Pet food recommendations

Shadowfire

We are looking to change a couple of the pet foods we use for some different reasons. Looking around online is hard because the advice is various levels of "feeding your animal X is abuse," and I trust the judgement of folks around here. The ones in question:

Friskies wet: I know it's awful. This is a one can every day or two food for one of our cats who still eats dry food, but we like to give him some extra. He has varying levels of tooth pain, so the wet food is a bonus when he's having trouble.

Blue small adult: our doggo is a 12 pound Chihuahua who likes to eat. I've been reading some not great things about Blue lately, and we're looking to switch. He's small so he doesn't eat a ton.

Cost is a moderate concern. We can't be spending $2 per can of cat food, but we're ok with more than we are spending now. Same goes for the dog food, we don't mind going up a little bit since we're already spending about $16-18 for a six pound bag.

davidsdurions

We feed our 10 year old chihuahua and 5 year old yorkie Science Diet. They appear to be healthy and happy their entire lives. I have to get it from Amazon because nowhere around here sells it any longer.

ceres

I'm a big fan of the Wellness brand. It could be cheaper but I've seen worse. You may be able to find it somewhere in bulk for a lower price.

It's kind of like people though. Some can eat good food and have horrible health problems from a relatively young age, and some can eat garbage 7 days a week their whole lives and live to be 105. The first is my husband's mother, and the second is her mother. Her mother was a terrible person, so she's kind of resentful.

You should be feeding them as well as you can, but once you get to a certain quality level it's a roll of genetic dice. Whatever brand you decide on, I do recommend you try for grain free. In my experience, it really does matter.

dispatch.o

Dental pain means extractions are necessary in my experience.

Evo is good food. Really any of the food you can get at a pet store that is limited ingredient and has a good amount of protein will be better. I recommend Evo but that's just preference.

With higher protein content foods, they need to eat less so bag size/weight gets kind of hard to judge.

Edit: Blue used to be considered decent food too. I think they're owned by Purina or something now though and reviews have gotten very bad.

Oricalm

My golden has a bit of a sensitive stomach. I too, have not heard the best from Blue and my Vet suggested moving away from it back when he was having some tummy troubles (while on their puppy food).

We've got him on WholeHearted grain free/limited ingredient which has been working for him for a while now. Specifically the duck/lentil version.

I will second the Hill's/science diet brand though. My prior dog was on that and she never had tummy troubles, but the local pet store stopped carrying it in between dogs.

zepherin

For our Havanese we use Halo Grain free and Halo pumpkin chews for his teeth and his butt (pumpkin helps with the glands).

If I decided to get a cat, I would probably buy their cat food as well.

We've also considered moving to Acana grain free.

djmitchella

We give our cat 'taste of the wild' dry food, and it's fine (and also the bag is pretty great):



and we've been using Wellness wet food for ages.

Shadowfire

dispatch.o wrote: »

Dental pain means extractions are necessary in my experience.

A bit about this cat: he's had eight teeth removed already. He is one of the cats that has actual feline herpes flare ups, and one of the side effects is bad teeth. However, he also has heart problems, and since the mouth pain is only occasional, we have to let it go until specific times as directed by his kitty cardiologist. So that's a mess.

dispatch.o

Shadowfire wrote: »

dispatch.o wrote: »

Dental pain means extractions are necessary in my experience.

A bit about this cat: he's had eight teeth removed already. He is one of the cats that has actual feline herpes flare ups, and one of the side effects is bad teeth. However, he also has heart problems, and since the mouth pain is only occasional, we have to let it go until specific times as directed by his kitty cardiologist. So that's a mess.

I have a cat in a similar situation and ended out with a full mouth extraction. Something that helped was putting hot water on the food to soften it and make sure it's not cold. It helped mine quite a bit. I'd say if he has to get teeth pulled again, advocate for getting them all done at once. Repeated anesthesia/x-rays are a rip-off. Dental stuff is a money maker for dishonest veterinary offices.

tinwhiskers

We feed our dags Fromms - large breed adult, obviously not applicable - and its been ez street for 10+ years now. Prices are pretty reasonable, I think its about $60 for a 30lb bag.

Also, I'm reporting this thread for lack of pictures.

ceres

Yes they do need to eat less on a grain free diet.

One of my cats had a wholllle bunch of teeth extracted last year due to something I didn't notice for way too long, and I haven't stopped feeling terrible about it since. She's had one or two of the symptoms since we got her when she was a kitten (super foul breath and poops), and since we picked her up from a vet and she smelled that way then I figured if they said she was fine then she was. :P Yeah that was my bad. It's not like she hadn't been to a vet since though... anyway yeah, definitely still feel bad about that one. The point is, even though she has so few teeth, she still doesn't want to eat wet food, so we get her the dry kind and try to keep up with the water. The only way she can handle it is if we keep the dish really full. I guess she has an easier time that way. Wellness Core has a soft version of the dry food which is a LOT more, but she still wanted the hard kibble. In a way I'm relieved because the chewy stuff costs nearly twice as much.

I think Blue also had a number of issues a while back with contamination or something. I used to hear it's good but it always made me nervous after that, and Wellness Core (indoor) works so well for our cats, and my parents' pom's health improved drastically after they switched to Wellness from whatever garbage they were feeding her for years.

Orogogus

I feed my cats the Wellness Core canned cat food, which is a generally well-reviewed grain-free line, and has an indoor cat option. A few years ago one of my cats started getting high urinary pH on it, though, and I switched to Wild Calling. But that one doesn't have an indoor cat flavor, and my other cat got fat while still being hungry all the time. So I went back to the Wellness Core Indoor canned formula, supplemented by urinary pH control dry food for the first cat, and he seems to be okay now.

EDIT

This cat had the urinary pH problems:

This cat got fat:

Deadfall

I've been using Blue for just a hair under ten years now (adult large breed) and never had a problem with it.

Tofystedeth

tinwhiskers wrote: »

We feed our dags Fromms - large breed adult, obviously not applicable - and its been ez street for 10+ years now. Prices are pretty reasonable, I think its about $60 for a 30lb bag.

Also, I'm reporting this thread for lack of pictures.

I also feed my cats Fromm grain free. Pretty reasonably priced and they love it and are fairly healthy.
One has bad teeth and a heart murmur but that's been the case with him forever.

Shadowfire

tinwhiskers wrote: »

Also, I'm reporting this thread for lack of pictures.

I wanted to post pictures, but I can't from my phone because they're too big. Problem solved.

This is Roscoe.

Bonus picture of Roscoe sleeping.

And Wrex.

Lazy asshole.

Shadowfire

Tofystedeth wrote: »

tinwhiskers wrote: »

We feed our dags Fromms - large breed adult, obviously not applicable - and its been ez street for 10+ years now. Prices are pretty reasonable, I think its about $60 for a 30lb bag.

Also, I'm reporting this thread for lack of pictures.

I also feed my cats Fromm grain free. Pretty reasonably priced and they love it and are fairly healthy.
One has bad teeth and a heart murmur but that's been the case with him forever.

They thought Roscoe just had a murmur, but his heart is actually enlarged. One of the reasons we want to get him off the Friskies aside from it being awful is because of the sodium. The grain free recommendations are great, though. We're going to look into Fromms, Wellness Core, and Taste of the Wild. Thanks folks.

Winklebottom

djmitchella wrote: »

We give our cat 'taste of the wild' dry food, and it's fine (and also the bag is pretty great):



and we've been using Wellness wet food for ages.

I second Taste of the Wild my beagle mutt has been eating it since he was a wee pup and is healthy as a horse.

jkylefulton

I'll also recommend Wellness brand foods. I've been feeding my dog canned Wellness food for 11.5 years, and my two cats for 4 years. I've had to move my other dog to a kidney / renal prescription diet, but she's over 16 years old - prior to that, she'd been eating Wellness brand foods for almost 12 years.

Siska

When you look at the ingredients for pet food they are listed from highest to lowest %. So for cats, especially, you really want food where the first ingredient is a named meat. Anything else is garbage(not counting water in canned food). When I checked, about a decade ago, 9 lives chicken flavor actually measured up to that standard(no other flavor did). They may have changed their recipe since then but it may be worth checking out if they have something commonly available in grocery stores that's not too crappy.

Another thing that's good for pet food is if it's labeled grain or wheat free. As that means they are not faking their protein % with gluten filler.

Straygatsby

Our two morons get Nutro. After they got a little older (both are over 8 now), we gave in and tried a couple of the fancier and mid brands and settled on an older cat offering from them. We still give them Friskies wet food (gotta get dat Salmon Pate) as an occasional treat, because, well, they're garbage cats and they are convinced it is the best thing they've ever tasted.

Figgy

Can't recommend Nutro enough: https://www.nutro.ca/en/natural-dog-food/nutro/dry/puppy-chicken-whole-brown-rice-oatmeal-recipe.aspx

Peccavi

My parents cats were picky eaters but they love Fancy Feast (well, the fillets and shreds at least. Don't like the pate which I don't blame them.) Cans are often on sale at like 20/$12 if that's in your budget.

ceres

Garbage wet food can make a really nice treat, but it's definitely not something I'd give them all the time.

I have no idea why my cats will only eat dry food. It makes no sense to me. The nicer wet food is better for them and easier to eat, especially for the one with like three teeth, and she was street-feral when we got her so she lived on literal garbage, but she still only wants the dry food. That's one reason we go for the nicest stuff we can. If they're only going to eat dry food, I feel like it should at least be the best I can afford for them.

Element Brian

my cat super picky with wet food but loves the tuna crab mix from Tiki Cat, only like 1.09 at pet store per can

The Raging Platypus

I'm going to second the Taste of the Wild recommendation. My senior beagle has never gotten tired of the salmon version, and his health improved significantly when we switched over.

You really do need to be careful not to overfeed with grain-free though - I remember the first day after we started him on the new stuff and had completely forgotten to reduce the feeding amount. We took him to a dog park and he proceeded to squat out twice his body weight in poop (this may be an exaggeration), to the extent that someone nearby exclaimed,"WHAT ARE YOU FEEDING HIM, MY GOD".

dispatch.o

The Raging Platypus wrote: »

I'm going to second the Taste of the Wild recommendation. My senior beagle has never gotten tired of the salmon version, and his health improved significantly when we switched over.

You really do need to be careful not to overfeed with grain-free though - I remember the first day after we started him on the new stuff and had completely forgotten to reduce the feeding amount. We took him to a dog park and he proceeded to squat out twice his body weight in poop (this may be an exaggeration), to the extent that someone nearby exclaimed,"WHAT ARE YOU FEEDING HIM, MY GOD".

My cat has issues with his asshole not properly warning him of an impending need to poop, so he will simply hold it until it's a human size turd that he hisses wildly at and tries to run away from as it tears him apart from within. High protein low-grain food actually should reduce the odor and size of the poops, if you don't feed them like it's the end of the world.

Edit: If you find a food you want to try, go to a privately owned or local pet store and ask them to order some... they almost certainly will and they can get any flavor/size bag you want to try. Don't feel like you have to drop 40$ on a bag of food you wont be able to use if your pets don't like it.

Shadowfire

Ended up with Taste of the Wild. Come to find out, the in-laws feed that to their dogs too. The price ends up being lower than we were paying for Blue, as well ($30 for a 15 pound bag, versus $17 for a 6 pound bag). Looking into cat food still, but we'll probably lean this way too.
Thanks for the recommendations all!

azith28

There is a brand of food I've found at some pet stores called Nulo freestyle that my cats love. It's got a really good rating looking it up online as far as being quality food for your cat, grain free, etc.

I've found 5 lb size bags of it at these little upper class pet shops that have started to pop up (They usually have a fairly large area set up in front of the store for dog washes) in strip malls for about 16 bucks a bag. its a few bucks more than the purina i bought before but it lasts a good while.

Capt Howdy

We have a senior Pomeranian and use Royal Canin Small Breed Senior. Chewy.com is probably the best place to buy pet food from, and PetSmart price matches them.

https://www.chewy.com/royal-canin-indoor-life-small-breed/dp/115798

Burtletoy

Surprised no one in here has recommended feeding raw.

Not sure where you live, we used to grind the food ourselves for our 13lbs lhasa mix rescue, but now we use Darwin for food delivery

Veevee

It's probably a very long shot, but see if there are any local pet food stores that also have their own brand of pet food. We have a local chain here that has their own dog and cat (and bird) food that is better than the national brands, and the food is produced locally. It's also recommended by every vet I've ever talked to, and is the only brand of dry food our local branches of the humane society will feed the dogs and cats under their care. My cats seem to love it, with the fat one always begging for more, and our dog did too when he was still around.