well.
Looking for suggestions on what to feed my dag. I have been feeding them Purina Dog Chow, but with everything going on I decided to look around and found out its not that good for them. A little back story, last week I lost my ten year old Jack Russel suddenly. She was sick and loosing weight so my wife made a vet appointment for her and the next available time they had was 10:30 the next morning. She took my son to karate practice at 4:45 that night I came home at 5:10 and Bailey had passed? The vet did a autopsy and didn't find anything so we are left with questions. I still have a 2 1/2 year old Catahula leopard and I want to make sure he is getting the best food I can give him. I looked around a little and opinions vary so I figured let me ask here.

Try Blue Buffalo

All organic. No by products

My GSD and terrier loves it

Raw diet is best diet.

My dog seems to be good with Diamond or Buffalo Blue. You won't find those or any other holistic dog food at the grocery store or Wal-Mart, though. Pet stores or farm & ranch supply places will usually always have some kind of holistic food  in stock.
It aint cheap.

Switched my Lab to Diamond when we figured out she has a wheat allergy.  It's not much more than Purina One, which is what she was eating.  She's almost 12 now, so we switched her to Diamond Senior a few years ago.  She prefers the stuff with lamb over beef, thought that was interesting.

THIS TIMES 1000!!!  

It's all I feed my Britts.

I switched to Fromm from Blue. My dobie didn't do too well on Blue (runny stools). I also tried Earthborn, which was somewhat better with her than Blue.

When I had my English Pointers I fed them Purina Pro Plan and Eukanuba, and they did great on that. Just have to try different foods and see what works best for them.

I feed Orijen 6 Fish but it's expensive.  YMMV

That being said, any of the top rated foods on DogFoodAdvisor might meet your needs.

Best Grain Free Dry Dog Foods

We got two puppies last year and started them off on 4Health puppy food.

We the switched them to Blue Buffalo, then switched to Wilderness.

Our newest puppy was having trouble with Wilderness puppy food so we switched him back to 4Health, then everyone back to 4Health.

All dogs are doing great now eating 4Health. We buy the smaller bags and buy all three varieties to mix it up for them.

Also, the female put on a lot of weight with the Wilderness. She's starting to slowly loss it now that we switched.

Blue Buffalo gives my gsd pup diarrhea so we switched him to Wellness. I get it through chewy.com autoship and its cheaper than amazon with free 2 day ship

Since my dog is a hunting breed, Walker Coonhound / Beagle mix, figured I'd post.  Daisy eats Purina Pro Plan Savoir.  She was eating Purina Pro Plan Focus puppy version until about 2 30 something pound bags ago.  I only switched as a compromise with the wife.  She kept pushing for me to go to a cheaper food, either basic Purina or the store brand from Costco or Sam's.  With issues I've heard from cheap foods, I didn't want to go that route.  We comprised on switching from Focus to Savor in the Pro Plan line because I get it for $7 to $12 cheaper a bag depending on sales.

She never seems to have loose stool.  She does crap at least 3 times or more a day.  I forgot what size the child's mug that I scoop her food with is supposed to be, but she gets 2 scoops twice a day.  I can't even track how many milk bones she eats a day, plus a dental stick.  We were using Greenies, but found something from Pedigree on sale at Costco.  She loved them so I got 2 more boxes of them.

She is 50 lbs or more and doesn't appear to have an ounce of fat on her.

Blue Buffalo Lied about Ingredients

Well, that is disappointing.  My dog gets BB and does very well with it.  It's a shame the Dog/Pet food industry is such a cluster fuck.  I Can't think of any other major consumer product with less manufacturing oversight, more marketing effort, huge opportunity for fraud, and near impossible for the buyer to be at least 99% sure about what they're getting.  Not to mention the fact that the health and well being of our pets (often like family members) is at stake.  I don't think any other decision causes me more concern, simply for fear of not knowing and having to rely completely on manufacturer claims, as choosing what to feed my dog.  Buying cars, household appliances, insurance, my food, etc, etc, are not really a concern as I believe I've got the ability to analyze those decisions to my satisfaction.  Pet food is really a crap shoot.  I don't give a damn which one you choose.  I know, I know....raw diet, raw diet, raw diet.  That just isn't an option for everyone.


ETA:  Just occurred to me that I may have issued a rant as opposed to offering something to the thread.  This subject just really gets me a little fired up.

I feed my GSDs this, with cooked eggs, raw meat and fish oil added.

https://www.petflow.com/product/taste-of-the-wild/taste-of-the-wild-high-prairie-dry-dog-food

No grain is key.

I always add an extra protein source on top because they are so active.

Mine has always liked Iams.

I supplement it with fish oil.

Blue Buffalo, our pup seems to dig it and it looks like it's pretty good stuff for her.

This.

Raw Diet is the best. We made the switch going on 10 years ago, and it was the best thing we ever did for our dogs. No more bad breath, no tartar on their teeth, much less shedding, unreal coat.
Here are a few books that are awesome regarding raw feeding. Also look for a local meat wholesaler in your area or raw food co-op.
Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs: The Definitive Guide to Homemade Meals. Lew Olsen
Raw Meaty Bones Promote Health, Tom Lonsdale

Copy/paste this link in your browser...and there is a great video on the subject.
https://youtu.be/G3wLTlqnMMg

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2011/02/15/raw-meat-the-best-and-healthiest-diet-for-pet-cats-and-dogs.aspx?x_cid=youtube

I feed my dogs Natural Balance L.I.D. Grain-Free Potato & Duck dog food. Someone here suggested it a while back.  Both do really well on it, but neither are hunting dogs. One is a 3 yr old maltipoo and the other is a 14 yr old lab/pit mix.

 
You have no idea how fucked up the dogfood industry is.


Very few of the smaller dogfood companies actually make their own dogfood, most of them just subcontract it out.  There are a handful of big factories that churn out 99% of the 'small batch' dogfoods.  Very few places do any studies based on feeding the dogs the food.  There is basically zero check that the label is accurate.


For instance, Canine Caviar, a food maker you will often see rave reviews about makes all sorts of specialty 'organic' foods that instead of using more mainstream fillers use chick-peas, pearl milliet, sun-dried kelp, and all sorts of other hippy crap.  For all those who like to point out that dogs don't eat corn or wheat, dog's don't eat sun dried kelp either.  (BTW, the canine family is closer to bears than any other carnivore, plenty of the extended canine family eat fruit and veggies, my dog used to eat sweetcorn in the field if you pulled the husk off for him.  Studies done on ancient dogs have shown a change in their digestive system to make them better able to process grains, an adaptation probably for eating bread leftovers found in trash)


Anyways, Canine Caviar made a Beaver dogfood, was supposed to be 99% beaver, 100% grain free.  And not just any beaver, but 'holistic' beaver humanely harvested from nature for the 'right reasons' such as population control or they built their dam in the wrong place and had to be removed', so they were beavers that were going to be killed anyways so why not dogfood them?!?!


The food got recalled, for having tainted chinese rice gluten in it.  So this wasn't a case of just buying cheap and getting a batch of tainted stuff from china, tests found that rice gluten were a significant part of the contents, and in some cases, as was beef.  Most likely the company they hired to can for them just transitioned from making food A to food B and really didn't care that some ingredients for A were still in the pipeline and being put in cans being labeled B.


My opinion?



The proper raw diet with the right balance of all sorts of stuff is probably the best diet option, and hence people with less healthy dogs often see their dogs improve on it.


So, proper raw diet based on research and the right balance of ingredients is best.


2nd best is Purina.  Purina is one of the few companies to run extensive feed tests by feeding it to actual dogs in high numbers and doing scientific analysis of the results.  Purina is one of the few companies who have climate control food grade warehouses for storage, even though the heat-treatment should make this unnecessary.  They are fanatical about keeping their storages clean, and hence free of mice, roaches, and other critters.  They sell enough volume so you can expect the bag wasn't at the factory that long ago and hence has had less chance to sit in some petstore's back room in a stripmall with who knows what level of pest control.

Note who was actually out there doing tests of dogfood, and catching these guys lying? Purina.

 

The tinfoil type may think 'Purina is faking results for profit!'.


They aren't.  They are constantly testing their own stuff and their competitor's stuff to protect their own reputation.  Yes, they are doing it for $$$ not from the goodness of their hearts, but they aren't faking it on the orders of the Illuminati or whatever.

One thing to keep in mind is when switching foods, you should taper them off one and onto the new food over the course of several days maybe even weeks to avoid digestive problems.

With that said, Our puppy Golden gets Blue Buffalo Wilderness Puppy red meat formula. He loves it, doesnt have bad breath and normal poop. The wilderness formula is Blue's grain free brand. Blue Buffalo has a couple different types of food under the BB brand. From what I have read, the Wilderness formula wasnt one of the ones that was ever recalled or was in dispute as to its contents.

What ever brand or formula you go with, if its for a puppy, make sure you get the puppy specific formula from that brand. The nutrition needs for a [puppy are far different than they are for older dogs. Supliments can help, but using a puppy formula will take 90% of the guess work out of your feeding them.