[GTAlumnus]

We were cruising along feeding our two cockers Nutro Lite for years with seemingly good results when our almost 11 year old boy contracted Hemangiosarcoma and died. The other cocker, 5 years old remained healthy and at an ideal weight.

Then I began reading about dog food ingredients on the internet. By products are bad, corn is bad, then some think any kind of grain is bad, some think all dog food is bad and feed raw. Looked at grain free and then learn that some of it has too much protein.

Frankly my eyes are glazed over.

In the interests of feeding our dogs the best, the now 7 year old cocker female and 9 month old rat terrior mix, my quest was the best dog food. Most reviews said Orijen. Dogs wouldn't eat it, then learned that it was too high in protein according to some (but not others????????). Tried Merrick with mixed results, I think it gave both dogs soft stool. But the biggest problem is that dogs didn't like it either. So I went back to Nutro and so now they don't like it either. Put chicken broth in it and they finally started eating it again so I was back to square one.

Determined to get them off Nutro Lite, rated a terrible dog food (is it really???) I then introduce Taste of the Wild Pacific. The dogs LOVE it!! Seems like great ingredients, no grain, not so much protein - PERFECT!

But wait, now I start reading that fish meal used in it migh have ethoxyquin!! Most say causes cancer, some say does not. So I introduce TOTW with the bison/venison/duck etc, the other 2 flavors. The LOVE it too!

But then I learn that even with ocean fish meal listed WAY down the list after the chicken fat and just before the vitamins and stuff feeding your dogs ANY of it over a number of years is not a good idea........

So, I don't know what to do at this point. Seems I should go back to Nutro which they say has no ethoxyquin, and the dogs like it OK. Seems like there is something wrong with ALL premium dog food!

Seems a food could have chicken beaks and feet and crap like that and still be healthy, good grief did you check out how appetizing that last rat is that the cat caught and ate? Dogs used to be in the wild and I doubt the beaks and feet they ate were a problem......

Now, corn and wheat I can understand. Our female cocker had severe skin allergies with Iams as a puppy. We switched to Muenster Natural dog food (rated not very good because not enough meat items) and it cured the problem. Lost the supplier then switched to Nutro but the allergies never came back.

I think there is too much said about dog food ingredients by people that frankly don't know what they're talking about. It seems amazing to me that the dogfoodanalysis people rate TOTW products 5 and 6 stars, but warn that they may contain something that might KILL your dog!! I don't know but it seems that should be worth a few stars deduction if it is in fact true!!! So why do they list it as a top dog food and then put such a caviat in there? Just to further confuse those of us trying to make a decision on dog food?

Sorry for the rambling, but its very frustrating, I don't know how my dogs are going to tolerate the continual switching of foods to find the one that (1) they like (2) has no allergens (3) has plenty of meat products (4) doesn't have too much protein (5) doesn't give them the squirts and (5) won't KILL THEM!.

Good grief........