iDoHunting.com: Dog Food

Steve, thanks for the response. I was not trying to call you out and had no issues with your post. Was just looking for clarification on some of the things you said. What was mentioned in your post that described what you want/don't want in foods is just touching the tip of what people should be looking into.....and I would strongly recommend people do their own research and find what fits for them and their dogs. There's much more to it than what has been briefly covered here....as you know.

As far the the "meals" in dog food. My research has lead me to believe that "meals" (Chicken meal, lamb meal) are certainly what you would want provided as a main ingredient in a good food (first ingredients listed on label, order determined by weight prior to processing). You can have this followed by or previous to something like "Chicken" for example, but the main thing to know with that is that chicken meal has more available protein source than something like "chicken". Chicken listed as a primary ingredient includes water weight (as labeling amount is concerned), there fore once dried it's actually less amount of available protein source. I don't believe Meat and bone meal to be of as good of protein source as chicken meal or lamb meal. Is there info somewhere that says they are comparable?

I can certainly can appreciate the situation you, or anyone else owning a number of dogs is in that needs to find a food to work for all your dogs. It can't be easy...or cheap. I have had to go through multiple foods because of allergies with one dog....and I just got a new pup recently so I am feeding two different foods. I can't imagine 5-6+!

As far as my post to Don....I guess he would need to specify how he actually hunts his dogs and let everyone compare to their style of hunting. Everyone obviously hunts differently, and different game. I still have a hard time believing the majority working dog (sled dogs, coon, bear, bird, etc) that is out working all day long, many days during a season would not lose any weight by decreasing calorie intake by 25% in the middle of the season. But...as we know each individual dog is different and obviously Don's dog does well on it.

Each of these situations can be much different.....so I just don't want people to read something and think they should automatically do the same thing and then wonder why their dog is getting so skinny. I would like to believe the majority would not do this and would notice if something was not working for their dog.....but there's so many opinions out there it seems some could easily just try to do what they read without thinking about it in any detail.