Feeding generic dog food brands

Essentially, what matters is total calories and the percentage of nutrients. Digestability is a big factor too - the ratio of useable - digestable - nutrients to calories is the "nutrient density" of the food. The higher the nutrient density, the less food the critter needs to eat, more or less. You wanna avoid "empty calories". Another guage of digestability is stool size and conformation - you can tell pretty much without any foreknowledge of what you're looking for whether or not what goes in is being processed efficiently by examining what comes out.

As usual, timber, you're dead on target. Digestibility is the key difference, and you can't tell that from looking at the ingredient list on the label. I've been feeding Hill's for over thirty years, mainly because a couple of my classmates worked for them, and I considered them to be a trustworthy outfit. Things may have changed during the past three decades, I admit, but my dog is still doing just fine on it.

You are right on Timber.

I just tried Purina Mainstay ( generic purina) and ...... well..
her poop looks like food. And there is too much of it. That isnt normal for her at all.
Sheessh.. if my poop looked like my breakfast, I would know there was something wrong.


Anyone have any opinions / experience with Nutro Max?
That is the other brand I was considering.. and a vet told me that for a cheap-ish brand, it was a pretty good quality food. ?

Here is the lowdown. I used to be a manager at a PetSmart.

Corn, whey, soy are all fillers meant to literally fill the dog up without using expensive ingredients such as chicken, beef or other meats.

If you can, buy food that does not have corn or corn meal listed in the first 5 ingredients. Those are the best foods for doggie. But you can't always get those foods so the farther down the list corn is, the better. They will be hungrier more often and have much more waste on grain based foods than meat based foods. And the levels of crude protien and fat are far less in grain based.

Also, many dogs have a sensitivity to wheat and corn (believe it or not!) because dogs are not MEANT to eat it! They are carnivors, not vegitarians.

Science Diet, Eukunuba, Iams....all more expensive foods and really in the end no better than most cheap kibble out there. They contain a lot of filler. They aren't BAD foods. Just not the best you can get for your money and they've always been touted as being good dog foods.

Just to show you the difference in cost of food....

Let's pick Purina Dog Chow, a pretty cheap food.



Protien 21%
Fat 10%

A better choice but not the best choice is Iams.



Protien 26%
Fat 15%

This is a grain based food and therefor not the best for your dog.
Better than Chow but not as good as the next food.

Nutro is a decent food. About comparable to Iams in price and on the whole I'd say a smidgen better than Iams in quality.



Protien 26%
Fat 12%

Chicken Soup for the Pet Lovers Soul (cheesy, I know) is a great food for the price.



Protien 24%
Fat 14%

Shewolf just told me it's $18 for a $50 bag there!!!!!!

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Just read the lables. Dry food is cheaper and better for your dog than wet food. Keeps their teeth healthy and their stools nice and firm (I know, fun isn't it?) Watch out for fillers. You want about 25% crude protien and 15% crude fat.