foods you just wouldn't feed

Science diet is disgustingly greasy which alone makes me want to barf. Basically anything at the grocery store or grain inclusive with little meat (newly discovered )

Would likely never feed Beneful, Ol Roy, Kibbles n Bits, Blue Buffalo, Nutro, Taste of the Wild....

Honestly the list is probably a lot shorter of what I WOULD feed lol.

I have the same hatred towards SD LOL... no REAL good reason. I mean I do believe they put forth a lot of time, money and research into the food. Some of the formulas are disgusitng, others are okay (Ideal Balance is nowhere near a bad food). I no longer like Royal Canin at all.

(mumble mumble) Pippa does really well on Blue…

I also like the security of feeding something I can get at most large, chain stores (we have so many panicked customers running in at 5:58 on a Sunday because they ran out of Orijen). Maybe that will change as the pup gets older or as I find other alternatives.

I wouldn't feed regular SD if I didn't have to, but my perception of the Rx diets has definitely changed. I think you can supplement to get the same results but I really like what we see with dogs on j/d and b/d. Or ancient cats on j/d who won't take meds easily.

Yeah I meant to add I would 100% feed the rx foods of SD, Purina or RC if I had a dog who needed them.

I will say that Royal Canin's Baby Cat formula is a life saver for weaning over bottle babies to dry food. Perfect teenie kibbles and easy on the stomach.

Any of the super junky like ol roy, kibbles and bits, iams, etc.
Purina
Blue Buffalo (not because all of it's bad, I've fed it. Just too high priced for quality compared to others.)
Science Diet

Yeah I don't know enough 'bad' dog foods.

I don't mind paying a little more if the food is worth it. But paying $60-$70 for something like BB when I can get almost the same thing for $45-$50? Uh ... no.

Any junk food like Kibbles and Bits, Ol' Roy, etc.
Iams, Eukanuba, really anything in that "category"
Science Diet
Royal Canin
California Natural (and I'm leery of any Natura food because of it, so Evo and Innova)
Blue Buffalo - I've heard of too many bad things happening, from digestive upset to more serious issues
Evanger's - read too many things about poor quality control and general shadiness
Wysong - this one is a little embarrassing, because I can't even remember now why I won't feed it. Something put me off of it years and years ago and now all I remember is that I don't like it, not why. I need to do some research into it again.
Orijen - It just seems unnecessarily high protein, plus holy cow is it expensive. I think the quality is great & would feed Acana, but eh on Orijen.
Rowan can't have anything with chicken so that rules most food out, unfortunately.

See and I like orijin due its high protein content. I don't like most other foods as I feel they are too low in that dept. But then again I like to feed raw when I can and that, if dried would be about 50% protein.

Totally wishing right now SD had a food I'd be happy feeding, because I just realize that as long as I still have a credit at work, I could get all of my food free. *wah* This year I've used up most of my stuff on actual vaccines, but next year won't be near so taxing (if everybody stays healthy, that is) and I'll have all that credit going to waste. *sigh*

I will never feed to my cats or dog;

Iams, Beneful, Friskies, Whiskas, Diamond, Blue Buffalo, Kirklands...

I think that's it..

Brands I have fed and will likely not go back to though;
Authority, Simply Nourish, GO (dog food)


We feed the dog Merrick, and the cats Now. I really like these brands and my animals have done really well on them. My eldest cat used to urinate frequently around the house, takes daily medication for pain and has hip problems - on this food she's not had accidents around the house, and has been able to take a break from her pain meds (which act like a sedative) and she's a completely different cat. She'll cuddle with you again, sleep with you again, hop up on the cat stands again, she's playing again - she's taken a turn for the better and I strongly believe it's because of her diet.

I'm another where the list of what I would feed is probably shorter, haha. Granted we have grain sensitivities here and need something high enough quality to keep Scout at her ideal weight.
I wish I could have kept feeding raw, but I had some sourcing change and I wasn't comfortable with the limitations it imposed. I mean I could have paid more for variety, but cost-wise good food calculated out to be cheaper.

Since I went back to kibble been doing a rotation and here are a few we've tried that I'm not going to try again:
Earthborn fish was okay, but the lamb they did awful on. Super itchy and I was dumping almost 5 cups a day into Scout to keep weight on.

Nature's Domain is okay for a week or two, but by the end of a full months just ugh. Made their coats smell and the clean up... ugh. Not enjoying the poo pickup of lower end grain free kibble.... Also had to dump many cups into Scout to keep weight. I will buy it if I have to for cost reasons, but I would prefer not to feed it if I can avoid it.

Blue is way too overpriced for the ingredients and pretty meh as far as results. Also not impressed with their sourcing and such either.

Right now I have a bag of Nutrisource Buffalo, which really is mostly chicken if you read the ingredients. I don't care much for it. It reeks and it makes my dogs reek and I am pretty sure they are just pooping it out without gaining anything from it.

I really want to try Fromm grain frees and they do great on Acana. Funny because we were feeding Acana before going to raw. I liked the Annamaet we tried too.

Obviously try to stay away from anything grain inclusive of any range and certain brands like SD, Purina, etc. Honestly I'd feel safer braving a Fromm or Acana grain inclusive than venturing into the big box brands.

I buy Wellness Core for the cat, she does awesome on it. They also have whatever crap my stepdad bought on sale (atta cat, friskies, whatever) available. Old cat gets Friskies canned pate every morning and also gets lots of fresh meat, etc. Super spoiled old cat. I'm glad she's raiding my other cat's bowl of wellness pretty frequently. All the cats hunt too, that makes me feel better since at least they aren't indoor only cats eating solely junky food.

We feed Merrick to our dogs too and they love and do well on it, even the old man does well on it, and I since it's hard for me to find a food that works for 4 dogs, when i do find a brand that does, I stick with it.

I like high protein for my pets. I've been feeding 30% or higher for the last few months and have really liked the results. I've been rotating between Merrick, Earthborn, and CORE.

My biggest peeve in dog food is artificial coloring.

Dogs are colorblind.

I thought that raw as fed topped out at about 30%? My impression was that Orijen was actually higher protein than raw which seems excessive. If I'm wrong then I'll have to revisit my stance!

If we're including foods we've fed but wouldn't go back to, I'll add Farmina to my list. I wanted to like it so badly but Rowan had his first ever allergic reaction on it. Chicken-based foods he'll just stop eating (and he's a huge food hound) but the Farmina Cod Ancestral Grain made him develop tons of scabs all along his spine.

If you were to dehydrate raw it ends up really high. Raw typically has a lot of water in it. If you were to hydrate orjijen to the same level as prey model raw I bet it it would be close to or under.

The tiny kibbles are so precious. We ordered a bag for some tiny babies at work and the vets poo pood it because it cost too much. So instead we had to feed greasy SD with it's unnecessarily large round kibble size No tiny kitten wants to eat that.... We have kittens who wean over ridiculously late because of this.