Mixing Dog Foods

Whoa. Love your horse.

Within a certain line of products this is not as much of a concern (e.g. mixing California Natural Chicken & Rice Adult & Puppy food to elevate the level of protein and fat compared to feeding the Adult food only)

Mixing Dog Foods

I was thinking about the thread where I mentioned that I mix two types of food for Tosca (Eagle and NB). There was some discussion on whether it could be a bad thing and I took it very seriously because I really see a number of people on this board who have plenty to teach me.

Once I got past my self-rationalization stage, I started to think about ways in which this can be a problem. For example, could a dog get too much of one nutrient or not enough of another by doing this, as different companies create their foods for balance? So I used different options to do a small calculation.

First, I add the assumption that no premium foods, or at least the premium foods I am using have nutrients in the bag that are considered detrimental to dogs. With that assumption in mind, here are some examples.

For example: Omega 3, guaranteed analysis.

If I were to do a 50-50 mix of two foods (Food A and Food B) and
Food A in the guaranteed analysis had .06 % and
Food B in the guaranteed analysis had .05 % then:

A 50-50 Mixture of Foods A and B would have Tosca mathematically ingesting on average .055% Omega 3.
This would be less than the guaranteed analysis in Food A
This would be more than the guaranteed analaysis in Food B.

Now, if I were to feed strictly Food A, she would not be getting too much Omega 3, if it were in the future determined that too much Omega 3 is bad.

If however I were to feed strictly Food B, she also would not be getting too little of Omega 3 in her food.


Next, I started think of food nutrients, such as herbs, fruits, veggies.

As a small example I will use Alfalfa:

If Food A lists Alfalfa as the 12th ingredient and
Food B has no Alfalfa, then :

A 50-50 mixture of A and B would have Tosca ingesting 50% of the Alfalfa she would be ingesting if she ate strictly Food A. Therefore she could not be "Over Alfalfaed".If I were to feed strictly Food B, she would get no Alfalfa. The same would hold true if I were to substitute things like carrots or potatoes.

My line of thinking here is a mixture of two premium foods can never yield more than the value or percentage of any nutrient in either of the two foods.

Please discuss this with me as I am not without the realization that I might be missing something here.

It's not as much about things like essential fatty acids or irrelevant ingredients such as fruits and veggies. It's about minerals and vitamins, which are required by the body in specific amounts and ratios that interact with each other. If these ratios are skewed, you might find yourself dealing with health issues as serious as orthopedic problems.

Within a specific food these ratios are taken into consideration, depending on the feeding amount, kibble size and density etc.

Within a certain line of products this is not as much of a concern (e.g. mixing California Natural Chicken & Rice Adult & Puppy food to elevate the level of protein and fat compared to feeding the Adult food only), but I don't see any benefits in mixing different brands of food, especially long-term. Why purposely destroy a carefully planned approach to nutrition by mixing?

The same averaging rule would apply whether it was ingredients or minerals and vitamins... If both foods have a normal amount of nutrients , let's say X number of grams of Vitamin E, and you mix them, then a serving of the mix would have X grams of Vitamin E. If one food had 2X grams ( twice the amount of E as "normal" ) and you mixed it with the 1X food, then a serving would have 1 1/2 X. You could never get anymore of a nutrient than either food had by itself. The same would apply to a too low level of nutrient. The mix would always be better than eating the low food by itself........

Thanks Herschel. I'm dying to know what they say! The thing is they all want you to feed just their food, but hopefully you will get an answer that either confirms what we are reading or doesn't. I really want to feed her Eagle Pack, but she doesn't like it that well so I am placating ME. But for what it's worth with you and your dog, I have found that crumbling a bit of NB Dog Food Roll in with the dry and the dog will eat anything. I just didn't want to have to do that. I figured there is something wrong if a dog doesn't feel good about his food so why disguise it.

...sigh..

I bought some candidae and have hand fed her some of it and she seems to like it. Once I settle this issue about mixing, if I have to go to one food, I will ease her into the canidae and see how it goes. But I still would REALLY prefer to mix.