I am not wild about foods that are filled with grain. You may want to look around the food section here and read some of the other threads, and stickies at the top. For what you're paying I think you could get a higher quality food. But remember, it all comes down to what the dog will eat, how the dog does on the food (coat, teeth, breath, stools, energy), availability, and cost. YOu may want to find an independent dog food store, take the dog and your concerns, along with a short list of foods you could like (if your dog likes them) and see if they have some free small sample bags for you to try before you buy. That way you can see if your dog likes the food before buying a bag of it. Most of the small food stores will have samples. The big box stores do not. Petco seems to carry more high quality brands, at least in my area. And if all you have is Petsmart they carry Blue Buffalo.

And I would rather feed a higher quality brand that my dog likes rather than mix in wet food with the kibble. I believe that if you start accomodating to the dog's needs they can get very picky about eating. But if you find a food that your dog likes, meal time shouldn't be a problem.

Lastly, if you are not already, feed the dog only twice per day if he is over 6 months old. If you leave food out all day dogs don't see any reason to eat now, and it can also lead to pickiness as the food is always available so why hurry.

 

Hi,

Firstly, I do not think Iams is better than Royal Canin. Of course if your dog doesn't eat the Royal Canin, it doesn't matter how good it is.

I do think it is perfectly fine to add wet food to the dry, to make it more palatable. What soft food are you feeding?

You can also add lightly cooked chicken and vegetables (small amounts) to your dogs food, these are healthy additions to a dogs diet so long as you do not add any spices to the "human" food.

 

I add the soft puppy food from Iams, lamb and rice because that's the dry food the vet said was best for him. I stopped using royal canine because it was a food i'd never herd of before and I wanted to make sure it wasn't the reason for his very soft poops. I feel confortable with Iams because it's what my mom has been feeding her cats ever since they were kittens and I'm famillar with it.
We have petco around this area, and yesterday while I was there buying some different treats for our puppy class, they had the "basic" selection. Science Diet, Iams, Pedigree, Eukanuba(sp) beniful, Royal Canine. They also had Old Roy and Kibbles and Bits, but I know that they are sooo bad for your dog, so I don't even consider them options.

He eats the dry food alone, But most of the time he just walks away. When I add the Tiny bit of soft food he eats it all in one sitting, like in a five minutes. I only feed him twice a day about a cup in a half devided between them. He's almost 4 months.

 

It sounds like you have it figured it out.. If Marley is gaining weight and has no "potty" problems than stick with your current program!

 

One thing I want to mention is that my vet pushes science diet. The reason why is because they sell it. We used to feed science diet because it was recommended by our old vets as well, but then we actually started looking at the labels and ingredients and realized what we were feeding our dogs.

All vets really aren't good to give nutrition advice...

The dog food project is a good place to start looking. http://www.dogfoodproject.com/

Most foods from large name stores are filled with fillers and by products.

Briteday has given some great advice.