I put a post on here shortly after Crufts about feeding the above.  Well I decided to give it a go and three weeks on everything is going great.  Their coats have come back to full shine and the older one is still loving his food for the first time in ages.  He is now watching me prepare it with his tail going ten to the dozen which he never did on Burns.  I have come to the conclusion that you need to hit the right balance to feeding the best food you can to the best food that your dogs enjoy. 

"What most consumers don't know is that the pet food industry is an extension of the human food and agriculture industries. Pet food provides a market for slaughterhouse offal, grains considered "unfit for human consumption," and similar waste products to be turned into profit. This waste includes intestines, udders, esophagi, and possibly diseased and cancerous animal parts.

Three of the five major pet food companies  are subsidiaries of major multinational companies: Nestlé (Alpo, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Mighty Dog, and Ralston Purina products such as Dog Chow, ProPlan, and Purina One), Heinz (9 Lives, Amore, Gravy Train, Kibbles-n-Bits, Nature's Recipe), Colgate-Palmolive (Hill's Science Diet Pet Food). Other leading companies include Procter & Gamble (Eukanuba and Iams), Mars (Kal Kan, Mealtime, Pedigree, Sheba, Waltham's), and Nutro. From a business standpoint, multinational companies owning pet food manufacturing companies is an ideal relationship. The multinationals have increased bulk-purchasing power; those that make human food products have a captive market in which to capitalize on their waste products, and pet food divisions have a more reliable capital base and, in many cases, a convenient source of ingredients."

:)

What's wrong in feeding intestines (called 'chitterlings' when used inhuman food - do a google search for recipes), udders et al? It's all good protein. And don't forget that 95% of the pet food companies in the UK use only meat (I classify meat as anything coming from an animal source, not purely muscle meat or selected offals to avoid squeamish names) that have come from animals passed as fit for human consumption.

And there's nothing wrong per se with multi-nationals; the company I used to work for was a subsidiary of one such, and the holding company had zero input into the running of our company. It was purely for financial gain.
:)

Hi Rose
Out of interest, where did this quote come from?  I've seen it several times on the web, particularly on US sites, but can't find the source. 

<< "What most consumers don't know is that the pet food industry is an extension of the human food and agriculture industries. Pet food provides a market for slaughterhouse offal, grains considered "unfit for human consumption," and similar waste products to be turned into profit. This waste includes intestines, udders, esophagi, and possibly diseased and cancerous animal parts. >>

I'd always understood pet food in the UK comes from animals fit for human consumption, albeit not the parts that humans eat ;) or at least not the parts we eat here, after all, sheeps eyes, animal testes, brains, birds beaks and feet are all considered delicacies by humans in various parts of the world even if not by us, and I have no doubt my dog would have no objection to eating them either :D

I'd much rather a use was found for those parts of the animal not consumed by us, than see it wasted. :)

See your dogs have told you what they like and if they look well & healthy on it, all the better.  Better to be guided by them in the long run.

Having worked in nutrition, let me tell you that Pro-Plan probably offers you one of the most balanced diets available - I think Christine makes a very valid point - look at the condition of your dog and it's vitality.
When my bitch was pregnant she needed no supplementation, other than what I decided to give as quality fresh foods, no calcium supplements post delivery and a very healthy litter of pups.
Everyone is remarking at what fantastic condition she is in, not only in body condition but energy levels
What is a fact if you buy the lower grade foods, you will get the lower quality ingredients I site Bakers vs ProPlan, same company marketed for completely different sectors. I certainly would question why some of the minces available are given - if you are to give mince you need to know the source, this goes for ALL meat supplies/bones.
With dry food - there are very strong regulations to be followed , animal or human or consumption.

Can't agree this product contains salt as do most mass produced foods. Having worked in nutrition can you explain why the need for added Salt(potassium chloride)?  And as it's high up on the ingredients list the % content must be high Again if you check the ingredients on the label it says rice but what type? If its brewers rice this is a poor ingredients and not nearly as good as brown or basmati rice that some other good smaller companies use. They do have a nice bag and advertising campaign but are not Buav approved.Jo 

I thought we had already discussed salt :), it is an essential mineral doesn't matter if it is present in the ingredients or added so long as the balance is there.  I'm sure whatever nutrients are missing in the rice, whatever type it might be, can be made up by some other ingredients, again, so long as the balance is there.
You only have to run a blood test or a skin scrape or even not allow them to troop through your property to fail to comply with the BUAV requirements.  I really dislike the idea of a food not be tested to ensure it meets a dogs requirements.

Added salt is unecessary in any dog food or in fact human food; there is plenty in all foods.

Salt is used in commercial processed food as a) to heighten the flavour and b) as a preservative.

As for testing whether it meets dogs requirements der..........

The dog's natural diet does not need "testing" does it, and does ours?

As long as you know the source of nutrients you can ensure you give your family and your animals a balanced nutritious diet without the need for recourse to processed foods...........

Some foods do not contain much salt naturally, if those foods are chosen for their other properties I see no reason why salt should not be suppliment to a healthy level.  Salt is included in the licks given to grazing animals.
As I'm sure you will agree you can have a good diet and you can have an even better diet, I am perfectly happy for a manufacturers to test dogs fed their diet to ensure their forumula is maintaining them in optimum health.  Sometimes we are tested, for instance a medical at work might lead to advise on diet from the occupational nurse :)
Of course, if you know what you are doing, you can provide a good diet without recourse to processed foods but that is not to say that a processed diet cannot be perfected balanced and meet all requirements too :)

salt is given to grazing animals because modern methods of intensive agriculture strip the minerals from the soil.........................

A balanced diet will contain all the salt any organism needs.

And the animal testing system used by manufacturers is fatally flawed if you research it............

Exactly you make it balanced by adding salt to the correct level.
Which testing system?  The ones described on the Peta type sites or the monitoring of dogs' health when being fed a food? What could be flawed about that the animal either shows up in good health or not.

Depends on what you feed, the animals in question their size, age, breed, their living conditions and the duration of the trial.

I am not a "PETA" fanatic just someone who believes that all animals live better lives when fed  a species appropriate diet.

As we all know there is not ONE food that fits all (unless you happen to be a silkworm, koala bear or a panda) :)

Very true :)  There is always going to be a degree of trial and error but most properly formulated diets, of any type, will do very well for most dogs so I really don't think people should worry as much as some of our posters seem to :)

Oh I don't know, diet is one of the ways we show we care (or not).

It is interesting to study the link between food and love and the consequences when this gets out of line, diverging a little here, for example in gross obesity in children and pets............

I think it is a good idea to get across to those that maybe unaware that just because it comes in a bag/can etc does not necessarily mean it is without potential problems.

Just as just because it is raw or "natural" that it is necessarily fine.........

Any food can be overfed in the name of love if that is what you are meaning.   I don't think that little danger lies specifically in a bag :).   I'm not sure that any potential problems are specific to commercial foods, the problems people usually have seem to be an intolerance to an ingredient the same can apply to any diet, on discovering you just have to make amendments.  This does seem to be a minority though, as I say most dogs do very well so again it is not worth worrying unduly over :)

Isabel, my question was not to you but to Kenmilltri  who claimed to have worked in animal nutrition .
Salt in any food in whether its human or animal has been proven to be dangerous if used to high amounts. The fact that some manufactures can make food without the need to add salt
Would indicate that it has no use other than filler and addictive purposes. Further more given that its is listed so high on pro plans list of ingredients would also indicate that's its there for all the wrong reasons. As for the testing point of my post, please check The buav webb site before assuming that all people who have a genuine interest in animal welfare are  terrorists .Also welcome back tohme , Mind you Pandas are omnivores who are just to bone idle to hunt and catch meat, otherwise they might be around a bit longer !!!!!

Some books you might want to check out :)

Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food
by Ann N. Martin. NewSage Press (1997)
Food Not Fit for a Pet
by Dr Wendell O. Belfield, D.V.M.
A Look Inside a Rendering Plant
by Gar Smith
The Dark Side of Recycling
[Author's name withheld]
Concerns about Commercial Pet Food: What are you really feeding your pet?
by William Pollak, DVM
What's Really in Pet Food
Animal Protection Institute
Does Your Dog Food Bark? A study of the pet Food fallacy
by Ann Martin
The Truth About Cats and Dogs
by Ann Martin
Pet Food -- Our Pets are Dying For It
by Sandra Brigola
Dog Eat Dog: What's Inside the Foods We Feed
by Carol Gravestock-Taylor
Who Regulates the Pet Food Industry

author's name withheld?
I have read plenty in same vein in the past, the internet is full of it, and drawn my own conclusions ;)

It would appear to me you have no idea whether the salt levels are high, you are just speculating.
You still seem to be missing my point that as long as it is at a healthy level it doesn't matter at all if it is provided by the ingredients themselves or added in after, the important this is that the mineral is there in the right balance.

No, the point is there is no need whatsoever for salt to added in to dry food from a nutrition point. Regardless of the safe levels, which as point of interest is? its not  given on pro plan ingredients list so yes I am speculating about the amount because they don't tell you how much  because they don't want you to know . -Jo

Perhaps they don't specify the amount because it's so low as to come within the legal amount where it needn't be?

Good point JG, however legal limit and health limit are not necessarily synonymous.........

Sodium is important to the diet.  According to my medical book hyponatraemia (sodium deficency) leads to lethargy, muscular and abdominal cramps and weekness, nausea and vomiting, diarrhoea, decreasing urinary output followed by oliguria (no urine), twitching convulsions, loss of consiousness, hypotension.
I don't care how the salt is added by ingredient or an item in itself as long as it is at the desired quantity I want it there :)
Excess salt (hypernataemia) leads to restlessness, hypertension (BTW, which does not seem to have the long term effects in dogs as it has in humans due probably to their shorter life spans) lethargy, confusion, loss of consciousness, as this does not seem to be occuring in dogs on this food I think we can safely speculate that they have the balance right :)

Poor dvnbiker, they started this thread as an update on how their dogs were doing and look what it's turned into.  :(

Sadly, any post about a dog doing well on such and such food almost always leads to the rather rediculous claim of "no, they can't be" :D

I don't think anyone has actually posted any such ridiculous claim here unless I have missed it.

If a view is posted then an alternative one will generally be offered.

Let's face it some people live until they are over a 100 on a diet of 40 fags a day and 10 cups of coffee, however that is not an argument for following that regime! ;)

No, because we know that 1 in 5 smokers get cancer but if the majority of people on 40 fags a day and 10 cups of coffee were living to a ripe old age you would know there was nothing wrong with that regime :)
As usual some of the posts were hardly saying "glad you've found something that is suiting your dogs so well" so what do you think they were saying then?

(without joining in with the converation above.... )
claire, im glad ur two are doing well on it, im looking into foods for terra, when she arrives, our lot are all on csj, previously autarky, but when they all lost weight over the winter, even when they werent working, which was quite unusual for them, we decided to change, so far so good, i collect it from our local supplier at shows, so we get 4 bags at a time, works out quite well. i would say, feed your dogs on whatever YOU and THE DOGS are happy with!!!! how boring would the world be if we were all the same???!!!!

CSJ are separate foods from Autarky, CSJ stock Autarky (Now owned by Dodson & Horrell) but it isn't the same food.  My dogs lost weight on CSJ foods too, not a high enough fat content for them.

ProPlan, Arden Grange, Nutro, Franks Pro Gold or Pets at Home completes have suited my dogs.

I was aware that this would yet again spark opinions.  For those who saw my previous post some weeks ago will know that my dogs had originally been on Burns for about 12 months.  Unfortunatelty their coats had lost their shine and my eldest just didnt like it.

My point on feeding dogs is where do you draw the line between what is the best for them and what they enjoy. 

This suits my dogs and they love it.  If I can in the future find another food that they love as much as this one and has better ingredients then I will go with it but until that happens they will stay with the Pro Plan. 

Chel, thanks for the support!!

I think you find that kids given the option of a healthy diet or turkey twizzle sticks would prefer the twizzle stick .Mass produced dog   food is made with ingredients designed to make dogs like them ,these include flavour enhancers "what my dog enjoys" is an easy get out for those who prefer convenience  over quality .Major food manufactures of human food have been criticised over THE last few months for the controls over what goes into human food. if they have this attitude to human food one can only wonder at their attitude to food for animals that cant decide for themselves .

Of course dog food is designed to be enjoyed by dogs :) but palatability and quality are not mutually exclusive.  There is really no comparison to the these human foods which are sold as convenience foods the manufacturers do not claim they form a complete diet.  If you are referring to the recent publicity about school meals the critisism has been directed at the use by schools of these items as a daily diet not of the manufacturers. 

Hi the original poster did mention the condition of her dogs first so I do not think she has chosen this food without thought. A food that the dogs wont eat isnt a better food even if the ingredients seem to be better, as the dog won't get the benefit if its not eating it .Maybe a simplistic view but true all the same.

Exactly, although I don't think she has to appologise for the ingredients either :)

Sorry if the arguments down to what's they like rather than what's good for them then I concede. All those years of telling the kids to eat your greens were wasted and I should have just continued with the deep fat fryer and gave THEM chips and money for MacDonald's. But I did not I controlled the diet had have healthy children and healthy dogs. I have found that once you take nutrition seriously and do your home work it begins to make sense. Try a little test forget the name of foods get some one to write down the ingredients of three separate foods and then pick the one you think is best , if nothing else it gets you thinking. 

Actually its not just down to what they like is it its what they will EAT. I dont think force feeding is an option.:(

Why do you keep comparing human convenience foods, meant to be eating occasionally, and well balanced, complete dog foods.  If you are talking about the ingredients of the childrens snacks I agree with you no one in their right mind would feed these as a complete diet but then they would have to be going against all health department advise but if you are talking about the squiggly bits used in dog foods that humans don't fancy, or one choice of fibre over another or whether minerals have been supplimented then it is down to a matter of opinion about whether the ingredients are good or not.  Don't forget those who don't share your views have done their homework too :)

If  you continually feed McDonalds etc. to your children then they will end up McDonalds shaped, round, pasty & full of fat.

dvnbiker has stated her dog's look fit, well conditioned & healthy on Pro-Plan, how can you compare?  

Obese children & fit dogs - there is no comparison, stop scare-mongering & come up with a valid argument.

I have to say I really object to somebody suggesting that I dont care what I feed my dogs and am taking the easy way out.  I certainly am not!!

As I have said previously I did feed burns which I think all will agree is probably one of the better completes on the market.  I fed this for nearly a year so gave it more than a shot.  It just didnt seem to work my eldest dog.  He didnt seem to enjoy his food and his coat never looked in great condition i.e. it didnt shine.  I have tried Autarky but this just gave him the squits. 

I am not saying for a second that Pro Plan is an exceptional food but it isnt the worst by a long shot either.  At least it isnt brightly coloured with loads of derivitives in it.  It states it is Lamb in it and yes I know it has quite a lot of cereal in it but it is working for my dogs.  What more can I ask. 

If someone can come up with a better food with better ingredients that my dogs actually enjoy wonderful I will feed it but until that time they are going to stay on Pro Plan.  I am not forcefeeding my dogs on a food just because I believe it is better for them.  If I really didnt care what I fed my dogs I would walk down to the nearest supermarket and buy Bakers Complete or Pedigree complete but I choose not to.  I dont buy cheap foods as this is nearly £35 per sack. 

I am sorry but I really cant believe that people are questioning my motives about this.  I am all for people having their opinions on this site which it is what it is for but when I am being questioned about caring for my dogs I do take offence and how anyone can compare this dog food to human food i.e. chips is beyond me!

Claire

I am so glad you have found something that is suiting your dog :) a poor eater is a constant worry.  I don't think you should worry too much about the food tyranny on the internet :)  There is nothing wrong with the ingredients of this food.  The unreferenced piece posted above can be googled to show that is appears on many sites, also without referencing, giving the impression that each author has done their own research!  Pet food in the UK has to be sourced from animals fit for human consumption, I suppose it is a personal choice but I have no objections to my dogs eating all the odd and sods that humans don't care for as I know that they don't have any squeamishness about these things why should I :)  If you read the above piece I seems to me the real issue the original author has is with large companies.  I have no issues myself whatever other products they may produce as long as the food is good for my dog.  Some people believe that small is best, and some are very good, but a small company that is struggling to sell enough units to remain profitable has more incentive to compromise on ingredients than a large company that sells lots and lots of units and is therefore cushioned against any fluctuations in ingredients cost.
I would say carry on feeding what is suiting your dog and don't give it anymore worry :)

|Hi, I'm looking for a source of Autarky in the North West.  Any ideas?  Used to get it from Tesco, they seem to have stopped doing it.

Hi,

Why not buy it on-line from
http://www.csjk9.com/productcart/pc/pjwwcustomindex_a.asp]

Regards, Teri :)

ps.
Tried to be a smarty pants but STILL cant do the fancy links :(  Just cut 'n past  :rolleyes:

Here's the link by a smarty pants ;)
Phew hope it works :D

Isobel - that's against TOS (Teri's Obsolete Skills)   :D

:D I'm sure you've plenty extant ones ;)

What I really love about thes born again messianic BARFers, is that every one else is wrong and do not love or care abot there dogs if you do not feed RAW.

I have no problem with any natural diet, I have no problem with most foods except the tinned garbage and dry food you get in supermarkets. What I have a real problem with is RAW. We don't eat raw food since 12000 years ago we have cooked our food why do think feeding our domestic dogs this diet is natural.

Feed then faeces if you really want to feed them the original food that they ate as they mutated from their wild cousins. They predated on our Middens and latrines, not chicken wings stuffed with salmonella with a dozen birds defecating on the one below, crippled by acid from the urine cascading down and eyes damaged by pecking out of frustration before they were caged.

Yeahhhhhhhhhh natural food know what I mean. If you think its so good you eat it raw see how long you can stay out of hospital.

Canine, can you explain this to my grandfather and father who fed raw before dog food was 'invented' please

I certainly can. Because I am that age we never fed raw we fed scraps off our plate and the occassional raw bone from the butcher.

We couldn't afford to feed raw the bones had meat on them and it was just the leftovers that we fed the dogs I am of an age that remebers rationing so please don't come out that that old rubbish.

Actually at that time we were a reasonably affluent family, grandfather owned the shops, grocery and butchers. And all dogs were fed raw and fed well!!! Before, during and after rationing.