The key to finding a good dog food is to read the ingredients listed on the packaging.

Tthe ingredients are listed, in order, by weight, from the most to least. The first ingredient in Ol' Roy is ground corn.

The same is true for Purina. Both Purina and Ol' Roy contain animal by-products. Feel free to do an internet search on animal by-products to figure out what that means.

If I were to select a good dog food, I would pick one that doesn't have the grain portion listed as the first ingredient and that doesn't have animal by-products.

I am somewhat familiar with Ol'Roy. Very familiar with Purina. I believe Ol'Roy comes in huge bags, perhaps meant for hunting dogs. It is also relatively inexpensive.

If you read the ingredients in both foods, they will probably have lots of corn, wheat and other fillers in them. I discovered long ago when dealing with a food allergy that was misdiagnosed, that dogs are simply not built to digest corn and wheat. This can cause serious skin issues as well as upper and lower g.i. problems.

Having said that, I am a transplanted country person. I now live in the city. My three large dogs live in the house, I love them very much, etc. You live in the country where the situation is much different. You love your animals very much etc. but the way you approach things is much different (I miss that). Think of all of the country stuff they eat that you don't know about!

Anyway, I think if your dogs are doing well on what they have, don't change a thing. They are probably healthier than any dog in the city.

I feed my dogs "hypo allergic" foods and "health food". Neither has any artificial anything. It does make a huge difference in what comes out of the other end. There is almost nothing there compared to what they eat. This is a huge help because city folks have to (should) pick up after their pets.

Good luck!

SG

Walmart sells various dog foods under the Ol' Roy label. They're not all the same. I've fed my dogs Ol' Roy Lamb & Rice for years and this morning compared the ingredients to a new brand of all-natural food (see my thread entitled "Sam's Club Natural pet food...?" linked below). I was happy with the Ol' Roy ingredients, and my dogs have done well on it.

Where did you hear bad things about Ol' Roy?

Here is a link that might be useful: Sam's Club Natural Pet food...?

I read the label for Ol' Roy online,(not for the lamb and rice formula though), and the first ingredient was ground corn and it contains chicken by-products.

I have heard alot of people complain that Ol'Roy was mostly grain and fillers. But I read alisande's other post, which confirmed my premise, to not judge a dog food by its brand, but to read the label.

Many of the so-called premium brands contain too much grain, animal by-products and artificial flavors and colors. But it depends upon which bag you are buying as most brands offer different mixtures at varying prices.

I do know that if stool volume is important, that you definitely want to stay away from a food full of fillers. My BIL was feeding his lab the regular ol'roy and the dog's stools were enormous, stinky and mushy. My lab, same size, being fed a better food, has stools that are small, dense and not very odorous. When I was dog sitting and had to clean up the kennel after his dog, I definitely understood that the extra money I spend on dog food, was well worth the price.

I have heard bad things about ol'roy, I am not going to go into them as I do not know this to be fact, could just be hearsay, you know the neighbors aunts daughters friend type of thing. I won't feed my dogs Ol'Roy just based on that, but my mother feeds all her dogs Ol'Roy (she lives on a farm, has several dogs sort of thing) every single one of them are healthy and slick coated, she has been feeding them the same food for years:)

A few years ago I read an article that was comparing various dog foods. Among the was Ol Roy and Kroger store brand which we have locally. Neither was top rated, but they were above several much more expensive varieties as far as nutrition. At the time, I looked at the label & seemed nutritious as the article stated. This has reminded me that I should really check again, because that was several years ago & they could easily change. It does seem that it was a specific Ol Roy that was mentioned. I went with the Kroger brand at the time because it was a bit healthier I believe.

The Ol Roy that I remember was chock full of artificial colors, some of which have been banned for human consumption due to being carcinogenic (FD&C red #5). I don't think any food that has potential carcinogens in it is a good diet. Not a fan of by-products or any diet with corn either.

I didn't know they even had a lamb and rice, but then again one of my dogs is allergic to lamb, so I tend to ignore that entire category of food.

Some people get very exercised about dog nutrition. If you feed and care for your dog, that is what is important.

In my opinion, there are many kibbles better than Ol' Roy or Purina. Regardless, our previous Labbie lived 14 years on Ol Roy. I do not think he would have lived longer on a premium chow.

Currently, we feed Kirkland from Costco, a pretty good mid-quality kibble that I think is better than Iams/Eukanuba, and it is a reasonable price. All our puppers are rescues or adopted from people. We found our dogs looked better and seemed to feel better.

Give my dogs Ol Roy kibbles chunks and chews. I mix it with Purina canned dog food and occasionally real chicken or beef. Their coats are healthy and shiney.

The vet put my hound Dillen on a lose 5 lb diet.
I think it is more a lack of exersize problem during this winter though. My problem too.LOL
vickie

If you log on to petco.com you can compare prices per oz or per lb of the different kinds of food. The natural/holistic foods are regarded as premium. If you take into account that you will more than likely not need to feed nearly as much of it the cost difference will be maybe several dollars a month. Nothing that will break the bank. Now if your time is worth money, and it should be, factor in less time spent cleaning up the excess undigestable corn and whatnot and you'll earn back that extra several bucks.

It may seem really expensive to get a bag of decent dog food when you're looking at the bags in the store but it's really a nominal cost difference overall.

Here's an example. The cheapest dog food I can think of off the top of my head is beneful @ about $25 for a 35lb bag. I use Solid Gold Hund N Flocken @ about $40 for the large bag (I'm rounding up).

Right off the top, that's only a price difference of $15.00
Before we go any further, a bag this size will last about 2 or 3 months for a medium size dog. Can you spare an extra $5-$7.50 a month to give your dog the best?

If you answered no, then lets proceed...
At one time I used Purina One which is just so-so food. I fed 25% more of it so lets say some garbage like beneful would require a 30% larger serving size which I think is a conservative estimate.

So lets add 30% to the price of the beneful. It's now a $32.50 bag of garbage. For only a price difference of $7.50 from the solid gold in the hermetically sealed mylar bags that can't be torn open.

Lets say you have a big active dog and that hugeass bag of food only lasts you two months just to make the numbers easier to crunch. And yes there's more numbers to crunch as I'm about to guestimate the amount of poop in pounds that you won't be hauling off to the trash can. Let's say it's a 30% decrease in poop. I know that sounds high but I really think it's about right. That's roughly TWELVE POUNDS of extraeneous poop over the two months or 6 lbs of poop a month that you won't have to pick up.

Would you pay someone $3.75 a month to pick up 6 pounds of stinky poo? If you answered no then consider that the premium poo doesn"t smell as bad

I've always considered Ol' Roy to be the worst of the worst of dogfoods. It's the Walmart brand and I would never give it to my dogs unless I lived in a rundown trailer and was about to be evicted and couldn't pay the power bill.

I think good dogfood is something responsible owners need to figure into the cost of ownership along with various vet bills. Stop decorating your house, cut out some of those lottery tickets, forgo the big screen tv, whatever. Please don't tell me you can't afford it. Most of us don't live on Cheetos our whole lives yet crap dogfood is so much worse.

I have heard many stories of dogs being fine on Ol'Roy
just as there are people who smoke, drink and eat junk everyday and live to be 95.
However, I don't take chances with my nutrition and prefer not to with my dogs either.

Yeah it's also like saying you've driven Fords you're whole life and never had them break down on you right after the warranty ran out.

Ingredients~ ol roy dog food

Ground yellow corn, soybean meal, ground whole wheat, corn syrup, poultry fat, Meat and bone meal (Animal Fat Preserved with BHA and Citric Acid), Chicken by-product Meal, Rice, Animal Digest, Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Vitamin D and E Supplement, Niacin, Copper Sulafate, Manganous Oxide, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine Mononitrate, Meadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex Source of Vitamin K, Calcium Iodate, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Cobalt Carbonate, Folic Acid, Sodium Selenite, Folic Acid

So what does this mean? Well simply put it's garbage food. Check out the link below for better more informed information on what constitutes a quality food.

Here is a link that might be useful: The dog food project

I'm not all that knowledgable about nutrition but I don't see any actual meat-type ingredients in that label. Good god that's a pitiful label... sorry but...

I'm telling you for an extra 3.75 a month you will actually get FOOD... MEAT.. Lamb, chicken, Bison, whatever. Not corn and soybean meal and animal byproduct whateverthehell that is.

That's a good article cindyxeus. I find though that when I read things like that my brain hurts too much. For others like me, the whole dog journal lists of good foods make it easy. Just pick something on the list. The list is posted on another current thread but I don't remember which one.

Bumble, I am very familiar with WDJ, in fact my dog was in the July 2000 issue. Long story but he was found to have a low level of aflatoxin in his premium food. With that said I think the more we know about what feed terms are the better equipped we are to make decisions for our dogs. Starting with WDJ's list is great, but if we don't know what feed terms are we can't pinpoint problems, and there are problems even with premium and super premium foods.

I totally agree with you Cindy. I'm just looking for the easy way out :) or for those who can't/won't take the time to understand labels. It can be confusing to even educated label readers. And the list is a better starting point for food than O' Roy.
I recently emailed Wellness to get some more info on their chicken meal and was quite happy with their response.

I am going to regret posting this, but I am going to anyway.

We need to exercise our brains, we need to read and learn and understand the choices that we make, rather than letting someone else do them for us.

Yes.

(To the second paragraph Joepyeweed, not the first :-)

The last place I would go for nutrition advice is a vet. I have respect for my vet's medical knowledge, but do not consider him/her to be a behaviorist or a nutritionist.

Well if we read and learn things how do you expect us to hold someone else accountable for our own bad decisions?! Gee whiz. The nerve!

I hate to admit I have never read the label on a bag of dog food. After reading all sorts of labels on grain for livestock I can't believe I've never taken the time to find out what's being put into our dogs. Ironically, I'm taking a Feeds and Feeding class so you would think I should've figured this out sooner.

A pre-vet student told me about the Ol'Roy being bad, but I had never heard it anywhere else.

We had quite a battle with one of our dogs because he seems to have very picky tastes and we finally found that he likes Ol' Roy. Both dogs seem healthy but they certainly have a TON of poop, which isn't too big of a problem since they have quite a lot of field to put it in. I would certainly like to feed them something more nutritous and filling though. Thanks so much for bringing to my attention the amount of fillers and other crap in this particular food. We probably won't get into the real expensive foods because we're getting ready to purchase a couple guard dogs for our goats and I'm not sure at this point we could afford to feed 4 big dogs on really classy food. But we will certainly up grade.

I totally appreciate all the great advice, it's been so helpful!

Guard dogs for goats?

Have you considered a mule?

A neighbor of mine lost several of his goats to coyotes. He had to stop keeping them.

Goat meat should be ok for dogs.

Many people use donkeys as guard animals for goats and horses instead of dogs. Might be a better choice than dogs.

you seem to be missing the point.

It's not "real expensive high class food"
The difference is pennies and the main difference is that it contains actual meat. This isn't like buying a car like its some status symbol.

That's exactly right Quirky.

Just out of curiosity, how much does a 30 lb. bag of Ol' Roy cost anyway?
I pay $42.50 for a 30 lb. bag of good food. But I don't suppose it's the cheapest of the good foods.
The most expensive is when we are eating crab or 12.99 a pound fish and I feel obligated to give them a bite.

joepyeweed - there is a whole class of dog bred to guard livestock including sheep, goats, horses and poultry!

jaime202 - I actually have LGD's (Livestock Guardian Dogs)who guard sheep and 2 goats. They are fed Wellness, which is a super premium food. You'd be surprised at how little these dogs eat and how affordable a premium food is when you're not feeding it by the quart. My 120 lb female eats 1 1/2 cups per day. The 145 lb male eats 2-3 cups per day. Their stools ae the same size as a neighbor's (obese) pugs, who eat Beneful, and they are in absolutely tip-top shape at their ideal weights. LGD's are not terribly active dogs unless they are acting on a threat and don't need massive amounts of food.

I know there is a whole class of dogs that are used to guard animals. But once one understand what it takes to train and maintain such a pack, because you need more than dog ... a donkey seems more efficient.

Dogs are usually used for moving large flocks, herding large flocks and grazing large flocks. If your flock is just a couple goats or a couple horses that are continuously contained in a single fenced in area, a donkey might be a better choice.

We thought about either a donkey or llama, but others have said they find dogs more effective. I don't know if it every happens but I've been a little concerned with a guard dog getting too agressive with the goats. I guess it has to do with getting them used to the herd at a young age. We plan on about 2 dogs for 100+ goats, although we haven't reached that number yet. Shroppie do you think 2 would be enough? We don't know much about guard dogs, but we do have a breed in mind. A neighbor of ours runs a large number of cattle and uses donkeys and is very happy with them. We may rethink our options.

Based on my personal experience, and reading "food pets die for", I continue to feed my pets Wellness; both kibble and canned.

While the cost per bag of Ol' Roy may be cheaper than Wellness, I have gone from taking my Pekingnese to the vet every few weeks because of food allergies to once a year for just a check up. I have saved thousands of dollars on vet bills by going to a human grade, meat based product.

It's the old saying: Pay me now or pay me later.

I think that dogs are more effective, especially for sheep, goats and alpacas, but I'm partial to dogs *shrug* A male/female pair is best and you should have 2 so that one can back up the other if need be. Bear and mountain lions are very serious predators and really require 2 mature dogs. Coyote, wolves and stray dogs will generally be detered by one experienced dog, but the flock is unprotected while the dog chases off the threat. More than 2 dogs or same -sex pairings have more relationship problems and i only keep 2 in the field at any given time. The genral rule of thumb I've always heard is that if you have less than 200 sheep or less than 200 acres, 2 dogs is enough

Aggressivenss with livestock is primarily a training issue, particularly with young dogs who want to play or chase. LGD's by necessity have a low prey drive and lose interest in chasing as they mature and are trained.

What breed are you considering? Do you have any past experience with LGD's? These are unique dogs - very gentle with livestock and family and not at all nice to intruders...wandering dogs, wolves, coyotes, bear, mountain lion etc. They won't be lovey-dovey to strange people either. They are territorial and you must have secure fencing.

You may want to consider doing some research and joining a few of the list groups out there - lots of knowledge there! There are 3 Anatolian/Pyr crosses currently in foster with goats currently available from rescue
http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?&petid=7660494&mtf=1
http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?&petid=7660506&mtf=1

Here is a link that might be useful: and Donna too

We're considering Anatolians. We're not really interested in fullblood, registered, etc. I talked to a man who raises fullblood Anatolians and he wanted $600 for a grown dog. Age-wise we would prefer a puppy so they can get used to the goats from a young age. I've actually been told you should put a pup in with a few bucks so they'll knock it around and teach respect, is that a good idea? Basically we like Anatolians because they have so much less hair than Pyrenees. I'll definately check the rescues, thanks!

Mine are Anatolians (or Akbash, if you'd like to debate that the white ones are a separate breed) and it's the breed I prefer. $600 is actually a good price for an adult dog raised with livestock - proven dogs are in great demand. Sometimes proven dogs come into rescue when the owner gets rid of livestock, so you can definitely check there. The three links I gave you have been started by an experienced person-which would be ideal for you. Some adult rescues have very successfully made the switch to stock dog even when they were started in a pet home, but I probably wouldn't suggest that for your first dog. One of mine was a rescue from a pet home at age 2 and I actually acquired her with no intention of owning livestock again- I just enjoy the breed. She's done very, very well with stock. The male was acquired at age 5 from someone retiring from farming and moving to a more urban setting. He was proven and had more a problem accepting new owners than new stock
My experience with starting dogs is with sheep. I've only had my nannies for 3 months - just a few to get my feet wet, so I'm not real familiar with the temperament. With sheep, I start a pup with wethers. Rams tend to be so laid back that they'll permit a pup to chew on them and jump on them - not behavior you want to encourage. Ewes tend to be very intolerant and will rough up a pup to the point where their confidence is broken..and they hold a grudge *g*. Lambs tend to be viewed as playthings - definitely not something I want to encourage! Wethers are fairly laid-back - they'll put the smack-down on a pup if it becomes too annoying but the transgression is forgotten soon afterwards.

The main thing to remember that there's a lot of instinctive behavior in these dogs, but puppies are puppies. Pups must be supervised with livestock, especially in those first 2 years. Lots of exposure to the livestock and lots of correct behavior. It's much easier to prevent chasing and chewing than it is to train it out of them once the behavior is established.
Good luck!

Hello, has any of you heard of "Pet Promise"?? I can only find it here in our Fred Meyer, a local "everything" store. (I'm not sure if Fred Meyer is everywhere) Anyways, the big thing about this food is that is says "Let byproducts be bygones!" There is NO fillers or brain or spinal tissue, it says there is nothing bad in it. What do you guys think?? It is pretty expensive but not too bad for a 25lb bag of kibble is $36.99. If anybody knows anything about this food please let me know. My mom has been using it for about 3 weeks now and her pup is going 80% less then my dogs. My dogs go poop ALOT and its crazy looking at the difference in them now. I just went and bought 2 bags of it and I'm going to try it but please give me your imput of what you guys think.

Elycia

Pet promise:
It may use better sources of what it does use but the ingredient list isn't that impressive.
the protein is high in ratio to the fat which is on the low side IMO. I don't see any digestive enzymes or probiotics either, at least on their sight. All in all i think it's over priced.
Canidae and or Eagle pac Holistic select has a better ingredient list and another really good food is Blackwoods. It's on the higher end but well worth it.

Bumblebeez, a 50 lb. bag of Ol'Roy costs $12.48. Seeing double and higher prices for 30 lbs or less is expensive high class dog food for us, in comparison. Unfortunately, it isn't pennies we'll be saving by going to a food that costs more than double the price for almost half the poundage. I do understand that because there is more real food the amount the dogs eat is less, so money is saved. That is why we certainly plan on purchasing a better food, but I'm afraid we won't be able to go up as high as $40 for 30 lbs. I hope none of you think we care less about our dogs because we buy cheaper food. At this time it's all we can afford the way things are going on the farm, especially after 2 years of drought.