Hi everyone. I am feeding Hendrix Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed (the blue bag). I took this at the suggestion of a product representive that was at the petstore one day. I am second guessing myself and having a hardtime getting "un-biased" information on pet food. I want to make sure that my Hendrix gets all the nutrition he needs, i don't mind paying a bit more for it. Is there superior dog food than this or is this suitable, i was assured it was top notch, but again i don't know if she would have told me otherwise.

Also, my wife has began supplementing Hendrix's diet with Eggs and fresh Veggies in the evening (eggs only 3 days week). Should i be worried about this? Hendrix sure likes it. Looking forward to your responses.

 I have 3 GSPs and I've fed them Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and Rice. My three like it better than Science Diet and ProPlan. Because we have had a cold, dry winter, I recently switched to Innova thinking it might help with the dry skin. I haven't noticed a change yet. I'll probably go back to Nutro since my dogs like it .  I did have a dog with a sensitive stomach for a while and the only thing he could keep down was the Nutro Natural Chicken and Oatmeal. I think they have a good product.

The Whole Dog Journal (www.whole-dog-journal.com/) does a yearly unbiased review of premium dry foods, it just came out a few weeks ago in their February issue.  If you PM me your email address I'd be happy to send you a copy.

Strictly my opinion but exactly what you're feeding is what got me into looking for a better food.  Corn gluten meal is the 3rd ingredient and it's a cheap filler and can easily cause problems for dogs with allergies.  I know that after a few weeks on it my dog was scratching more often than not.  I switched to Canidae which was great for years but we ran into allergy problems again when their formula changed.  We're still looking for a new food

Here is a quick and easy way to compare dog food that is actually pretty good.  This page gives the rankings:

www.the-puppy-dog-place.com/dog-food-ratings.html

And if you go to this page: www.the-puppy-dog-place.com/dog-food-comparisons.html you get the analysis and  can actually plug in you dogs food and score it.

According to this your dog food gets a B which is not bad, but there are better choices.

I feed mine a combo of Wellness canned lamb or venison and Innova Large Breed kibble.  In the morning they get just kibble and at night I give them a kibble and canned mix along with a Coat and Skin supplement by California Natural.  Just so you know California Natural, Innova and a few others are all owned by Natura.  Natura just built their own manufacturing plants in the US so they no longer use the a third party manufacturer. Also, during the dog food recalls Natura was one of the few that was not impacted.

You might also look on this site for the threads where different dog foods are discussed.

We have made the switch to Nutro Ultra. I got the suggestion from a trainer that we have been working with and the fact that i don't have to switch brands is a bonus. i think it will be good, doesn't seem to be upsetting him too much, although he eats less of it.

I don't necessarily like a large breed food either, but I do like large kibble pieces as it makes the dogs slow down and chew.  The key is slowing down.  There are many things you can do to get the dogs to slow down when they eat.  I changed my boys bowl from a rounded bottom to a flat bottom and while he eats he pushes the food to the edges so he has to work harder to get at it and thus slows down a bit.  MegC (I think it was MegC) put a link of big chain in the bowl to slow her fast eaters down.  The reason is you don't want your dog swallowing allot of air and if they eat too fast they have a tendency to swallow air.

We fed Nutro to two of our dogs for 3 years and we quite happy with their products. But when we got the first gsp we had problems with her coat. we didn't make the connection with her food till she started to lose weight. She was just starting her training and it wasn't keeping the weight on her. The other 2 were still doing great but they were a 3yr old lab gsp mix and a 13 yr old mix. Cocoa went off to training so we kept the nutro. When we brought our 2nd gsp home he started loseing his color. We made the swap to Canadaie and his color came back and Cocoa came back from the trainers and she seemed to do well on the canadaie. After the formula change the gsps didn't do so well but the other two seemed fine. We tried several different brands but didn't have any luck till we went to the sams club exceede brand. Now all the dogs are happy. We lost the older one to old age but all 3 are happy now. I think nutro is a good food for some dogs but just not my GSP's. Like I said the other 2 were fine on it for years and if it wasn't for the coat issues we would prpbably still be using it.
Jim

I was feeding my dogs a combination of Innova Evo Red Meat and canned Wellness Venison or Lamb.  I had to switch though as Belle (my oldest) developed an allergy to beef.  I ended up switching to Innova Large Breed because it was turkey and chicken based.  At the time I could not get the Innova Evo Large Breed which was chicken and turkey based.  I use the large breed kibble because it is larger pieces and forces my dogs to take the time to chew their food (slows their eating down). I like the higher protein foods with low grains as they process more of the food and less passes through their system (not as much poop to clean up).

I've been feeding my dogs Pro Plan Shredded Large Breed. During hunting season I switch to Pro Plan High Performance. I have tried other foods. The two things that are most important to me are I do not want any by products (fillers). The other thing I look at is how much of the food is being obsorbed into the dogs. I see how many times they go to the bathroom during the day and how healthy it looks. The less times they go the more the food is being obsorbed which also means less food you have to feed them. And with the prices of dog food that helps.