Healthy and inexpensive dog foods......what do you endorse?

I switched my 2 cats to Taste of the Wild a few months ago and they seem to love it and are very healthy. Good price for a good food IMO. Maybe see if you can get some samples from the company to try on your dog (s). :-)

I use Blue Buffalo for my dog now, but I don’t consider that inexpensive.

For my Akita, who would eat me out of my budget, I had used Pedigree.

Whatever you decide, buy the biggest size you can to get the value.

Both my cats and dog are fed Taste of the Wild where its not cheap, I buy the largest bag they have and it takes a while for them to go through it. If you look at the labels in the store you can see the price per unit goes down the larger bag you get. If a different size is on sale then I look to see if the unit price for the size bag thats on sale is cheaper then I just go with what ever has the lower unit price either the large bag or a few smaller ones.

One reason I get it delivered is that I get the big bags. I cant carry a big one in a store. Maybe it will be good to keep the service.

If I go to the pet store and comparison shop, what do I look for in healthier foods? low moisture level, high protein?? what numbers do I focus on besides price?

does walmart have just as good quality. Iams?

Usually “inexpensive” and “healthy” are hard to find in the same bag. I used to buy TOTW but with 2 dogs it was getting hard, but I get TOTW cat food because so far they don’t puke like they used to every once in a while. I really dislike stepping in cat puke while half asleep or any other time really.
Although not entirely grain free I use “Victor” brand dog food in the purple bag. I get 40lbs for about 28 bucks and it’s rated high in one of the dog food rating blogs. It looks almost like TOTW and so far both out dogs are doing well. There’s a higher protein mix for real working dogs in the red bag that I had to get once because the store was out of the purple so I have that one saved back as our emergency supply in case something crazy happens and I can’t get to the city.
If I had my ‘druthers I would go with TOTW in the gold bag. They really liked that alot and it smells pretty good although I can’t vouch for the taste.

I have to really fight back the cringe reflex when I’m in Wallyword and see a big honkin’ bag of Ol Roy in someone’s shopping basket. That stuff is really shit. And I feel fortunate I can get my dogs what I do.

There is truth to the old adage “You get what you pay for”.

I think people are overpaying for O.R.

The trend in human nutrition is to stay away from processed foods. If it doesn’t rot it is not good for you. If you don’t recognize it as what it says it is on the label, then it is probably processed to hell and back. From my own personal experience I have been in the dog biz for 35 years. There is no doubt that when people started feeding stuff out of a bag instead of table scraps, dogs began to join the obesity parade, develop massive skin and ear infections as well as many other internal ailments that vets treat. I cynically think that vets are recommending bagged food these days because they are selling it themselves. I don’t buy my groceries at my doctor’s office why would I do it for my dog???

If you search diligently you can feed your dog real food, chicken frames, necks, offal, table scraps, etc. for a reasonable cost. I like BARF for my dogs. Last year I lost a 14 year old akita who had been on it since I adopted him, that is a ripe old age for an akita, I have a 14 year old little brown dog right now who has been on it virtually all of her life.

Now many dogs do live a long life on bagged or canned food, there is no doubt. And there is also no doubt that some people smoke their entire life and do not develop lung cancer or smoking related illnesses, but I am not taking the chance so I don’t smoke and neither do I eat processed foods or feed it to my dogs.

What is BARF?

Bones and Raw Food is what it stands for but it has come to mean feeding a natural diet with real food such as dogs would have eaten on their own. Similar to the Paleo diet for people.

Cheap dog food (loaded with dyes and chemicals) caused more than one pet to have skin problems (rashes, itching) and the vet bills were much more than anything i saved at the grocery store.