What is the best dog food brand for my Toy Poodle?

Hi-





I have a 2 year old red toy poodle. I was wondering what would be the healthiest dog food for her (i.e. California Natural, Eukanuba, etc.)?





Thanks,


Todd





PS: The dog is healthy, with all her necessary vaccines and shots, and she has no worms nor diseases... in case that helps pinpoint the best food for her haha...|||   Food is the fuel of all life. The quality of the fuel directly relates to how well the body can operate. Low quality dog food, such as Beneful, Pedigree, Ol’ Roy, Purina, Eukanuba, Iams, Science Diet, etc., are filled with *empty* calories. These foods are made with keeping costs down in mind, *not* in the best interest of nutrition. When you think of healthy food, do you think of Nestle of Mars (both heavily invested in producing candy)? What about Del Monte (heavily invested in produce, especially corn…)?





   Heck, just go to Beneful’s or Pedigree’s websites, they’re full of promotions, coupons, streaming audio and video, and heart-warming catchy slogans; they know that as long as they paint a pretty picture, the “sheeple” of the world will think it must be good because they got a warm and fuzzy feeling by the advertising.





Let’s take Pup-peroni (by Del Monte), for example, a quick scan of the ingredients raises eyebrows:





   - Meat By-products – Definition: The non-rendered, clean parts, other


     than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not


     limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone,


     partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and


     intestines freed of their contents


   - Sugar – Because all dogs need sugar, right?


   - Propylene Glycol – Here’s a few uses of this chemical (from Wikipedia):


      + As the main ingredient in deodorant sticks


      + As a medical and sexual lubricant


      + As the killing and preserving agent in pitfall traps, usually used


        to capture ground beetles


      + As a solvent used in mixing photographic chemicals, such as film


        developers


      + In hand sanitizers, antibacterial lotions, and saline solutions





How about Pedigree (made by M%26amp;M’s company Mars), you know ‘Really good food for dogs’:





   - First ingredient – GROUND WHOLE CORN (read, nutritionally void filler)


   - Corn Gluten Meal – This is a well-known (even patented) herbicidal agent


     used for weed control in lawns and gardens!


   - Wheat Mill Run – Definition: Commonly referred to as "floor sweepings",


     this ingredient is nothing more than inexpensive filler with little or


     no nutritional value.


   - Chicken by-product meal: Consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts


     of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped


     eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as


     might occur unavoidable in good processing practice. Chicken by-product


     costs less than chicken muscle meat and lacks the digestibility of


     chicken muscle meat.





Chemical additives aside, let’s analyze the recommended serving size between Pedigree and a quality food like Orijen. Being that Pedigree is mostly fillers, your poor dog has to eat so much more just to get the calories to survive when compared to a quality food that actually contains real meat. You ready?





    Pedigree (50-75lb. dog): 4 to 5-1/3 cups a day


    Orijen (45-75lb. dog): 1-3/4 to 2-1/2 cups a day!





   Orijen costs more, but you feed less, AND the quality is superb. Just look at the difference in the ingredients and it’s painfully obvious which is a quality food.





Pedigree: GROUND WHOLE CORN, MEAT AND BONE MEAL, GROUND WHEAT, CORN GLUTEN MEAL, ANIMAL FAT (PRESERVED WITH BHA/BHT), WHEAT MILL RUN, WHEAT FLOUR, NATURAL FLAVOR, SALT, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, CARAMEL COLOR, CHICKEN BY-PRODUCT MEAL, RICE, VEGETABLE OIL (SOURCE OF LINOLEIC ACID), VITAMINS (CHOLINE CHLORIDE, dl-ALPHA TOCOPHEROL ACETATE [SOURCE OF VITAMIN E], L-ASCORBYL-2-POLYPHOSPHATE [SOURCE OF VITAMIN C*], VITAMIN A SUPPLEMENT, THIAMINE MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], BIOTIN, d-CALCIUM PANTOTHENATE, RIBOFLAVIN SUPPLEMENT [VITAMIN B2], VITAMIN D3 SUPPLEMENT, VITAMIN B12 SUPPLEMENT), MINERALS (ZINC SULFATE, ZINC PROTEINATE, COPPER SULFATE, COPPER PROTEINATE, MANGANESE PROTEINATE, POTASSIUM IODIDE), ADDED FD%26amp;C AND LAKE COLORS (YELLOW 6, YELLOW 5, BLUE 2, RED 40)





Orijen: Deboned chicken, chicken meal, turkey meal, russet potato, lake whitefish, chicken fat, sweet potato, whole eggs, turkey, salmon meal, salmon and anchovy oils, salmon, natural chicken flavour, sunflower oil, sun-cured alfalfa, dried brown kelp, carrots, spinach, peas, tomatoes, apples, psyllium, dulse, glucosamine Hcl, cranberries, black currants, rosemary extract, chondroitin sulfate, sea salt.





You can apply this same analogy TO EVERY SINGLE PET FOOD IN THE GROCERY / CHAIN PET STORES!





NEWS FLASH: Science Diet is crap food too! Yes, your vet makes *MONEY* by selling it, not to mention a SIGNIFICANT number of veterinary school programs ARE FUNDED by Hill’s!


There is nothing scientific about their “diet”. The science they use is how to make a profit.





Quality foods: Innova, California Natural, EVO, Karma-www.naturapet.com, Wellness, Wellness Core, Orijen-www.orijen.ca, Canidae, Merricks, Artemis, Taste of the Wild, Nature's Variety, Solid Gold-Barking at the Moon, Go!, Now! Canidae- www.canidae.com, Eagle Pack Holistic Chicken (avoid regular Eagle Pack)and Timberwolf.





Bottom line, read ingredients. They say a lot!|||Fetch has given all the good brands. I personally give my maltese/poodle puppy Orijen puppy food. I potty trained her on it because she loved the taste of it and thought of it as a treat. We did not have any weaning issues from the store bought dry kibble that the breeder fed her.





It is a little harder to find and you will need to use their website to locate a store that carries it. We are very happy with it and it has no fillers.|||California Natural is good food.


Avoid Eukanuba, it's expensive to buy and very cheap for them to make, you're paying for the name. The food is garbage.


Innova Evo is also excellent food, it has 42% protein and no grains whatsoever.|||Try Innova or Canidae. They are excellent foods with no fillers or byproducts. My beagle mix is doing wonderfully on Innova. We switched him from Iams, there's a huge difference.





http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com|||Check here:





http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com|||Wellness Small Breed formula. It is 100% all natural-no crap added to it, and its small bites for small breeds. Excellent Food choice!|||pedigree|||Canidae All Life Stages.