That is a good link, thanks Natal! Sooo, my dog's food is only a 3.5 (Wellness Super 5 Chicken Adult Dogs), hmmm, I don't plan on changing at all as my dogs have been on it (one of them) for 11 years and they are both very healthy and active. But I also give them a considerable portion of pure meat each day which they love. I think this is funny too, once years ago, I gave one of the dogs a very rare piece of steak, she didn't know what to do with it and licked it awhile but never ate it. And she is my "food motivated" dog. So no raw food for her! However, I hate even typing this, but with my next dogs I will go with something completely different. Probably homemade cooked food.

Over the years, my lab began to suffer one allergy symptom after another after the age of 7. She was put on a bunch of medications, expensive shampoo etc. with no improvement. It was suggested that we put her on a dog food without fillers so we did our homework and chose Orijen brand mostly beccause it was so very highly rated - it remains at the number one or number two rated dog food. Nothing went into her mouth except for her Orijen dog food, dog cookies with no fillers and home made treats of small "bites" of plain cooked chicken breast - I would cut small bites of a bunch of chicken breasts, bake it completely plain, as is, in my oven and cool and put into freezer zip lock bags. I make up a bunch at a time and take out about ten "bites" at a time and keep them in a covered container in the fridge - at treat time I take one out and tear it up into even tiny pieces (for her to feel she is getting a lot of treat at a time) and she gets this about three times a day, plus her little grain free cookie about three times a day. She no longer has an overweight problem, she LOVES her food and one by one her allergie symptoms disappeared over a period of about two months. I can't recommend this grain free diet highly enough. The Orijen, at first glance, seems to be more expensive to feed but the dog eats less of it than the cheaper, supermarket found dog kibble so in reality it really isn't all that much more. And the dog loves it. And the savings in our vet bill now probably is in the multiple of hundreds of dollars over the last five months we have been doing this - no more emergency visits because of terrible hot spots or endless scratching or draining eyes, no more expensive drugs which are totally ineffective. I don't consider the baked chicken to be expensive at all, since each treat is really so small a piece, about half the size of my thumb at the very most. Both dogs just love the chicken bites of course and it helps give them a varied diet. What she is eating now is tastier to her than the junk food and junk cookies she used to have - this was obvious from the start, she loved her new diet. Her coat looks terrific, she no longer has hot spots she is licking at constantly, her eyes are clear and no longer run with clear drainage, she is more active and generally a happier, most certaily a healthier dog. All due to getting her off the junk filler. That is what worked for us. We put our new puppy on Orijen puppy food and the filler free treats and the baked chicken bites. Why tempt fate, we don't want this brand new puppy to develop problems due to cheap foods found in the supermarkets. If she does develop allergies or other physical problems, it won't be from her diet. Her vet is thrilled with the diet. I just wish she was so thrilled that she refunded to us the easily thousand dollars we spent in two years trying to treat her allergies to no avail. But the world doesn't turn that way and what really matters is that our dog is, once again, happy with good health and comfortable in her own skin.

I wasn't going to post the recipe since the thread seemed to be discussing commercial pet foods. But since DebbieP already is cooking chicken and rice, and someone else also asked, I thought the recipe might be helpful. I cook double batches in 2 big steel enameled pots. The downside is time and cost. The upside is my terriers are very healthy on it. Also, I thought it would be interesting if others respond about the nutritional content if they notice something amiss. 2 1/2 lbs ground beef (or other meat) 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 C rice, dry 1 T garlic paste 1 T wheat germ 1 T cider vinegar 1 T brewer's or nutritional yeast 1 t dried kelp 1 t bone meal 3 large carrots, grated 1/2 can green peas, mashed 1 small crown of broccoli, finely chopped 4 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk 1/2 t iodized salt 1 T flaxseed oil (add to mixture after it has cooled) Begin by boiling the ground beef in a large pot. Add garlic. As it cooks grate and add the carrot (A salad shooter is perfect for this job), chop and add the broccoli. Add water as needed to prevent sticking or burning. Stir often throughout the recipe, and add water as needed. Soak and rinse the rice several times. Add the rice and add more water. Continue to boil. Mash and add the peas. Beat and add the eggs. Add the other ingredients. Add dry milk when cooking is nearly finished. Add flaxseed oil when mixture is fairly cool and ready to be refrigerated. For variation use different meat, cottage cheese, well cooked lentils, garbanzos, lima beans. Vary the vegetable, use sweet potato, yam, spinach. Rice can be varied by using oatmeal, other grains, etc. Feed 2 times a day. --------------------------------- The Vet, Dr. Fox, recommends giving a human vitamin at the rate of 1/8th tablet per 30 lbs of body weight. I also supplement one of my dogs 125 tab of vitamin c and find it clears her runny eyes, and seems to have healed wart-like growths on her back that my vet said were common and not something to worry about. I suspect due to her age her liver is not producing enough vitamin c. My 2 other terriers appear very healthy on this diet. As I said in an earlier post, the dogs get lots of dog biscuits to keep their teeth clean. A word about poop - Since I walk my dogs nearly every day and pick up after them (I use paper lunch bags and pages torn from old telephone books), the diet makes their poop somewhat soft but still firm, and moist. It doesn't smell bad, relatively speaking. A word about breath - This diet has given my dogs a really nice breath scent. When I analysed the recipe using Dietpower and compared it with RDA's for dogs and humans, I only found problems with human RDA's. These were easily made up by adding spinach. Alas, my terriers have told me they do not like spinach...

Oh, gosh, if I put things in capital letters I do it for emphasis. I would never be so boorish as to yell at someone on a forum. So if I have offended anyone I apologize. My mother was a squabbler and it was really embarrassing for me as a teenager because she would take anybody on and run her mouth till she figured she'd "won". But my best friend had a mother who always said, "If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all". I really respected that woman for her restraint and her good manners. So you won't find me being obnoxious on a forum, on purpose, anyway. I appreciate everyone's input. Even if you don't all have the same opinions, it still gives me lots to think about. And, knowing that some things sound more harsh when they are written than the writer may have meant, I try to take everything other people say at face value. I love these forums and feel like I have learned so much from them. Cearbhaill, I'm going to offer Pearl a raw chicken wing tip today and see what she does. Stbonner, I will watch out for gluten on the ingredients list from now on. And also "meat by-products" or "meat and bone meal". Thanks for that information. Those who use blood-soaked sawdust from the floor, what would they call that? Does that fall in the "meat by-products" category? Minnie, I think that's a good idea you have there. I think it would be good to e-mail all these pet food producers who have the above items on their lists of ingredients and tell them we know what that is and we will not be buying their products as long as those ingredients are on the list. If they are just asked "if" they include euthanized pets and roadkill in their food, they'll just find someone who works there that doesn't know about "anything" that they put in the food, who can then truthfully tell you "I know of no such ingredients in our brand". Here's the ingredients list on the Chicken Soup brand of cat food: chicken, chicken meal, cracked pearled barley, chicken fat preserved with mixed tocopherols, ocean fish meal, white rice, potatoes, oatmeal, millet, natural chicken flavor, salmon, turkey, duck, flaxseed, sodium bisulfate, egg product, methionine, potassium chloride, choline chloride, dried chicory root, taurine, kelp, carrots, peas, apples, tomatoes, blueberries, spinach, dried skim milk, cranberry powder, rosemary extract, parsley flakes, yucca schidigera extract, L-carnitine, Enterococcus facium, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation solubles, dried Aspergillus oryzae fermentation extract, zinc proteinate, vitamin E supplement, niacin, manganese proteinate, copper proteinate, zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, vitamin A supplement, biotin, potassium iodide, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, manganese oxide, sodium selenite, vitamin D supplement, folic acid. I had never heard of Eagle Pack. I checked the price and it runs about $2 for a 13-oz can of cat food, if ordered from Amazon.com. I have sent an e-mail to a distributor 35 miles away to see what their price is. For that price, though, I'd think it would be cheaper to feed raw chicken if she will eat it. Would there be calcium in the cartilage that's in the wing? When I had cats as a child we always fed them milk and table scraps, and they supplemented it by hunting. Then people started saying cats couldn't digest milk and not to feed it. My dog, Sonny, has gotten so that he doesn't want to eat the dry Chicken Soup dog food. So to about a cup of dry food I've been adding about a half cup of leftovers from our most recent meal and some water that had sausage cooked in it (fat removed), or water with dry milk powder added, and he has been cleaning the bowl.