Ideal Food for Dogs is not Kibble Part 1

I want to share how I came to feeding Huggy Bear Orijen dog food soaked in warm water with Stella and Chewy's freeze dried raw dog food.

Stella & Chewy's Freeze Dried Raw Dog Food

This is a learning process that I went through after I had just adopted Huggy from the German Shepherd Rescue of Orange County.  They told me that they were feeding Eukanuba to Huggy Bear, so I decided to get the same thing for him to keep things as consistent as possible.

I went to the pet store, and I looked around at all of the dog food.  I compared prices with other dog food, and I felt assured that since Eukanuba was relatively expensive, that I was getting fairly good dog food.  One thing that bothered me was that when I looked at the ingredients list, I did not recognize any of the ingredients in the kibble.  I figured it was a difference between how human grade food and pet grade food are labeled.  With that justification, I didn't give it too much thought at this point.

Huggy Bear wouldn't eat Eukanuba.

After talking to various people, I heard Science Diet mentioned a bunch of times.  Even vets recommend Science Diet.  They keep them in their office for sale.  How could I go wrong with Science Diet?

Huggy Bear wouldn't eat Science Diet.

Then, I started researching different kinds of dog food on the Internet.  I was in for a shocking learning experience.  I'll explain what some of the ingredients that left an impression on me.

• Anything with "meal" after it is the completely ground up, dried form of whatever it is that precedes it, a powder form of the ingredient.  For example, corn "meal" is completely ground up, dried powder corn.  
• When the ingredient is non-specific, it means that legally, the manufacturers could not specify whatever that ingredient is.  For example, "Animal Fat" is fat that can be from any animal.  It can be from Kobe beef, or it can be from dogs and cats euthanized at shelters.  Who knows.  In any case, when I ask myself would I eat "Animal Fat," or would I feed it to an important member of my family, the answer is no.  
• Anything with "by-product" after it is the scraps and leftovers from processing whatever it is that precedes it.  For example, chicken by-product is chicken feathers, bones, toes, beaks, etc, all ground up and processed.  It's everything in the chicken that you would not eat, and your dog should probably not eat as well.  

So, I searched and searched on the Internet if there is any kibble that does not contain any non-specific ingredients and by-product ingredients.  I also took a step back and thought about the scientific classification of a domestic dog in the animal kingdom.
From Wikipedia:

Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Canidae
Genus:	Canis
Species:	C. lupus
Subspecies:	C. l. familiaris[1]

It might be obvious, but if you look at the Order, the classification is Carnivora.  Dogs are carnivores.  They need meat.  Simple.  With that in mind, I set out to search dog food manufacturers that understood this and followed through in their products.

I spent a lot of time on this web site www.dogfoodanalysis.com.  Their analysis is close to the rationale that I used to search for my dog food.  After spending hours on that site, I came to the conclusion that Orijen was the way to go.  Their protein content is high, they use natural, human grade ingredients to make their kibble, and they are responsible in the way they harvest the ingredients.

The only thing that worried me was that it could be too big of a jump for Huggy Bear to go from Science Diet to Orijen.  I was afraid that Huggy eating Orijen all of the sudden would be like someone who eats McDonalds every day of their life all of a sudden switching to a completely organic, balanced diet.  Completely organic diet is definitely better for you, but your body may not be able to handle the adjustment, possibly resulting in the runs.  So I decided to get Acana dog food, which is the cheaper version of Orijen, and then after a couple of months, transition him to Orijen.

To be continued on my next post.