[Dawn penny]

Hello all, I was just wondering what people's beiws on the best dry dog foods are . We are currently using wags . Which Penny seems to like . But just wondering which ones where rated . Thank in advance. X

 

[oldNgray]

You might start your research here: https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com

I am not familiar with Wag but it has a good rating on the site above.

 

[Dawn penny]

Thank you , this was really useful. 🐶

 

[[email protected]]

I like Fromms. Longtime family owned, third party testing, no recalls etc.

 

[Dawn penny]

Thank you. X

 

[Mutts]

I take everything on the DFA sit with a grain of salt; the author is afterall a dentist, not an animal health professional. Especially in light all of the dietary DCM cases popping up in dogs on 5* rated foods. At the end of the day, the best dry dog food is the one that your dog likes, does well on, and that you can afford. For the time being, until more is known about the DCM issue, I personally am choosing to stick to well-researched and established brands (Royal Canin, Purina Pro Plan, Science Diet, Eukaneuba) but wouldn't mind feeding Farmina or Victor, since they haven't had any reported cases (they're just not available where I live).

 

[blujacket]

I like Fromms. Longtime family owned, third party testing, no recalls etc.

Same here. My pup loves this food

 

[NadiaK]

I take everything on the DFA sit with a grain of salt; the author is afterall a dentist, not an animal health professional. Especially in light all of the dietary DCM cases popping up in dogs on 5* rated foods. At the end of the day, the best dry dog food is the one that your dog likes, does well on, and that you can afford. For the time being, until more is known about the DCM issue, I personally am choosing to stick to well-researched and established brands (Royal Canin, Purina Pro Plan, Science Diet, Eukaneuba) but wouldn't mind feeding Farmina or Victor, since they haven't had any reported cases (they're just not available where I live).

I totally agree with this assessment. The breeder was feeding my puppy Purina Pro Plan Sport. I was going to change her over to a higher end food. But given the DCM issue I have decided to leave her on the Pro Plan which she just loves. By the way, you can get both Farmina and Victor here and it is a great company with outstanding customer service. https://www.chewy.com/s?query=Farmina&nav-submit-button=

 

[Mutts]

I totally agree with this assessment. The breeder was feeding my puppy Purina Pro Plan Sport. I was going to change her over to a higher end food. But given the DCM issue I have decided to leave her on the Pro Plan which she just loves. By the way, you can get both Farmina and Victor here and it is a great company with outstanding customer service. https://www.chewy.com/s?query=Farmina&nav-submit-button=

Canadian here! So Chewy is not an option unfortunately. Not that it matters, my dog has been doing fantastic on her rx food

 

[ForTheLoveOfDogs]

I take everything on the DFA sit with a grain of salt; the author is afterall a dentist, not an animal health professional. Especially in light all of the dietary DCM cases popping up in dogs on 5* rated foods. At the end of the day, the best dry dog food is the one that your dog likes, does well on, and that you can afford. For the time being, until more is known about the DCM issue, I personally am choosing to stick to well-researched and established brands (Royal Canin, Purina Pro Plan, Science Diet, Eukaneuba) but wouldn't mind feeding Farmina or Victor, since they haven't had any reported cases (they're just not available where I live).

Agreed with this. I personally won't feed the big 4 yet (mmmaaaybe some PP formulas) but with the current DCM thing I would stay far away from anything with lots of Peas, Lentils and Potatoes. Peas are actually a cheaper filler than corn, that have been giving breeders issues with fertility in recent years. Acana and Zingature dog foods are loaded with them.. and have been linked to several cases of diet induced DCM (aka, a heart killing disease). Lots of people have been switching to the big 4 with no issues and good results.. so.. *shrug*. I personally like Farmina and agree with Victor being a pretty safe choice as far as DCM goes. Even Fromm has had some sketchy results. :/

 

[Sanne]

I personally like Farmina more than any brand. That is what I feed my dog and could not be happier with it. I like how responsive the company is and that it is made right here in Europe. Annamaet is good too but I have had the best digestive results with Farmina. As a pup, Zuna was raised on Royal Canin (along with premade raw) and I had no problems with it. It is very popular here and consistently shows good results. It was just very expensive for what you get which is why I ended up trying Farmina in the first place.

I have never liked many grain free foods, never saw the point in them. We have not had any food related DCM cases in Europe that I am aware of, but I still keep up with the info on it. It has only made me avoid those types of foods even more. They have never been very popular here though, most popular foods here use rice, barely, or sweet potato as the carb source and I like it that way.

DFA... eh I have browsed on there some and I really do not like that guy who runs it haha. Anything with high protein and moderate fat gets 5 stars. I have seen him making posts pretty much disregarding the whole DCM thing and saying that all the law suits against these foods for heavy metals are "frivolous". He apparently even censored some website that claims to have tested some brands for toxins. True or not, censoring? Really?? Nothing more ignorant than being closed minded and blocking anything that might disagree with you. I think the icing on the cake for me is that he has some lists of "best dog foods".. that you have to pay for to look at LOL

 

[Francl27]

Agreed with this. I personally won't feed the big 4 yet (mmmaaaybe some PP formulas) but with the current DCM thing I would stay far away from anything with lots of Peas, Lentils and Potatoes. Peas are actually a cheaper filler than corn, that have been giving breeders issues with fertility in recent years. Acana and Zingature dog foods are loaded with them.. and have been linked to several cases of diet induced DCM (aka, a heart killing disease). Lots of people have been switching to the big 4 with no issues and good results.. so.. *shrug*. I personally like Farmina and agree with Victor being a pretty safe choice as far as DCM goes. Even Fromm has had some sketchy results. :/

Same thing here. Too many questionable ingredients in 'the big 4' for me. There's more to health than just the DCM issue IMO. Just avoiding peas, lentils, and potatoes. But yes, I know that a lot of people feed Royal Canin, there are just too many things I don't like in that food.

Farmina is super expensive and my local pet shop doesn't sell it (they don't see Victor either). Mine are on Ammanaet right now, and it's not cheap either, but it's actually on sale at that shop, so I'll probably go and get a few more bags (just not the grain free one). I do try to rotate foods every 2-3 bags though... just in case. They were on Holistic Select before. Maybe Nutrisource after.

I used to swear by dogfoodadvisor too but I don't like the way they've been handling the DCM thing. They STILL recommend foods with peas or lentils, and I just don't get it. Honestly... even most food companies have handled it poorly. Taste of the Wild told me that 'it's ok because they add taurine', but apparently it's really not just about taurine... I don't agree with the way a lot of local shops have been dealing with it either - the one I went to says 'do your research, nothing is proven yet', but that's pretty much denial as far as I'm concerned.

 

[NadiaK]

I have seen Farmina ,recommended several times. Yet the food is not made in the US. The factories are in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Indija, Serbia, and Naples, Italy.
Is that of concern to anyone? I would be very hesitant to feed anything made in another country.

 

[Sanne]

I have seen Farmina ,recommended several times. Yet the food is not made in the US. The factories are in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Indija, Serbia, and Naples, Italy.
Is that of concern to anyone? I would be very hesitant to feed anything made in another country.

Well for me I live in Europe so not uncomfortable for me. The foods sold to US are made in Italy, I believe the food sold in Europe comes from both Italy and Serbia. The other factories market to a completely different consumer, where most of there other lines are made. Farmina discloses where they source all their ingredients, meat from Italy and New Zealand and fish from the North Sea which is one of the cleanest. Regulations that have to be met to label meat as free range is stricter in comparison to the US from what I understand. I personally always prefer to stick to foods made in Europe even though we have some decent made in USA brands here, I trust our food quality more. The EU has stricter rules when it comes to dog food than the FDA. That is why even Pedigree made here lacks all the dyes, BHA, BHT, and other added chemicals. I say feed whatever makes you comfortable though. Not worth to feed anything if you are stressed about the quality.

 

[NadiaK]

Well for me I live in Europe so not uncomfortable for me. The foods sold to US are made in Italy, I believe the food sold in Europe comes from both Italy and Serbia. The other factories market to a completely different consumer, where most of there other lines are made. Farmina discloses where they source all their ingredients, meat from Italy and New Zealand and fish from the North Sea which is one of the cleanest. Regulations that have to be met to label meat as free range is stricter in comparison to the US from what I understand. I personally always prefer to stick to foods made in Europe even though we have some decent made in USA brands here, I trust our food quality more. The EU has stricter rules when it comes to dog food than the FDA. That is why even Pedigree made here lacks all the dyes, BHA, BHT, and other added chemicals. I say feed whatever makes you comfortable though. Not worth to feed anything if you are stressed about the quality.

Thank you for explaining that.

 

[oldNgray]

At the end of the day, the best dry dog food is the one that your dog likes, does well on, and that you can afford.

I absolutely agree! My last dog was very picky. He flat out refused to eat some of the better foods. We finally settled on Beneful, which is considered a fairly low-end food. But my pooch loved it, his coat was shiny and he maintained a healthy weight on the food. Affordability was a bonus for me as well.

With my current pup, I went with Nutro Ultra puppy food. I had researched several brands and chose to go with Nutro for all the reasons Mutts mentioned, plus it is available locally. No online ordering or delivery hassles. My girl has been on it a short time (8 weeks) but seems to enjoy it and her dull puppy coat has been replaced with sleek, shiny fur. For now, I have no plans to change her diet.

 

[gingerkid]

The best food is one that your dog does well and you can afford. If it has named meats or meat meals as the first ingredient, that's good too, for a variety of reasons.

I feed almost exclusively foods manufactured outside of the US (because I live in Canada, and foods made here are MUCH more cost-effective than US-made brands that are imported). I also wouldn't hesitate to feed foods manufactured within the EU.

Someone else brought up the concerns about DCM; as someone who's job it is to critically appraise health research, what's been published on the issue so far worries me. Not because of the potential link between the foods and DCM (DCM absolutely can have a dietary component). Rather, what concerns me are the highly biased nature of the recruitment strategy, the incomplete reporting of results and differential reporting of results by group, and the indirect ties between several of the authors and the big pet food companies. I also have other concerns around the timing and content of the initial reports linking DCM to certain diets (which named a specific "boutique" brand which a pet food giant tried to purchase shortly after), as well as publication of the most recent studies (which were followed shortly by more take-over attempts of that boutique food company).

I am not generally a conspiracy theorist, and there certainly is evidence that diet can play a role in the development of DCM - but the research that's been provided so far does not convince me that it's linked to a specific type of diet. Linda Case wrote an excellent article on what we do, and do not, know about DCM and it's link to grain-free diet: https://thesciencedog.com/2018/08/30/the-heart-of-the-matter/