Help with dog food issue - honest kitchen x open farms combo

[tankdriver]

Hi!

I am having an issue with dog food in my household. I am currently a grad student (= no money) living with my mother ($$$), who I am DESPERATELY fighting over her with dog food and picking good brands.

For reference, she is the one that buys dog food for the house. I have one dog that is "mine" (I am responsible for all his care, training, etc) and the others are hers.

She is currently feeding everyone honest kitchen dehydrated (GRAIN INCLUSIVE- chicken and duck formula) and open farms kibble (beef and ancient grains) I checked to make sure it DOESN'T have high legumes, and it has around 30% protein.

I explained to her how there are boutique brands that aren't good but she is OBSESSED with the healthy good-feeling marketing and she won't listen. I try to show her studies, but she won't budge. At the very least she is including grain but I keep telling her it's still not great food. I have lectured her time and time again about how we need good amounts of protein, low legumes, and tourine.

Is there a way to add supplementation to these foods to make them better? If we have to stick with these shitty formulas, is there anything I can add to them to make them slightly less shitty?

What's the least damaging and terrible way to make these foods possible better if I cannot convince her to switch?

How bad is this food combo realistically?

 

[stryker4]

@tankdriver I would personally rather feed Purina dog chow over a boutique food. Do you think you could afford that on your own? I understand money is tight and if it’s not possible I get it, but Dog Chow is very economical, especially if you get a sale price whether it’s 10% off at Petco or 20% off at PetSmart.

Otherwise if she insists on boutique maybe look for brands that don’t have DCM cases and see if she’ll switch

 

[tankdriver]

@stryker4 Unfortunately since I'm in grad school full time I'm literally not making ANY money until I graduate. I have a very meager savings that I need to save for once I graduate and move out. But I think I could convince her to add supplements or meats or toppers to their food to somewhat make it better, but I also want to get a realistic idea of how bad this actually is for my dog.

Once I move out with him and I graduate, I absolutely plan to switch.

Right now I'm pretty terrified about the toll this might be having on his body and his little heart.

With the high grains, low to no legumes.... How bad is it? Should I be scared ?

 

[stryker4]

@tankdriver Dang I’m sorry. I think toppers would make it worse by unbalancing the food even more tbh. There’s got to be some line of a WSAVA compliant food that could make her happy. I wish they still sold the Purina beyond kibble for situations like this

Edit to add. Although I’d be stressing like you, your dog is being fed, and DCM although it’s a big deal, it’s not something most dogs in boutique diets get. I’m glad you plan to switch as soon as you can, but I don’t think there’s a crazy high chance of your dog getting sick from eating this temporarily

 

[tankdriver]

@stryker4 Out of all the boutique foods, is this one of the really bad ones?

Is there a least bad /less bad boutique food I could steer her towards ?

Unfortunately if it's not free range organic human grade stuff, she simply refuses to buy it. No matter what it is it has to make her feel good. She used the excuse of our older dog "Getting spry and bouncy" on it before she passed.

 

[stryker4]

@tankdriver Feels strange to almost recommend a boutique food but there’s 3 that come to mind that I would consider feeding if nothing else was an option.

Farmina may have some DCM cases but they conduct research and work with a university. They have some prescription lines

Just food for dogs seems decent. They have prescription diets. Lots of veterinarians on staff last I checked.

Instinct, although they have at least one DCM case, they are working towards being WSAVA compliant. But that also adds raw into the mix which I’m not a fan of.

Edit to add- maybe you could get her to consider Beneful simple goodness?! It’s like a soft kibble type food that they try to market as being very natural and less processed. If you could get her to feed that, that would be amazing since Beneful is Purina

 

[tankdriver]

@stryker4 I'll try to steer her towards those I guess!

Once I start getting more money in it's literally going to be the first thing I change.

The question still remains though:

Relatively speaking, how severe should my concerns be with these formulations (the ones I mentioned in my original post)?

 

[stryker4]

@tankdriver My parents fed their two current dogs taste of the wild for years with no issues, loads of dogs I know eat it without issue, even though it’s one of the most dangerous foods, so it’s very likely your dog will be ok.

 

[tankdriver]

@stryker4 If she finds out it's Purina it will probably be a no go, she things they pay vets to recommend them.

 

[stryker4]

@tankdriver Oh wow… that’s rough haha. Yeah no chance she would go for Beneful then.

 

[tankdriver]

@stryker4 I'm also really confused because my first year vet student friend told me it just needs to be at AAFCO standards. Is he lying?

 

[stryker4]

@tankdriver Some vet schools teach more nutrition than others, he may just not have taken nutrition yet. AAFCO is the bare minimum. Most dog foods meet AAFCO. The problem is all of the dog foods giving dogs DCM meet AAFCO, so that’s clearly not a perfect standard. WSAVA compliant foods haven’t contributed to any DCM cases except for one prescription diet that was misused and a Purina one? (Not positive that was the line) food that was discontinued a long time ago.

 

[tankdriver]

@stryker4 Okay that makes more sense! It's a shame that none of the compliant brands have a good "look". To be frank, they should probably try to mirror the boutique marketing because apparently the marketing works quite well.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@tankdriver Undoubtedly you can manage to feed ONE dog Purina Dog Chow. Give up Netflix, lattes, Hulu, etc and there's your dog food.

If you don't switch you could end up with a dead or sick dog and the vet bills to match.

 

[mufudzi]

@imagebeastmarkbeast No need to be commenting on everyone’s posts. If you look at OPs post history they ended up convincing their family to buy WSAVA food

 

[shad09]

@tankdriver My dogs use open farm now bc they quit eating hills science diet they just didnt like it anymore. So far open farms has been good and my vet said its fine bc im using the whitefish with ancient grains

 

[tahani0705]

@tankdriver Ingredients should matter, shouldn’t they? - otherwise why not just eat cardboard with supplements??

 

[sevilodorf]

@tahani0705 https://www.reddit.com/r/DogFood/wiki/index/ingredients/

An ingredients list is easily manipulated and doesn’t give any insight into whether a diet is healthy, complete, or balanced

 

[tahani0705]

@sevilodorf I thought that’s what the AAFCO rating was for. I know it’s the minimum, but more than minimum isn’t always better, especially with supplements, carbs, protein, etc.
Am I wrong?

 

[sevilodorf]

@tahani0705 AAFCO nutrient profiles can be substantiated three ways:

By formulation aka on paper

By feeding trial

By analysis of the finished product

Most boutique brands with pretty ingredients lists do by formulation, which is not at all rigorous

But really the point is that people look at ingredients lists for “good” or “bad” ingredients without understanding that the stuff that don’t like (can’t pronounce, think isn’t healthy) actually provides critical nutrients. For example laypeople auto assign “chicken” as a better value than barley, but that isn’t based in science