Sarge came to me with a recommendation from his breeder that I feed him salmon and sweet potato kibble. My vet felt that would be fine. I read everything I could to identify the best brand for this combination of ingredients. I chose Nutro. And he ate that for about 18 months. But he had on again off again diarrhea, and so I revisited with my vet, and she suggested I try the duck or venison diet. I moved him to Nutro Limited Ingredient Duck and Lentil. Bottom line he has been on grain free kibble his entire life. So, I will be talking to my vet again about the right kibble based upon the FDA report (which I realize is not a recommendation or condemnation yet, just informational). But I am wondering what other’s on the forum think about the report, think about grain free diets and exotic protein sources like duck, salmon, venison, kangaroo or what have you, and finally, I would be interested in food recommendations. Thanks.
I feed raw and my dog gets a huge variety of different meats( Venison and duck are certainly not considered exotic here and along with pheasant, lamb, beef,fish, rabbit and squirrel form a staple part of his diet). My gut feeling is that just feeding one thing for a dog's entire life is bound to lead to problems and must certainly be boring for them. The problem with the grain free kibbles does seem likely to be the legume filler which makes sense to me as it's hardly something they'd have access to in the wild, so it's the lentils not the duck in the food you're using at the moment I'd be concerned about.
I work in regulated (human) research so I always have a keen interest in FDA. Historically FDA has been late to the party because the agency has a high standard of proof. Over the last decade or so, and after bitter criticism, FDA has somewhat moderated their position and will now publish developing evidence. As you note the report is preliminary but because of my experience and because I'm somewhat of a nut when it comes to my dogs, I changed from Nutro (on the list) to a Purina Pro Plan salmon and rice kibble that didn't have potatoes, peas, lentils, etc. I'm a bit spooked because of the 2007 problem with tainted pet food that killed cats and dogs: https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/recalls-withdrawals/melamine-pet-food-recall-2007 So I think we'll wait for more information but use the Purina kibble for now. After 5 days, so far so good. The only change is the truly gargantuan size of their poops on the new kibble. I can live with this.
My adult boy used to eat only Victor dog food. High Pro Plus. They have grain free recipes too. None of their foods are found on the list. From what I gather, it is the high legume content (notably peas and pea proteins) in grain free foods that is the issue. I switched to Nutro because he was so chubby and his Victor was high in fat etc. He has lost a good amount of weight, which is great. We tried Nutro Ultra grain free beef and parsley or something and then I switched to Nutro wholesome essentials lamb. It is more expensive than I like. I have a bag of Victor Multi Pro once the Nutro is gone. If he doesn't begin to gain weight on it, that is what I will stick with. My puppy currently eats Pure Balance grain free, which wasn't on the list either but does have quite a lot of legumes. I don't plan to keep him on their grain free formula. He refused to eat the Nutro Max puppy dry food so I got the Pure Balance Salmon formula hoping he would eat it. He needs to eat so I just wanted something he would eat. He is still fairly slim and not round like most puppies. He is parasite free and fed 3 times a day in pretty hefty amounts and eats all of it. I want to switch him to the Bully Max dog food for a while and see how he does on that.
