[RoadDog]

I took my new pup to the vet yesterday, and he gave me a bag of hillss science diet dog food. The pup was not eating her other food, but she tore into the hills. Would this food be worth buying for the other dogs also. What are your opinions on the science diet foods?

[opokki]

This is just my opinion.....
While the Hill's company does do a lot of research, their products seem to contain many lower quality ingredients. The food is expensive and I feel that there are many other brands with better ingredients that cost about the same if not less than SD.

[Danegirl2208]

i agree with opokki..there are much better food choices out there

[dogluver101]

I agree too. What were you using before science diet?

[RoadDog]

I was buying the ol roy from walmart, but I want to start them on a better qaulity food. Is the corn the "filler ingredient"? if I remember correclty. If it is, then I need to find a dog food with corn not labled as the first ingredient on the bag of food?

[Cheetah]

I wouldn't personally feed it, but it's definitely better than Ol' Roy.

[sheplovr]

It Sure Is Better Than Old Roy Anything Would Be, But I Do Not Recommend Science Diet, Vets Get A Kick Back With Being Vet Approved. Many Good Brands Like Flint River Ranch, Innova, Canidae, Wellness, Eagle Pack, Ultra Max, Etc. Keep Your Pet Wormed, Fresh Water And It Will Thrive On A Top Brand, Does Not Have To Be The Most Expensive, But Better.

[opokki]

I agree, its definately better than Ol'Roy. Do you have a Pet Supplie Plus or a Petco in your area?

[luv4gsds]

Well I don't feed kibble to my dogs but I have a friend who feeds her two dogs blackwood's dog food. It has better ingredients than those two kibble and it cost the same.

[bigdawgs]

But I Do Not Recommend Science Diet, Vets Get A Kick Back With Being Vet Approved.

Where did you hear this? It certainly isn't true at our practice. We carry hills, but not much of it.

[alundy]

Science Diet Adut Lamb Formula:
First few ingredients: Lamb Meal, Brewers Rice, Rice Flour, Ground Whole Grain Wheat, Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Corn Gluten Meal, Cracked Pearled Barley, Pork Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Dried Beet Pulp, Soybean Oil, Chicken Liver Flavor

Notice that there is only one meat ingredient. The second 2 ingredients are rice-based, and if they added them together and listed them as one ingredient, you can bet they would be #1 on the list ahead of the lamb. This is a trick many food companies do - split things up to keep them lower on the list. Corn gluten meal - corn is not easily digested by dogs.

Here is a food I think is quite good - Canidae:

Chicken Meal, Turkey Meal, Brown Rice, White Rice, Lamb Meal, Chicken Fat (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols, Citric Acid), Herring Meal, Flax Seed, Sun Cured Alfalfa Meal, Sunflower Oil, Chicken.

More meat ingredients, no corn.

Another good one - Innova by Natura:

Turkey
Chicken
Chicken Meal
Ground Barley
Ground Brown Rice
Potatoes
Natural Flavors
Ground White Rice
Chicken Fat
Herring
Apples
Carrots
Cottage Cheese
Sunflower Oil
Alfalfa Sprouts
Egg
Garlic


See the difference? Personally, our pup did not like lamb formula but loves chicken. Maybe that has something to do with your problem.

[opokki]

With the exception of a few brands, you can bet that almost all dry dog foods contain more grains than meat...even the better brands.

[dogtorj]

Hi Everyone,

The history of Hill's Science Diet becoming one of the leaders in the pet food industry years ago is one of my favorite "bedtime stories" of all time. It illustrates my diet platform (no gluten, casein, soy, corn) sooooo perfectly.

When I graduated 26 years ago, dog food was made of corn. And corn was bad enough, with allergies and food allergies being a significant but muuuuuch smaller issue than it would become later. Part of the problem back then were milk-coated puppy/kitten chows, which sensitized them to dairy products at an early age. Milk was the number one food allergen in pets at that time. (Wheat was number two).

About 10 years after I graduated, the pet food industry did the single most devastating thing every done to pet health (in retrospect)- they transitioned from corn-based to wheat-based pet foods. THAT is when allergies went from being A topic in medicine to THE topic in medicine. Suddenly...and I remember it like it was yesterday...we were all taking about how sick dogs had become. No one knew why but dogs were falling apart. Even mutts were having allergies, immune-mediated diseases, and early cancer. When I look back at it, I wanna cry.

And they did this in the face of current veterinary knowledge. Why? There was a wheat glut in this country due to a shift in the global economy (China became the number one grower of wheat in the world, for one) and wheat became CHEAPER than corn. It was that simple. So, despite the fact that the veterinary literature said that, behind cow milk, wheat was the number two food allergen, they started making almost all dog food out of wheat....EXCEPT Hill's.

Yes, Hill's entire claim to fame was that, when everyone else took a big left turn and started making pet food out of wheat, Hill's stayed on the corn road. That was it...plain and simple. Their food was better because it was made out of the number 4 allergen, not the number two allergen (with wheat becoming the number one after the milk was eliminated). For this, they should be proud. If they had stayed the course, I would be their best unpaid spokesman.

But what about now??? Yes, Hill's has finally fallen off the cliff and is making many of their foods with wheat and soy. Corn was and still is bad enough. And what we have done to corn over the past 25 years will curl your hair (look up Starlink/CRY9C corn). I have dropped almost all of the Hill's line of foods because of these changes.

I hope this helps,
John
DogtorJ.com