What do you feed your dog/puppy? Why?

Marley gets chicken/green beans/sweet potatoes cooked in the crockpot and shredded, mixed with a little bit of Iams dry food. Occasionally will add some cooked ground beef in. Why? It’s healthier but the bit of dry kibble ensures he’s also getting supplements that I don’t have to confidence to do on my own.

our dog gets orijen.. has for years. dh picked it so I have no idea why. he is happy with the dry kibble.. so there you go.

Prescription fat dog food becauE she is a hefty dog

We recently tried Farmer’s Dog for our two, and while they loved it, we didn’t. It comes frozen in these plastic flat pack pouches and the food is like paste. It was a big pain for a couple reasons. One, it takes up a lot of freezer space especially if you have a big dog. Our big dog was supposed to eat one pouch a day but because we split it into am/pm that means that half of an open pack also needs to be stored in the fridge along with the one you’re thawing out for the next day. And two, because we also have a little dog that is only supposed to get 1/4 of a pack a day which was harder to divide. Plus we would have to store hers in the fridge for multiple days and it’s supposedly only “fresh” for four days. It was just really inconvenient.

Since the little dog is really picky, I started buying some bags of Fresh Pet from Costco to top off their dry food bowls since they liked the other stuff so much. The little one actually eats it which has to be better for her than the mini dog biscuit treats she prefers over her food. The Fresh Pet in the bag comes in little chunks which is so much easier to deal with than the pasty Farmer’s Dog. I can put a few days worth in a ziplock bag in the fridge and leave the rest in the freezer, but because it’s already in a kibble type form I can thaw out a few cups at a time and leave the rest in the bag in the freezer. I wouldn’t use that as my only food for the lab because it’s pretty expensive at about $24 for 19 cups, and the big dog would eat around 3 cups a day if it was all he was eating.

We have been feeding ours Nutro Natural Choice chicken and brown rice and that seems to be the dry food that our allergic lab tolerates best. The Nutro comes in a 30 lb bag and even that is spendy at about $75 a bag. Cost is definitely a factor for us. A big dog will eat you out of house and home!

Now our neighbor at the lake has a smaller senior dog that had been having a lot of health issues recently, so her vet suggested feeding her cooked chicken breasts and carrots. That’s all she eats. That dog was running around and acting like a puppy last summer! It was like night and day difference for her and the only big change was her diet.

Granted, my dog is a 14 pound sheltie, but she gets Hill's Science Diet dry food. My vet recommended it, and she eats it well.

The other dogs are on prescription dog food for various ailments.

I serve my muttly affenpinscher Fromm's Gold for small breed dogs. It's what I fed my last dog and I still had some of it when she passed away so he inherited it. it's good quality and we've never had any issues with it.

I've mostly fed my English Bulldogs Taste of the Wild Sierra Mountain (purple bag).  It's what the foster mom of my first rescue fed her dogs so I just continued.  I am currently mixing in a couple tablespoons of Natures Balance wet food with each feeding.

One of my previous bulldogs had horrible allergies on her feet so I tried Fromm.  It was so long ago I can't remember why but after a few days I return the bag to the pet store and got a refund.  I also tried the very bland limited Natures Balance dry food.  She liked that and I continued feeding her that until she passed away but it didn't do too much to curb her feet issues.

ETA: I also feed my dogs "lunch" which consists of steamed veggies.  Mostly a variety of broccoli, carrots, cucumbers and green beans.

Your post made me think of this video 

https://www.tiktok.com/@furallover/video/7295015195238288686

Fromm Pork and Applesauce kibble. My boys started on Orijen as puppies then moved to Fromm. We just had one of our dogs pass at almost 17 years old. The other two are 9 and almost 9 (large breed). They are very healthy, and we won't deviate from their great food--Fromm.

Blue Buffalo Grain free dry kibble, as she was fed grain free in rescue. She is now getting an non steroidal anti inflammatory twice a day which I put in @ 1/4 cup of canned blue Buffalo.

Pure balance senior with salmon,15 1/2 year old shih tzu.

I make my own dog food for our 7 year old goldendoodle. She been on Purina Pro Plan, but started to have irregular bowel issues. I did a lot of research on commercial dog foods, and wasn’t liking what I read. I did research on making my own, and it didn’t seem all that hard.

I made a recipe that includes ground turkey, brown rice, many fresh veggies and ground egg shells for calcium. I tried adding turmeric, but her face is white and turmeric stained it something awful. I make about 2 weeks worth at a time, portion it in individual servings and freeze it. She loves it, her bowels have been good and I know exactly what she’s eating.

Generally Fromm and we rotate through proteins as our Mastiff mix gets itchy otherwise. The last couple of bags have been Diamond Naturals beef and sweet potato though and they have done well on it. The last bag of Fromm pork and applesauce made both dogs sick to their stomachs even though they’ve had it before without issue. Right before the pandemic hit I was using Volhard which is a base mix that you feed with raw ground beef. Both dogs did really well i it but I couldn’t get enough ground beef in the early days of the pandemic and prices have stayed high since then. I’d love to feed a completely raw diet but it’s just cost prohibitive for us right now with two large dogs.

We use The Farmer's Dog. We rescued our pug about a year ago, and he was so incredibly smelly all the time. We did a Farmer's Dog trial and his digestive issues disappeared. He also is, for a pug, a pretty healthy weight, which is a real struggle with his breed.

It's expensive. It's also kind of work, because you have to get in a rhythm of thawing and portioning it, although the plus side is that it does ship to your house.

Anyway, I'm not shilling for them, but it has worked for my dog.