"Quality" Pet Food Makers -- Who are they really?

Is Royal Canin Dog food any good?
Ingredients don't look that impressive.

veryboredguy wrote: ↑

Mar 13th, 2015 11:09 pm

From a buddy who works at the plant in Guelph, yes. they have a lot of nutritionists and do a lot of testing that is very over the top.

I won't doubt you that they're serious about their testing; a big reason why a lot of bets push Royal Canin is because the Ontario Vet College is also in Guelph and is heavily funded/supported by Royal Canin.

I don't consider any food high quality that's doesn't list meat (be it chicken, beef, fish) as the first ingredient. For many Royal Canin foods, you're lucky to get some sort of meat by-product in amongst the top 5 ingredients.

Ingredients are not necessarily important as long as the nutritional profile of a food is in order. Meaning that the amino acid profile in a food needs to match the dog's needs, there should be a good ratio between protein, fat and fat and vitamins and minerals. And obviously if the nutritional profile is in order the food needs to be digestible as well. Royal Canin does use a lot of for instance soy and corn, but that does not necessarily make it a sub par product. From a PR point of view it is obviously quite easy to shame them for not having meat as their main ingredient but from an animal's point of view it does not matter a lot as long as the food contains the nutrients it needs and its digestible (they do all the tests to make sure of this). Dogs are not obligatory carnivores anyway. And they do know where they get their ingredients from. I believe it's all North American.

My shih tzu has a really smelly face. His eyes get really gunky and needs to be cleaned daily. I find whenever I give him a trim he sneezes a lot! Thinking of switching him to Blue Buffalo. Is this a better brand than Royal Canin?

tyreman wrote: ↑

Mar 13th, 2015 2:49 pm

Is Royal Canin Dog food any good?
Ingredients don't look that impressive.

Garbage...

Try ACANA from Ren's Pet Depot, they have a warehouse in Waterloo.

http://www.renspets.com
http://acana.com

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/

Great reviews on all dog and cat foods.

Horizon is good but it gave one of my dogs the runs. For a while I thought he had worms and had his stool checked but no worms were found. So I tried him on the PC grain free and instant change. No runs and solid feces. My other dog does fine on both so I think I will switch to PC. Good, cheap and you can collect PC points, not bad. So far so good.

I also use to feed them Acana but they did ok on it but the prices kept going up every few months

So president chocie is good?

george__ wrote: ↑

Apr 5th, 2015 9:06 am

Garbage...

Try ACANA from Ren's Pet Depot, they have a warehouse in Waterloo.

http://www.renspets.com
http://acana.com

With Acana, that manufacturer makes both Acana and Orijen. I phoned them a few weeks ago, as we were thinking about switching from Orijen to Acana for our cats and we weren't sure if they'd eat it. They were really, really generous and sent us really good-sized sample packs of all the Acana flavours, some treats and also a coupon for a free bag. And it came to us via courier in just a couple of days. I know you want their dog food, but I don't see why it should be any different if you phoned them. Call and ask for samples and try them out on your dog and ask for coupons too. Their food isn't cheap, but I think it's worth it, at least for cats.

When I got my Bernese Mountain dog at 7-8 months, the previous owners fed him Royal Canin. I promptly switched him over to Orijen. At a year old, I brought him into the vet to get checked out, blood work, etc. His kidney and some other levels were too high - whether that was from the Royal Canin or the high protein content of Orijen, I do not know. But, at 2 years and at 3 years, his levels remained constant, they didn't get any worse, so I don't believe it to be Orijen or Acana (switched him to that between 2 and 3).

In any case, this past February, I had switched him to raw - Big Country Raw. When I brought him in for his annual check up in May, I didn't tell the vet I switched him to raw since it can sometimes be controversial, but rather I simply asked her about raw (and it's good to know she actually was not opposed to it, but supportive). Vet called a few days afterwards to discuss the results of the blood work, and was surprised that all the readings had improved quite a bit. All but one was in normal levels now. That was just from three months on raw food. So we'll see how things go in May 2016.

So if you can afford it, switch to raw.

ivy317 wrote: ↑

Apr 2nd, 2015 4:29 pm

My shih tzu has a really smelly face. His eyes get really gunky and needs to be cleaned daily. I find whenever I give him a trim he sneezes a lot! Thinking of switching him to Blue Buffalo. Is this a better brand than Royal Canin?

Try Performatrin or Fromm. But you should try cleaning their face everyday.

CharmyPoo wrote: ↑

Jun 6th, 2015 6:13 pm

Try Performatrin or Fromm. But you should try cleaning their face everyday.

If people try Fromm they should either call the company or speak with someone in a brick and mortar store who knows about food. We have been feeding our dog Fromm Four Star for 10 years and he does extremely well on the Duck and Sweet Potato or the Salmon A La Veg. He did not do well on the Pork and Applesauce - or on the grain-free varieties. Fromm makes many different types of food than it did 10 years ago so you need to find the one that works best for the pup or cat in question.

The Fromm Four Star is an all stages form of food so he will be on it while it is still being made. It is not inexpensive in Canada - but a lot easier to find ever since the food scare of a few years ago. Fortunately our dog's groomer carries it.

Blanche123 wrote: ↑

Jun 7th, 2015 10:21 am

The Fromm Four Star is an all stages form of food so he will be on it while it is still being made. It is not inexpensive in Canada - but a lot easier to find ever since the food scare of a few years ago. Fortunately our dog's groomer carries it.

I feed the Gamebird one. They sell it at Global Pet.

barbmans wrote: ↑

Mar 23rd, 2015 11:31 pm

Ingredients are not necessarily important...

What a ridiculous thing to say. Of course ingredients matter. All these stories you're hearing about dogs doing great on raw diet isn't because of all the corn they're eating...