I am wondering if any have heard of, use or would recommend Arkat dog feed. I am thinking of switching to it.

I have been feeding Diamond Lamb & Rice with homemade soft food (rice, organ meats, cooked canned vegetables, egg, olive oil and occasionally fruits).

I noticed that Abby's coat was starting to dull a little from the extra summertime exercise so I moved to Diamond Lamb & Rice Puppy Formula (also with the soft food).

I have been thinking about the Arkat feed because it uses human quality ingredients made in a human quality factory, with the most modern extruders in the country. The formulas all use the same ingredients, just varying the porportions to get different % protein to % fat ratio. The only dogs I've met that are on Arkat are working APBT's that are on 30/22. They look good on the outside...

I know the food I use now is not very high quality, but I am reluctant to switch because Abby has a sensitive stomach and very fussy palate!

Ingredients for the 27/17 Enchanced Formula (what I would use for Abby - and the others):
Chicken By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Ground Corn, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols, a natural source of Vitamin E), Beet Pulp, Fish Meal, Flax, Brewers Dried Yeast, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Liver Digest, Choline Chloride, Lecithin, Garlic, Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Oxide, Ascorbic Acid, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Biotin, Vitamin A Acetate, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Copper Oxide, Riboflavin Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (a source of Vitamin K activity), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Potassium Iodide, Folic Acid, Sodium Selenite

The first (and therefore most plentiful) item on the list is chicken byproduct meal.

I know this is not a universal belief, but I'd want actual meat to be the first ingredient if I were going to go with commercial food. (BTW, based on my own research and personal experience, I commend you for choosing to supplement with fresh food. I know commercial food is the only realistic choice for many people, but I don't think the same can of the same food, every day, forever, is any more appropriate for a dog than it would be for any mammal -- such as the dog's owner.)

The canned vegetables, while well-cooked and therefore possibly easier for a dog's system to process, might contain a LOT of salt. You might want to check the labels and consider rinsing off the packing liquid and eliminating some of that sodium.

Chicken byproduct meal is not necessarily undesirable, since it can contain intestines, ground bone and organ meat, incomplete chicken eggs, and pretty much anything from the chicken except very minimal feathers, and these parts can contain valuable nutrients. BUT this meal can be in any proportion, and the consumer doesn't know how much actual meat there is involved. I would prefer meat, not byproducts, to be on the top of the list, with byproducts lower down.

At least grain isn't first on the list; I think many owners would be amazed and dismayed if they read the ingredients label on some of the commercial foods pushed at veterinary offices. I believe the vets would be, too!

I'm not a vet. I have researched this subject thoroughly, I believe, especially since I've dealt with dogs who had many allergies.

Thank you, Connie.
This is my understanding of by-product vs. meat.

From what I have read of a dog's nutritional requirements, the dog requires 65% of its diet to be organ meat and 15% of its diet to be muscle meat.

I have a friend who has visited many dog food factories (he also feeds his dogs Arkat) who tells me that when you see chicken in ingredients it is water added chicken, and the ingredients are measured by weight giving a false impression of how much actual chicken is in the food.

However, the by-product contains organ meat that the dog digest and utilize most effeciently. And as it is a lower cost ingredient it is not watered down to make it weigh more.

Now the big difference is while the AAFCO allows necks, intestines, feet and stuff in their meat by-product meal, Arkat uses human quality by-product - think hot dogs. I think it may be a superior protein source. I am wrong in this?

I wanted to comment on the meat vs. meal arguement here.

Connie, you say you would prefer seeing meat as the first ingredient rather than byproducts. I agree with you on the fact that I don't like to see byproducts on a dog food label, however, meal is actually preferable over whole meat in dog food. Here's why:

When whole meat is listed on a dog food label, this means that it was whole when added to the mixture to be cooked. Whole meat is about 75% moisture, which means that during the cooking process, you are losing all of that, which brings the total weight of the actual meat way down. This means that even though the chicken weighed more than the following 4 or 5 ingredients before the cooking process, after cooking, it could weigh so much less that it would have to be listed as the 4th or 5th ingredient instead of the first. You *see* meat as being the first ingredient, but there is actually more of the 3-5 ingredients following than there is of that first ingredient. I hope I haven't lost you.

Meat meal, on the other hand, has already had all the moisture removed before being added to the mixture to be cooked. This means that it retains its weight after it has been cooked, and so the ingredients list is a little more accurate. I would much rather see meal as the first ingredient than meat, because that tells me that there really IS more of it than anything else in the food.

Just like McDonalds, 1/4 pounder with cheese is before cooking, not after. Too bad. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Also understand that dog food companies will split the ingredients. For example, Corn, will be split into and labeled as corn, corn gluten, corn meal. Since the quantities in volumes are smaller when split they filter towards the bottom of the ingredient list. Where in fact it they were to total the whole thing it would rank up there with other main ingredients.

QUOTE from Kristen: When whole meat is listed on a dog food label, this means that it was whole when added to the mixture to be cooked. Whole meat is about 75% moisture, which means that during the cooking process, you are losing all of that, which brings the total weight of the actual meat way down. This means that even though the chicken weighed more than the following 4 or 5 ingredients before the cooking process, after cooking, it could weigh so much less that it would have to be listed as the 4th or 5th ingredient instead of the first. END

This is good-quality discussion/explanation, and I appreciate the time spent on this kind of thoughtful reply.

Here's something I wasn't skilful about explaining: While "chicken byproduct meal" COULD mean an excellent, no-water, good-protein ingredient based mainly on organ meats and some ground bone, there is (I think) no way to know that it's not actually a far less nutritious filler mix with not much in it but beaks, feet, and intestines. The ingredients list presented in the message from Anne had "chicken BYPRODUCTS meal" as the first item -- not "CHICKEN meal." Neither chicken nor chicken meal shows up at all on the list (although fish meal, which can be a very good ingredient, does). What I should have said, I realize after reading your reply, is that I prefer that "meat " OR "meat meal" be the first ingredient.

When you say "I agree with you on the fact that I don't like to see byproducts on a dog food label, however, meal is actually preferable over whole meat in dog food," I understand that you mean "meat meal" means a better concentration of meat than just "meat," which is, of course, largely water.

But "byproducts meal," to me, doesn't mean that.

Yes, your point is excellent, and I missed it in my own message: "meat meal" indicates a larger amount of real meat than "meat" does, because of the water content (and subsequent heaviness allowing it to be placed high on the ingredient list) of "meat." But "byproducts meal," unless there is some breakdown of what the manufacturer means by "byproducts," seems to be a crapshoot.

But then another message mentioned "human-quality byproduct," and that may mean something far superior to what I think AAFCO allows to be called byproduct. I'd like to hear more about that, if anyone has more details about it.

Another item in response was that one ingredient, like corn, might be much higher in reality that it looks on the by-weight list because of being split into two or three parts or types of corn (similar to the way sugar can be made to look lower by weight when packaged foods for humans use three or four types of sugar and therefore manipulate the ingredients list to appear that sugar is not the first or second ingredient.....whereas if one added together all the types of sugar, the total would be way up there).

Those cheap grain foods like corn (a common allergen) are not something I'm particularly looking for in dog food, and it's not desirable to me that it's often a larger proportion of the product than the label indicates, because of the label showing it in more than one form.

This probably sounds like minutiae to lots of people coming across this thread. It isn't to me and to some others because of the experiences of having dealt with multiple-allergy dogs. Also, people who have decided to go with commercial foods often want to put in quite a bit of research time before they make a decision about which one to choose and how/whether to supplement it with fresh food. My own research led me to home-prepared food, but it isn't so much the final decision, maybe, as it is that the owners have weighed their own pros and cons and decided on the best for their dogs in their situation. That's why I appreciate these thoughtful responses. They remind me that my own research can never be considered "over and done" !!

I'll try to stay off the raw diet pedestal <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> If you do choose to feed dry foods, here is a list to compare from:
dog foods

The Arkat put me off by having corn, beet pulp and BHA as a preservative in it (the one you were looking at). Beets have too much sugar and corn is just plain no good. Also don't like all the salt in dog foods.

I would choose a food with more natural ingredients and not loaded with a bunch of vegetables. Too many carbs for dogs! I didn't look far, but Artemis sounds interesting.

Whilst I won't get involved in the meat vs. meal debate, I would favor the meat. There is a lot of info on the web about rendering plants: what goes in and what comes out. Meal and by-products are such an unknown.

I still like knowing what's in my dog's bowl. Tonight it's short ribs!

So I'm guessing that the Diamond Lamb & Rice "Puppy" Formula (27/15) that I'm feeding now (with soft food) is higher quality than the Arkat 27/17 Enhanced formula. Here is the ingredients list:

Lamb, lamb meal, whole grain brown rice, rice flour, oatmeal, corn gluten meal, brewers rice, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), beet pulp, egg product, natural flavor, flaxseed, fish meal, brewers dried yeast, potassium chloride, salt, choline chloride, vitamin E supplement, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate, manganese oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A supplement, biotin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, menadione dimethylpyrimidinol bisulfite (source of vitamin K activity), riboflavin, vitamin D supplement, folic acid.

There are two things I don't like about it:
1) corn gluten/corn gluten meal is an undigestable protein source, making the %protein on the label read falsely (and my biggerst concern at this point is increasing the digestable protein in their diet.) What is the actual %protein/%fat after the undigestable protein has been accounted for?

2) I do want to see a human-quality by product (or sepcified organ meat) in the food as I understand it is more beneficial.

QUOTE: I'm guessing that the Diamond Lamb & Rice "Puppy" Formula (27/15) that I'm feeding now (with soft food) is higher quality than the Arkat 27/17 Enhanced formula. ....... There are two things I don't like about it:
1) corn gluten/corn gluten meal is an undigestable protein source, making the %protein on the label read falsely (and my biggerst concern at this point is increasing the digestable protein in their diet.) What is the actual %protein/%fat after the undigestable protein has been accounted for?
2) I do want to see a human-quality by product (or sepcified organ meat) in the food as I understand it is more beneficial. END

REPLY: Two sites which are not unbiased (because they do promote a certain brand of food) do offer intelligent discussion of protein quality and protein needs for those who have decided to go with commercial food.

One is http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?dept_id=0&siteid=12&acatid=284&aid=459

and one is http://www.dogtrainerphoenix.com/nutrition.htm

Remember that each one wants you to buy a certain product; however, both give lots of solid information about your protein concerns. I'd take advantage of the information and then check labels.

And yes, the ingredient list you mention with lamb and lamb meal as first and second would strike me as being far superior to the earlier one that had byproduct meal in first place........just my opinion!

Thank you for the links. I think I will stay with the food I have now (Diamond Lamb & Rice Puppy Formula plus soft food)rather than switch to Arkat Enhanced.

I do want to increase the fresh food part of the diet, but don't know exactly the porportion and amounts. I will read old posts as I'm guessing it has been addressed before. My goal is to have two of the most exceptionaly groomed, cared for and well-trained dogs - and if it means raw diet *eek* I guess I'll have to suck it up! Thank you all for your input!