I have heard that Pedigree is a good brand of dog food. I personally use Iams and love it! (So does my dog)

Pedigree is just fine. There are many brands that are higher quality but you will pay more.

~ No not at all!

   Food is the fuel of all life. The quality of the fuel directly relates to how well the body can operate. Low quality dog food, such as Beneful, Pedigree, Ol’ Roy, Purina, Eukanuba, Iams, Science Diet, etc., are filled with *empty* calories. These foods are made with keeping costs down in mind, *not* in the best interest of nutrition. When you think of healthy food, do you think of Nestle or Mars (both heavily invested in producing candy)? What about Del Monte (heavily invested in produce, especially corn…)?

   Heck, just go to Beneful’s or Pedigree’s websites, they’re full of promotions, coupons, streaming audio and video, and heart-warming catchy slogans; they know that as long as they paint a pretty picture, the “sheeple” of the world will think it must be good because they got a warm and fuzzy feeling by the advertising.

Let’s take Pup-peroni (by Del Monte), for example, a quick scan of the ingredients raises eyebrows:

   - Meat By-products – Definition: The non-rendered, clean parts, other
     than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not
     limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone,
     partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and
     intestines freed of their contents
   - Sugar – Because all dogs need sugar, right?
   - Propylene Glycol – Here’s a few uses of this chemical (from Wikipedia):
      + As the main ingredient in deodorant sticks
      + As a medical and sexual lubricant
      + As the killing and preserving agent in pitfall traps, usually used
        to capture ground beetles
      + As a solvent used in mixing photographic chemicals, such as film
        developers
      + In hand sanitizers, antibacterial lotions, and saline solutions

How about Pedigree (made by M&M’s company Mars), you know ‘Really good food for dogs’:

   - First ingredient – GROUND WHOLE CORN (read, nutritionally void filler)
   - Corn Gluten Meal – This is a well-known (even patented) herbicidal agent
     used for weed control in lawns and gardens!
   - Wheat Mill Run – Definition: Commonly referred to as “floor sweepings”,
     this ingredient is nothing more than inexpensive filler with little or
     no nutritional value.
   - Chicken by-product meal: Consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts
     of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped
     eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as
     might occur unavoidable in good processing practice. Chicken by-product
     costs less than chicken muscle meat and lacks the digestibility of
     chicken muscle meat.

Chemical additives aside, let’s analyze the recommended serving size between Pedigree and a quality food like Orijen. Being that Pedigree is mostly fillers, your poor dog has to eat so much more just to get the calories to survive when compared to a quality food that actually contains real meat. You ready?

    Pedigree (50-75lb. dog): 4 to 5-1/3 cups a day
    Orijen (45-75lb. dog): 1-3/4 to 2-1/2 cups a day!

   Orijen costs more, but you feed less, AND the quality is superb. Just look at the difference in the ingredients and it’s painfully obvious which is a quality food.

Pedigree: GROUND WHOLE CORN, MEAT AND BONE MEAL, GROUND WHEAT, CORN GLUTEN MEAL, ANIMAL FAT (PRESERVED WITH BHA/BHT), WHEAT MILL RUN, WHEAT FLOUR, NATURAL FLAVOR, SALT, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, CARAMEL COLOR, CHICKEN BY-PRODUCT MEAL, RICE, VEGETABLE OIL (SOURCE OF LINOLEIC ACID), VITAMINS (CHOLINE CHLORIDE, dl-ALPHA TOCOPHEROL ACETATE [SOURCE OF VITAMIN E], L-ASCORBYL-2-POLYPHOSPHATE [SOURCE OF VITAMIN C*], VITAMIN A SUPPLEMENT, THIAMINE MONONITRATE [VITAMIN B1], BIOTIN, d-CALCIUM PANTOTHENATE, RIBOFLAVIN SUPPLEMENT [VITAMIN B2], VITAMIN D3 SUPPLEMENT, VITAMIN B12 SUPPLEMENT), MINERALS (ZINC SULFATE, ZINC PROTEINATE, COPPER SULFATE, COPPER PROTEINATE, MANGANESE PROTEINATE, POTASSIUM IODIDE), ADDED FD&C AND LAKE COLORS (YELLOW 6, YELLOW 5, BLUE 2, RED 40)

Orijen: Deboned chicken, chicken meal, turkey meal, russet potato, lake whitefish, chicken fat, sweet potato, whole eggs, turkey, salmon meal, salmon and anchovy oils, salmon, natural chicken flavour, sunflower oil, sun-cured alfalfa, dried brown kelp, carrots, spinach, peas, tomatoes, apples, psyllium, dulse, glucosamine Hcl, cranberries, black currants, rosemary extract, chondroitin sulfate, sea salt.

You can apply this same analogy TO EVERY SINGLE PET FOOD IN THE GROCERY / CHAIN PET STORES!

Quality foods: Innova, California Natural, EVO, Karma-www.naturapet.com, Wellness, Wellness Core, Orijen-www.orijen.ca, Canidae, Merricks, Artemis, Taste of the Wild, Nature’s Variety, Solid Gold-Barking at the Moon, Go!, Now! Canidae- http://www.canidae.com, Eagle Pack Holistic Chicken (avoid regular Eagle Pack)and Timberwolf.

The use of corn, wheat, or soy in dog food can cause skin irritation, hair loss, fever, ear infections, kidney failure, liver failure, dental disease, obesity, chronic digestive problems, bloat, heart disease, and hyperthyroidism.

http://www.naturapet.com

http://www.dogfoodproject.com

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com

http://www.api4animals.org/facts.php?p=359&more=1

http://www.feedmypet.com/dog-food-comparison.html

Very Good! Thats what i feed my dogs!

No, it’s not a good brand.

NONONO!
Awful, truely terrible!
It’s full of meat-by-products, fillers, artificial preservatives, ect..

Try Canidae or Wellness.

(Any food you can buy at the grocery store or Walmart is CRAP!) Examples: Pedigree, Purina, Science Diet, Ol’Roy, Kibbles and Bits, Alpo, ect….

It not what it used to be – the same can be said for IAMS – my mom used to use it when she breed and trained Newfoundlands, but if you want the best try Science Diet. I actually have my dogs on pedigree dry food since I can buy it in bulk but I’m switching to Purina…but really you can’t go wrong with any of them. Hope this helps

there are a lot of different brands of dog food. To find a good one check the ingredients if the first thing is chicken,lamb, beef etc then its a good. But if the first item is corn beef or something artificial it is not heatlhy.

I have heard that it is not, but we feed out puppy Purina Puppy Chow…and I don’t know why some people are so against the name brand Pedigree…maybe we will find out in some of these answers…

Nope. Full of corn, wheat, by-products and chemicals.
There is not actual meat in it.
Try a brand like Evo, Orijen, Timberwolf Organics.
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com rates dog foods. Try a 5 or 6 star one.

its ok..

BUT

When you buy food like that or Alpo.Iams Science diet…Etc…
they have what we call Meat BI-Products…Which is…Say its chicken ..the bi products are..The beak the claws the eyes the CRAP…the stuff that isnt typically healthy to eat….Foods like NUTRO that has NO MEAT BI PRODUCTS…IS just Strictally Meat ANd Veggies…Pure meat not scraps

Its like comparing VIENNA SAUSAGE to Real SAUSAGE

No. It has more fillers than premium foods. I had a discussion with a friend of mine who works at a vets office. She recommends a premium (and it must say premium on the bag) food where the first ingredient must be a meat of some type (like chicken, beef, etc). Not, for example, chicken product, but chicken. And it should have over 20% protein. Iams is a good supermarket brand. I know it’s more expensive then some other food, but your dog will eat less of it because there is more nutrition in it, then bad food, and you’ll end up spending less. I just switched my 7 month old golden to Iams chicken from Puppy nutriscience and he loves it and is doing well.

its good

Nope, and here’s why (based on Pedigree Chicken, meat, and Veggies recipe – all recipes are similar though):

Ingredients:
ground whole corn, meat and bone meal, corn gluten meal, chicken by-product meal, animal fat (preserved with bha/bht), wheat flour, chicken, rice, dried whole peas, dried beet pulp, wheat mill run, natural flavor, salt, potassium chloride, carrot powder, caramel color, vegetable oil (source of linoleic acid), vitamins (choline chloride, dl-alpha tocopherol acetate [source of vitamin e], l-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate [source of vitamin c*], vitamin a supplement, thiamine mononitrate [vitamin b1], biotin, d-calcium pantothenate, riboflavin supplement [vitamin b2], vitamin d3 supplement, vitamin b12 supplement), minerals (zinc sulfate, zinc proteinate, copper sulfate, copper proteinate, manganese proteinate, potassium iodide), added fd&c and lake colors (yellow 6, blue 2, red 40, yellow 5)

Cons:
Inadequate meat content, low quality grains, low quality meat products, byproducts, fat of unidentifiable origin, controversial filler, chemical preservative

Additional:
The primary ingredient in this food is corn. Corn is a difficult to digest grain of limited value in dog food, and which is also commonly associated with food allergies… dog food products should be based on meat rather than grain. Corn gluten meal is also low quality… In plain English, the remains of corn after most of the nutritious bits have been removed.

Meat and bone meal is an extremely low quality ingredient… including bone, exclusive of blood, hair, hoof, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. We would have greater confidence in this ingredient as fertilizer than as a dog food ingredient.

The next ingredient is byproducts… are of such low quality as to be rejected for use in the human food chain, or else are those parts that have so little value that they cannot be used elsewhere in either the human or pet food industries. The AAFCO definition of chicken by-product meal is “consisting of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidable in good processing practice.”

Animal fat is an ingredient of unidentified origin for which it is impossible to determine species, source or quality. Unidentified ingredients are usually very low quality. AAFCO define this asobtained from the tissues of mammals and/or poultry in the commercial processes of rendering or extracting. It consists predominantly of glyceride esters of fatty acids and contains no additions of free fatty acids. If an antioxidant is used, the common name or names must be indicated, followed by the words “used as a preservative”.

This product uses chemical preservatives. BHA and BHT are allowed in dog food products but are banned or heavily regulated in human food production due to the belief that they are carcinogenic.

The next ingredient is wheat flour. In dog food products, this is commonly a byproduct (think floorsweepings) of human food production and is a grain fragment we consider primarily filler. Wheat is believed by many to be the leading cause of food allergy problems in dog foods. Wheat mill run is a further grain byproduct.

Beet pulp is a controversial filler. It is a by-product, being dried residue from sugar beets which has been cleaned and extracted in the process of manufacturing sugar. It is a controversial ingredient in dog food, claimed by some manufacturers to be a good source of fibre, and derided by others as an ingredient added to slow down the transition of rancid animal fats and causing stress to kidney and liver in the process. We note that beet pulp is an ingredient that commonly causes problems for dogs, including allergies and ear infections, and prefer not to see it used in dog food. There are less controversial products around if additional fibre is required.

There is no excuse for adding artificial colorings to dog food products

Found at:
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showproduct.php?product=1886&cat=all

To search for foods you are thinking of, go to the top of the linked page and click on “Reviews” and then type the food name in the left blank search space.

This site isn’t totally accurate – some foods are off on the star scaling, but all info about the food and ingredients is to my knowledge correct.

Short and sweet…….it’s complete junk.

Pedigree is a fine food if your dog likes it. That company is a known company and will be around after we die. There are better foods out there but there is nothing wrong with pedigree.

I’ts better than some of the cheap, cheap, dog food, but I don’t think it’s that great either. We used to feed our dogs the cheap dog food and their stools were always loose and they went a lot. Once I got older and looked into the nutritional value of dog food, I talked my mom into buying the more expensive food – and she discovered I was right. What you should look for is a dog food with meat as the first ingredient, no corn or wheat (rice is good, oatmeal, etc) and natural preservatives. I like Nutro and our dogs do well on it – they have small stools, shiny coats, and it helped our one dog that had a thyroid problem (the vet was able to decrease her medicine) . It runs about 32- 36 (sometimes cheaper on sale) for a 40 lb bag but they dont need to eat as much because it is more nutrient dense than the cheap dog food (fillers – and they are hungry again soon after eating).

If you can afford it – it is better to get something like Nutro, but I would rather have someone feed Pedigree rather than the 3.99 for 20 lb dog food at Aldi’s or Kibble and Bits (dyes in it and not real good food).

No. I recommend a high quality food, such as Orijen or Wellness.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com