Horse Slaughter Illegal In Tx!

IsaP · Post by **IsaP** » 17 years ago

That's why I said generic. I don't feed my dog generic because he's allergic to corn, wheat, and most notably, beef. I don't feed my cats generic because corn is just pet candy, and I raise show cats. But gravy train and Old Roy are two big ones. Try telling some of the "good old boys" around here not to feed their dogs Old Roy, the main staple of huntin' dawgs everywhere. You'd cause a riot.

LaDonna King · Post by **LaDonna King** » 17 years ago

LOTS of pet food companies still use byproducts from rendering plants. while science diet and some of those other GROSSLY overpriced foods don't use meat from rendering plants, a lot of STORE BRANDS do.....and at the rendering plants, they do NOT seperate the dead horses from the cows, sheep, goats, or other dead animals they pick up on a daily basis. they cook all the animals together....and that meat HAS to go somewhere...generally to the lesser brand pet food companies.

S.C. Burns · Post by **S.C. Burns** » 17 years ago

But, as you said...store brand.

Seriously, if there's one thing I have learned from 27 years of owning all kinds of animals, and from working at an animal shelter where I was personally in charge of making sure the animals were eating well, it is this:

Spend the money and buy the better food. Stay away from anything which lists corn as one of the first few ingredients. It has no nutritional value (unless you consider making your dog fart a value), and is a filler. There are plenty of brands out there that are YES more expensive, but 100% worth the price. My dog is 9 years old, but has been fed good food all of her life, and has NO health problems. She isn't arthritic, she isn't fat, she has great skin and a great coat. Her teeth are great, as well.

Like I said before, you get what you pay for...if you don't want your dog or cat to eat mystery meat, then buy the brand that lists all of its ingredients in a detailed way. My personal favorite is Blue Buffalo, because they use human grade ingredients. Yes, it is expensive (although realistically, spending only $35 per month isn't bad), but it is so worth it. My dog loves it.

IsaP · Post by **IsaP** » 17 years ago

Unfortunately, I can't feed Blue in my house. I have a domestic shorthair from my pre-show days who had a seizure a month when he was on the Blue. We switched to Evo, and he came back but became a blimp. Now, I feed Authority Lite. Unfortunately, it has corn in it but once I get my paperwork complete with Royal Canin, I'll be feeding the Queen formula. Why? L-Lysine. The one and only approved treatment and prevention of Occular Herpes in cats. And that's the only reason why I'm feeding authority until the paperwork comes through. It has L-Lysine, too. The only other feed I know that has it baked in is unfortunately never in stock at the PetCo.
As for the dog, he often has to follow the same rules as the cats on what he's allowed to eat. Authority Dog is... ok... but he's going on the Royal Canin too once I switch the kids over. It's just easier to maintain a diet when everyone eats the same brand.
Believe me.. I once spent three hours trying to explain to a man in Georgia why Alpo was NOT a balanced meal for his dog. I also don't like Science Diet. I don't care what the vets say when they endorse it. I've read the ingredients.. Corn is the #1 ingredient in the adult formulas.

Sarah Chase · Post by **Sarah Chase** » 17 years ago

I feed raw when I can, and Eagle Pack, Innova, or the Honest Kitchen when I can't. It always irks me when I see vets handing out Science Diet and Eukanuba.

LaDonna King · Post by **LaDonna King** » 17 years ago

one thing i've learned from having vets as family memebers and friends, the high priced dog foods are hype to make money from people who are crazy enough to spend it. sure there are a FEW, and i do mean FEW, who are allergic to common ingredients...however, they are few and far between. i find it quite hilarious to hear people say dogs NEED the high priced food. why would they need it? they are DOGS!!! designed to hunt/kill/and eat their MEAT raw. i've yet to find a dog who prefers to go out in the garden and pick some peas and carrots to eat. if they are in the garden, it's usually digging up a rabbit hole. lay a steak and a bowl of rice in front of a dog, see which he goes after. just because it makes people feel better to spend top dollar on dog food does not mean it is better for the dog. years ago, eukanuba was the big name....but now it's considered junk. amazing how it's gone down in quality but not in price. corn...sure it's just a filler, but it's also fiber. everybody needs fiber. what goes in must come out...and the corn helps in that area. i do try to get dog food that lists corn lower down on the list(i don't like dog farts either), but a little corn doesn't hurt.i think corn will start going further down on the list on ALL dog food though....with all the ethanol plants popping up all around, heck, the price for horse feed has gone up significantly in the last couple months because of the ethanol plants.
i know of a dog, yellow lab, who's pushing 20 and he's alive and doing well. farm dog. still hunts, swims in the river, and even chases a squirrel or 2 every now and then....that dog has lived on walmart dogfood the last 10 years. i don't care about hype, i care about results.....and those high priced dog foods are nothing but hype. the vets only push them because they are paid to do so.
as far as working in animal shelters.....they run on donations. i think it's HORRIBLE to beg for FREE dog food and require it to be top brands/high priced dog foods...or even requested. if you run a shelter, you should take what you can get. i think it's crazy to feed a dog food that costs $5 per pound only to be euthanized in a few days. even no kill shelters should take what they can get. food is food when it comes down to survival. we don't need caviar to survive.

IsaP · Post by **IsaP** » 17 years ago

Sarah Chase wrote: I feed raw when I can, and Eagle Pack, Innova, or the Honest Kitchen when I can't. It always irks me when I see vets handing out Science Diet and Eukanuba.

I'd love your raw diet recipe if you can spare it. I currently have my best show cat on a raw rabbit/chicken/salmon/tuna mix that I hand-made and added some vitamins to. He loves it, but one day, I'll run out, and I can't for the life of me remember the name of the raw guy. So.. rabbit will go bye bye soon.

Heh.. drives salesmen nuts when I call it "Puke-aneuba"

Sarah Chase · Post by **Sarah Chase** » 17 years ago

IsaP wrote:
Sarah Chase wrote: I feed raw when I can, and Eagle Pack, Innova, or the Honest Kitchen when I can't. It always irks me when I see vets handing out Science Diet and Eukanuba.
I'd love your raw diet recipe if you can spare it. I currently have my best show cat on a raw rabbit/chicken/salmon/tuna mix that I hand-made and added some vitamins to. He loves it, but one day, I'll run out, and I can't for the life of me remember the name of the raw guy. So.. rabbit will go bye bye soon.

Heh.. drives salesmen nuts when I call it "Puke-aneuba"

For my dog, but I basically follow the "prey model" approach. Meat, raw bones, raw eggs a few times a week, mix in some salmon every so often or add salmon oil to the food. Sometimes I'll scoop in some plain yogurt or pumpkin for fiber. I keep an eye on his waist and poop and adjust from there! I also supplement with glucosamine, alfalfa, kelp, and Vitamin C.

I heard about a study where some scientists fed one group of cats raw or something and the other group generic food ...I think it turned out that the healthier fed cats had better luck producing kittens. Do you know which one I'm talking about? It's been a while, I can't remember anything ...

There's a local meat company that I buy frozen 20 pound boxes of chicken backs and necks from for a low rate per pound. I have no idea if cats can eat chicken backs, but there's a lot of good bone in there.

I like the ingredients of Innova Evo (no grain), but my parents' dog didn't like the taste much and we tried some Eagle Pack instead and she likes it a lot better. I have a big pail of the Honest Kitchen (Embark formula, I think) as well.

------

LaDonna, I totally agree about the stupidity of vets pushing the high priced foods they're given to sell by the Hills Company et al ...if corn works for you, cool, but I much prefer pumpkin and sweet potato for fiber. LOL at the dog farts - yes, I've smelled many a dog fart, and let me tell you, they're worse than human farts.

S.C. Burns · Post by **S.C. Burns** » 17 years ago

IsaP wrote: Unfortunately, I can't feed Blue in my house. I have a domestic shorthair from my pre-show days who had a seizure a month when he was on the Blue. We switched to Evo, and he came back but became a blimp. Now, I feed Authority Lite. Unfortunately, it has corn in it but once I get my paperwork complete with Royal Canin, I'll be feeding the Queen formula. Why? L-Lysine. The one and only approved treatment and prevention of Occular Herpes in cats. And that's the only reason why I'm feeding authority until the paperwork comes through. It has L-Lysine, too. The only other feed I know that has it baked in is unfortunately never in stock at the PetCo.
As for the dog, he often has to follow the same rules as the cats on what he's allowed to eat. Authority Dog is... ok... but he's going on the Royal Canin too once I switch the kids over. It's just easier to maintain a diet when everyone eats the same brand.
Believe me.. I once spent three hours trying to explain to a man in Georgia why Alpo was NOT a balanced meal for his dog. I also don't like Science Diet. I don't care what the vets say when they endorse it. I've read the ingredients.. Corn is the #1 ingredient in the adult formulas.

At the shelter, we gave L-Lysine as a supplement in their wet food...with so many cats together, in under stress, it was the only thing we could do to keep ALL of them from going from Upper Respiratory...

IsaP · Post by **IsaP** » 17 years ago

I don't see why not.. L-Lysine is about the cheapest suppliment you can find, and it has such wonderful results. As for the raw diet producing more kittens.. Lynn (the woman who breeds cats, and I take care of them) leased a girl from a woman up north. Lynn is notorious for feeding 'crap food', which drives me nuts! (her arguement - But the cats LOVE Special Kitty *shudder* At least buy the Walmart brand, woman!) This cat came from a home that fed Blue Ridge Beef (one of the raw food producers in the area). Her litter back home was 6 kittens, and the one she delivered here was 8! I don't know if that was the effects of the food she had been raised on or not. But I do notice that my show boy stopped having runny eye syndrome and started feeling softer and looking shinier when he went from dry to raw.
From what a vet friend has told me, cats really should be fed a raw diet. They're true carnivores and if they get any fiber, it should be rice. Dogs, on the other hand, are a bit more omniverous, and the dry food isn't terrible, but boy! You should see their Doberman SHINE, and they refuse to feed dry food.
Shiny coat is a nutritional-based perk. I tend to groom the cats before shows for two women, Lynn and Laura. Laura feeds raw and Evo with a bit of homemade turkey mixed in, Lynn feeds Special Kitty and Friskies with Whiskas mixed in *shudder**shudder*. Despite the shampoos and the mink oils and the buffing them dry (something that amazed them that I picked up from grooming horses), the cats that ended up with a better, easier to maintain finish were........
Laura's
(her litter sizes aren't any different.. she typically gets about 5 for Korat litters and 2-5 for Aby. And she had a singleton litter with 1 kitten, so I'm not sure about the litter thing..)