The large number of dog food types makes me laugh!

Ol' Roy is the one food my vet said NEVER to feed your dog.  That crap has been recalled so many times I can't even count. And if I remember right, it's been responsible for deaths. Surely there are other choices than shelter/Ol' Roy. 

IOW, I respectfully disagree with you on that one.

Well, I thought my dog deserved an 'upgrade' in her food so we went from Benefuls to Rachel Ray dog food and she didn't see it as 'upgrade' at all. She looks at the food, looks at me, and sometimes walks away, although she eventually eats it. Back to the Benefuls, which she loves.

Michelle- this made me crack up!
Tucker gets the 'weight management' food from Costco, with a spoonful
of plain puréed pumpkin on top. Some days he gobbles it up and other days he looks at me like 'really? This again?' and walks away. The vet recommended it when we rescued him because he was overweight- we've been using it for 18 months and guess what??? The damn dog still weighs the exact same weight to the ounce, haha!

My dogs wait for us to get water and ice and then wait for them to fall out. The older one Duke, tries to catch them as they fall. One of his favorite activities! LOL!

I agree with Sunshine. Reading comprehension is a good thing folks! She wasn't suggesting Rob Roy as a good dog food. She was saying it was better if you were dirt poor and had nothing else to feed the dog and the dog was going to starve otherwise.

What Sunshine did give was a great site to evaluate the quality of all dog foods http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com   You can look up what you are feeding your dog, do some reading and see how it rates. Learn all about what goes in to the food and what is great to include and what isn't. You can also sign up for alerts to come to your email when a dog food brand you are feeding is recalled.

Sadly there isn't one for cat food, but most cat foods occur under the same dog food brand so at least it's a good start if you only have cats (like me).

The pet food industry is nothing to laugh about. It's a mega-million dollar industry. You can spend your dollars on a healthy food or you can spend your dollars at your vet treating the illnesses your poor quality food caused. At least that's how I look at it.

I've got two cats-one 16 year old, and one 17 year old.

Debbie in MD.

When we had indoor kittehs, the little box was the dog's favorite buffet destination. I moved the box to the garage and the damn dog would lay in front of the door to the garage and whine..damn turd burglar. I don't know why I waste money on fancy food for her when all she wanted to eat was crap, literally ! Now that all our kittehs have passed, the dog has accepted the fact that the only kitteh treats she gets to eat are from the kind strays that use our back yard as their littler box

We give ours dry food with a heaping tablespoon of can food mixed-in otherwise she gets bored and won't eat. The funny part is when we choose the cans of food. We ooh and ahh over the different flavors/mixes. We typically buy Merrick and the names are quite amusing. You would think we were shopping for our own meals the way we exclaim "that one sounds really good".

Merrick must have a great team in place for naming their foods, because the names sound wonderful!  I thought my cats would love it, sadly they had other ideas.

We feed our fella Blue Buffalo Life Protection Puppy small Breed. He likes it. Glad to see it's rated a 5 on the site that Sunshine linked.

We also buy Acana Pacifica (puppy) for treats for training. It's really tiny kibble, so if we need to give him a whole bunch, it doesn't fill him up too much.

Ideally Maggie ought to be on a Hepatic (Liver Support) diet, but very few dogs will even eat it, so we make do with Renal (Kidney Support) with low protein.   

Our Vet got us a consult with a Veterinary dietitian (yes, there are people who study nutritional needs and formulate diets for all sorts of animals) and she came up with a few recipes for us to try right after Maggie's bloating incidents.  I know "why" there are many diets. Dogs can be VERY PICKY eaters.  Once a week I make her food for the week, wet and dry stuff that is mixed before feeding.

We are cheating, I found a compounding pharmacy that will put the powdered nutritional supplements into a pill form, otherwise, we have a hard time getting Maggie to eat her food.

We do give ours the Beniful varieties. They like the healthy weight and healthy coat one. I will sometimes add a little olive oil and or rice if they have a tummy issue or as an extra treat. They love it with the olive oil and it's good for them.

oops.  week is a typo.  It's $52 a month with a $100 deductible, thru Trupanion.  The cost is higher in Canada, probably.  Just like everything is.  Going up to correct my typo.

My vets office talked me into getting it.  We hadn't even thought about it until they started their spiel.