wrote:
erik luyendyk wrote:

Well, as I mentioned to you Beth my Berner is not too fond of the food
although she looks fabulous on it except for the dry skin. She is nearing
the end of the large bag and I have been tossing it around in my head to try
her on something else. Perhaps it's time I started to investigate again :-}.
Thanks for the update
Sue


Sue,
I stopped yesterday at my local petstore and looked at dog food. I'll
probably switch to Biljac. If my mom-n-pop store carried Proplan that
would be in the running too. Wellness is another brand that doesn't do
feeding trials. Out of the food that the store carries, Bil-jac and
Chicken Soup fit what I want in a dog food.

Just a note: Chicken Soup is made by Diamond - who just recalled pet
food due to aflatoxin contamination. If they aren't testing raw
ingredients for such things it does save a lot of money - but there is
risk - as evidenced by the multiple numbers of very sick dogs right now
due to the aflatoxin poisoning.

Not running feeding trials does save money too - they are very
expensive to run. Why not just use your dog to run the actual "feeding
trial". If there's a problem the company will find out when your dog
has problems and save themselves a lot of money in the process. tongue
firmly in cheek here

wrote:
If the dogs are well cared for it doesn't bother me that a dog food
company keeps a kennel so that they can do feeding tests. For what
foods like Canidae and Wellness charge the least they could do is some
tests, not just formulating to meet or exceed the industry standards.

Beth

But in order to do a feeding trial you would have to employ a vet, or
pay some third party company who does employ a vet to actually do the
study. Neither Wellness nor Canidae employ a single veterinarian, nor
do I believe they even employ a PhD nutritionist. Those kind of
professional employees are kind of expensive and the costs would have
to go up to pay for it.

buglady wrote:
"sighthounds & siberians" wrote in message
...
On the other hand, at least they don't keep bunches of dogs living in
kennels to test their food.

......Feeding trials last 6 months and can be conducted with under 10 dogs.
This gives you confidence? ;-)


Which is certainly better than NOTHING at all........

wrote:
One of the things I found out at a CE convention was that certain
companies are doing longer feeding trials and on various breeds of
dogs.

I suspect that the Big Four (Nestle Purina, Mars Royal Canin, Iams, and
Hill's) are all doing feeding trials much longer than the 6 months
period required by AAFCO. Our newest addition to the household is
currently on an 18 month trial, which may very well get extended to
36-60 months - depending upon results.


In fact, the veterinarians that worked for those companies got
rightously ticked when the raw feeders (myself amongst them) were
questioning dog food company practices.
That being said, Canidae has been on the market for 8 years, this is
from their rep. When I stack up 8 years against the foods that have
been out for generations of dogs lives, well, I honestly don't know
what to do about the food. If the boys hadn't suddenly gotten itchy on
the canidae I would have never started looking at this whole mess.

Beth

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 15:04:27 -0500, shelly
wrote:

on 2005-12-21 at 14:33 wrote:

I dunno. They don't do feeding trials on, for example, baby
food, do they? Dog food manufacturers should know what the
basics are by this time. It doesn't bother me in the least
that they don't do feeding trials but "just" exceed industry
standards.

that's pretty much how i feel about it. AAFCO feeding trials
are for such a short duration (6 months, isn't it?) that it
really doesn't tell you much beyond the fact that the food
isn't immediately deadly.

Yep.

Mustang Sally

On 21 Dec 2005 12:13:41 -0800, "
wrote:


shelly wrote:
on 2005-12-21 at 14:33 wrote:

I dunno. They don't do feeding trials on, for example, baby
food, do they? Dog food manufacturers should know what the
basics are by this time. It doesn't bother me in the least
that they don't do feeding trials but "just" exceed industry
standards.

that's pretty much how i feel about it. AAFCO feeding trials
are for such a short duration (6 months, isn't it?) that it
really doesn't tell you much beyond the fact that the food
isn't immediately deadly.

--
shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net
http://cat-sidh.blogspot.com/


Some of the companies that are doing the feeding trials, such as Iams
and Purina are doing them for a minimum of 4 years.
Maybe it wouldn't bother me as much if the Canidae rep hadn't taken
such a holier than thou attitude about the question of feeding trials.
Since the only feeding trials done when I was feeding raw were my own i
suppose I'm just having some conflict about paying top dollar for
packaged dog food that isn't proven on living dogs. Sort of like those
vet students that refuse to cut on real animals. I don't want their
first hands experience to be on my pets and if that seems hypocritical
so be it.

What are you paying for Canidae that's top dollar? We sell a 40 lb
bag for $31. That's about a buck more than most brands go for at
PetsMart.

Mustang Sally

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:05:36 GMT, "buglady"
wrote:


"sighthounds & siberians" wrote in message
.. .
On the other hand, at least they don't keep bunches of dogs living in
kennels to test their food.

......Feeding trials last 6 months and can be conducted with under 10 dogs.
This gives you confidence? ;-)

No. I'm the one who said I didn't care about feeding trials.

Mustang Sally

buglady wrote:
"sighthounds & siberians" wrote in message
...
On the other hand, at least they don't keep bunches of dogs living in
kennels to test their food.

......Feeding trials last 6 months and can be conducted with under 10 dogs.
This gives you confidence? ;-)

buglady
take out the dog before replying

So you'd rather have NOTHING??

"sighthounds & siberians" wrote in message
...
On 21 Dec 2005 12:13:41 -0800, "
wrote:


shelly wrote:
on 2005-12-21 at 14:33 wrote:

I dunno. They don't do feeding trials on, for example, baby
food, do they? Dog food manufacturers should know what the
basics are by this time. It doesn't bother me in the least
that they don't do feeding trials but "just" exceed industry
standards.

that's pretty much how i feel about it. AAFCO feeding trials
are for such a short duration (6 months, isn't it?) that it
really doesn't tell you much beyond the fact that the food
isn't immediately deadly.

--
shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net
http://cat-sidh.blogspot.com/


Some of the companies that are doing the feeding trials, such as Iams
and Purina are doing them for a minimum of 4 years.
Maybe it wouldn't bother me as much if the Canidae rep hadn't taken
such a holier than thou attitude about the question of feeding trials.
Since the only feeding trials done when I was feeding raw were my own i
suppose I'm just having some conflict about paying top dollar for
packaged dog food that isn't proven on living dogs. Sort of like those
vet students that refuse to cut on real animals. I don't want their
first hands experience to be on my pets and if that seems hypocritical
so be it.

What are you paying for Canidae that's top dollar? We sell a 40 lb
bag for $31. That's about a buck more than most brands go for at
PetsMart.

Mustang Sally

The 40 pound bag in my house sure was a lot more than 31 bucks. Can't find
the bill at this time but, I paid something like $55-$57's AFAIR.....but I'm
in Canada.
Sue

sighthounds & siberians wrote:


What are you paying for Canidae that's top dollar? We sell a 40 lb
bag for $31. That's about a buck more than most brands go for at
PetsMart.

Mustang Sally

I'm paying $34 for a 40lb bag. The only foods I see at my mom-n-pop
store that are more expensive are Eukanuba and Wellness. I don't
remember what Innova costs, since I tried it when I switched from BARF
and it gave Wojo the runs.
Maybe your definition of top dollar is different from mine. shrug

Beth