Comments on: Opinion on dog food ingredients?

By: Dane Lover

Dane Lover — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:01:00 +0000

This food has way too much grain (rice) and not enough meat protein. It is not a very good quality food.

By: anon

anon — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:36:06 +0000

I think you could get a food with less rice and more protein in it. It has an awful lot of rice at the beginning of the ingredients list. I have been told that you should have at least 2 protein sources (it can be a meat or a meat “meal” ) in the first 5 ingredients. Nutro Natural Choice is better than Nutro Max, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet. Some other brands you may want to consider are listed below;

Canidae
Solid Gold
Natural Balance
Wellness
Innova

By: W.

W. — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:22:03 +0000

VERY little meat content and lots of grains and grain by products-ie,ground rice,rice gluten,rice bran-all by products and fragments. There are much better choices available.
I’d rather see meat in meal form as the “whole” meat form includes water.

By: Showtunes

Showtunes — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:00:29 +0000

It is unlikely there is enough meat. Its a single meat, then 3 rices which most likely add up to much greater volume than the meat.

Protein content will be essentially a lie as protein from rice and rice gluten are not processed well by dogs.

Better than most foods, but it looks like theyre making an effort to hide the amount of rice vs. the amount of meat.

By: ladybug_777_18

ladybug_777_18 — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 04:19:04 +0000

Sounds great. There is one thing I have heard about Nutro. It can be hard for dogs to switch over to it. Not all dogs. But like changing any food I suggest not doing it all at once but mix slowing with the old food until your dog is only on Nutro. But Nutro is great food.

By: Chalice

Chalice — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 05:10:40 +0000

Whoa, that is a LOT of ingredients!

If it is Nutro, I’m not familiar with this brand or even it’s reputation, so my answer is unbiased. From the list of ingredients I’m a bit dubious – there are a LOT of chemicals here. L-Lysine is an OK one, it’s used to encourage fat metabolism, but the sheer number of others make me say Hmm. There is also added salt in here which is not really a welcomed thing.

Also, if this is indeed a diet for sensitive stomachs then I’m also surprised, the idea with sensitivity diets is to have a short list of plain ingredients – simple and digestible proteins and carbs. So my opinion is: hmmm.

EDIT: Yeah, as Loki_Wolfchild said, you could do better. However the inclusion of various rices shouldn’t be a cause for concern if this is a product for sensitivity, this is a standard ingredient for such cases. So – is this a diet for sensitive stomachs??
Chalice

By: Amanda K

Amanda K — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 06:43:41 +0000

It seems to have a lot of grain — only one meat source, and fat is the 6th ingredient. I would say that there are a lot of other foods that your dog would be better off eating. Try Canidae or Innova.

By: Lucky, Lucy, and Lexy's Mom

Lucky, Lucy, and Lexy's Mom — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:11:15 +0000

Sounds like it could be Natural Balance, also – what does the brand matter?. Whatever brand it is, it has good quality ingredients.

By: Loki_Wolfchild

Loki_Wolfchild — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:09:10 +0000

It sounds like they’re trying to be decent, but here’s where I have problems:

Venison Meal as 1st ingredient: Good that the 1st ingredient (most by volume) is a protein source, but a whole meat source (i.e. Venison, not Venison Meal) would be better.

Various bits of rice as the next 4 ingedients: Again, ingredients are listed from most to least. Separated, this doesn’t seem like much, but if you lump them all together, that’s a hell of a lot of rice — much more than the meat source.

Poultry Fat: I hate unspecific ingredients. What consititutes “Poultry”?

Rice Flour: More rice! Yeesh!!

Natural Flavors: You should never have to add flavor to a dog food — the ingredients alone should be of sufficient quality to attract the dog’s interest.

Salt: No added salt in dog food! All it’s there for is to induce the dog to eat. They shouldn’t have to add salt to make the food palatable.

Garlic Flavor: Why??

The addition of Glucosamine and Chondroiton are nice, but I’m blown away by all of the carbohydrates in the food — in addition to all of the rice, there’s beet pulp *and* potatoes.

I prefer meat-based dog food.

You could do better. Try Canidae or, if you can afford it, Innova or Solid Gold.

ADDED: had to go hunt down this website — check it out, it’s a great resource:

The Whole Dog Journal also does good dog food reviews.

By: ashley

ashley — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:10:59 +0000

No corn and no by-product—GOOD JOB! lol.

***in reference to the answer ABOVE-whatever the brand people should always look for corn and by-product and skip any food that has it. There are other quality foods other then Nutro**