Hello Everyone,

This is my first post at Leerburg and hopefully, I'm in the right spot. I've researched my question and the only solid answer that I can come up with it the BARF diet.

Plain and simple, I cannot afford or manage that diet for my dog, so I'm looking for the next best thing. Yes, I love my dog and want the best for him, but quite honestly, I don't even eat that well!

His name is Diesel and he's 7 years old. For the past 2 years, I've been feeding him Wellness, but his stools are loose from time to time. He's also not too crazy about eating it either.

Does anyone have a solid recommendation to a quality food that is enjoyable and nutritious for my GSD? I'm looking for something that dry bagged. Cindy, here at Leerburg, recommended Solid Gold's Barking at the Moon. Anyone try this?

I'm also interested in starting him out on some joint supplements. Something that I can sprinkle on his food, or one that tasty enough for him to just eat.

Thanks everyone.

Hmm..I fed my pup wellness for three months or so but switched to Innova to see if she'd do any better on that one. She seems to eat more of it and enjoy it more so than when she was on Wellness.

I don't know about that particular brand of Solid Gold but I had also fed her the puppy version, think it was called Wolf Cub. She did better on that one than Wellness.

I've just seen so many options, it's hard to tell what's good or bad. I can't possibly start sampling all of these.

From what I've read so far, the best seem to be these (in no order):

Solid Gold
Orijen
Merrick
Innova

 Quote: nicholas david

... Does anyone have a solid recommendation to a quality food that is enjoyable and nutritious for my GSD? I'm looking for something that dry bagged. Cindy, here at Leerburg, recommended Solid Gold's Barking at the Moon. Anyone try this? ... I'm also interested in starting him out on some joint supplements. Something that I can sprinkle on his food, or one that tasty enough for him to just eat. ....

Solid Gold's "Barking" is a great choice. So is this:
http://leerburg.com/honestkitchen.htm
with RMBs added.

No matter what the food, the dog needs fish oil and Vitamin E. No modern diet has the long-chain Omega 3s that dogs need (explained on this board), and the E protects the PUFAs as the oil is processed. You can find fish oil readily in natural food stores, and here:
http://leerburg.com/47.htm

How much does he weigh? We can tell you the appropriate amounts of fish oil and E for his weight. By the way, fish oil is my first line of joint defense (long-chain Omega 3s being a powerful anti-inflammation agent) for all dogs with the glucosamine being a close second for adults/seniors.

Most dogs love fish oil and have no aversion to glucosamine supplements.

And of course, weight management is critical for joint health.

And welcome to the board!!

I fed Orijen for awhile. I tried feeding EVO, but got major loose stools from it. The dog, not me.

I eventually switched to raw. It's cheaper if you live in an area where you can get cheap meat, scraps, etc. In the MN area, try this:

http://www.rawsforpaws.com

I pay $12 for 40 pounds of chicken backs.

Elsewhere, no idea. But you could certainly try hitting up some meat distributors to see what they can get you. And, you could even go so far as to develop a program similar to the one above to get better group discounts.

Managing the diet is easy. But two weeks worth of cheap bowls, and make up 2 weeks worth of food at once. It takes me under an hour every 2 weeks. Keep 4-5 days worth in the fridge, and freeze the rest. If you don't have a freezer, get one for free from Craigslist. I used to prepare the food every day, and that gets to be a huge PITA.

I feed solid gold Wolfking right now as right now we can't manage raw for all three all the time, but we do raw meals several times a week and bigger raw recreational bones.
Everyone likes it and does well with it.

Innova EVO caused enough gas to run us all out of the house, I mean toots so loud you could hear it in the other room.

I also had issues when I tried the dogs on Evo with loose stools.

Back on raw now, but I was feeding kibble for awhile, and switched between Orijen and Wellness Core - both grain-free. I really liked both, Orijen the best. The dogs did great on both brands, and I could switch between them with no issues.

The Honest Kitchen also is great, I use it on backpacking trips, and fed it to Neb when he was a wee puppy.

Depending on how you swing it and where you hail from RAW is usually cheaper right now than the premium dog foods you'll encounter when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it all.

The honest kitchen is a nice in between for kibble to raw. It is however signifigantly more costly than other chows. I bought a 10lb box of Embark tonight for 83.00. If I just feed the embark I'm looking at a cost per lb of 1.93/lb wet weight. I cut mine with raw chicken/turkey/beef/etc and get a little more distance out of it. Please note that wet weight is different from dry weight. It is as others have mentioned though a quality food.

Of kibbles you'll encounter you'll see many names thrown around. I personally have a rather short list. It includes names like Instinct, Wellness Core, Nature's Balance, and Evo. My basic rule of thumb is as grain free as I can get it and a strong protein base. I have not been disappointed in this strategy yet.All kibbles should be a combination of proteins and binders for those proteins. Usually you can identify these as either grain bound or veggie bound. My usual costs for large bags of quality kibble run between $40-$65 which lasts my home usually about a month each bag on a 50% raw/50% kibble diet with 9 to 11 dogs of various sizes eating.

I can buy alot of raw food for the cost of one bag of chow. I would feed the same suppliments even if I went 100% either way and one day I hope to go 100% raw. Why not do it now? Very simply I have the mental capacity of slime mold in the mornings before 9am and much beyond scoop, scoop, feed is a bit much to ask of me on the 4-6 hrs of sleep I get while in school and working. Once properly caffinated and exercised however I much more into things like not bumping into walls, noticing I'm not wearing my glasses, and preparing dog food.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

How much does he weigh?

Most dogs love fish oil and have no aversion to glucosamine supplements.

And of course, weight management is critical for joint health.

Connie, he weights 101-105lbs.


Thanks for the replies, everyone. Here are some pics of Diesel.