What opened your eyes?

What was the factor (s) that opened your eyes from the lies of the bad kibble brands? that factor that made you discover the true behind all the agressive propaganda?

For me there was many factors:

When I was a little, we had a GSD/ husky mix called Oso (bear in spanish) , his first couple of years he was fed home cooked but then the pedigree brand was becoming popular in my country.

So we went wit the trend and it was also recommended by a vet and we stared to feed it when there was no pedigree at the store we also fed him dog chow or alpo .

This was Oso when he was like 3 years old, he was fed homecooked and table scraps at the time.



This was Oso at 9 years old, he was fed pedigrre/ dog chow /alpo and table scraps.

Notice the dull dry coat, and he shed a lot and had zits and bald parts on tummy, also he went compleatly blind a year after this picture and lost many teeth, he died at the age of 13.



Sadly we believed the vets told us, and they were telling us that it was "the age" and "the breed"

Some years after his death we find out about the 2007 insidents, and how nasty some kibbles can be, now all Osos isuess makes senses.

I feel so bad we fed him this trash if we only knew what we know now.

I first started learning about good dog foods when I joined this forum in 2008 - just started picking things up here and there. That was my first real introduction to a raw diet as well. I started working at a pet food store in 2009, and that REALLY solidified everything.

I was really fortunate--the shelter we adopted Lucy from gave us a list of "approved" foods/brands to pick from. I started her off on premium foods and never tried anything else.

I can't think of one time in particular, I learnt from chaz though and slowly just picked up bits and pieces here and there

Doing my own research. When I decided I was going to get into breeding JRTs I figured I needed to feed them the best I could. I then realized I had no idea what was the best.

Long after Buzz was diagnosed with allergies. He was 5-6 years old at that point.

I like to think i never had my eyes closed but what i actually think was i never had a reason to open them.

My family has always fed raw. My grandpa told me his parents did and when dog food became mainstream my grandpa decided he didn't need to fork out extra money for something he didn't need and so the cycle of raw feeding continued.

It never occurred to me that i should do something different until i started to get into training and saw how dogs changed "over night" after switching to raw food at our house. That was when i started to look into "dog foods" and when i found my first dog forums.

I joined my first dog message board when I was almost 14. We never really gave it a lot of thought before then. Our dogs were healthy looking, and we'd been feeding what we thought was an excellent food for years (Nutro Natural Choice). It wasn't until I saw people talking about better foods on that board that I realized I should maybe look into things a bit. In fact, if it wasn't for joining that board, I wouldn't have learned even half the things I know now by this point. I am sure I'd have gotten there eventually, but joining that forum sort of jump started everything I guess. I was always a dog obsessed kid and read multiple different dog books and got involved with training and home and such, but I wouldn't know nearly as much about nutrition, behaviour, clicker training, etc. without becoming involved in message boards like these that are available to dog owners everywhere. Be they experienced or novice.

I never really had a reason to switch foods, but I convinced my family to try something better after reading things online and we haven't looked back. I can't honestly say I've noticed vast improvements, but there have definitely been some. I am sure there'd have been more if we'd been feeding a lesser food than what we had. And just the sheer knowledge I've gained about ingredients and what they are and what they mean for dogs is invaluable. I love knowing now what I am putting into my dogs' bodies and knowing I am doing the best I am able to for them, as opposed to just buying a food because somebody told me it was good and not knowing why.

Had no choice -- itchy scratchy vomity malnourished ditchpuppy had a very particular digestive system which demanded I educate myself and fast.

I joined Chaz and learned how inappropriate the Pedigree and Purina we were feeding the dog and cats was. No more of that ever since. Took a few more years and joining a cat forum for me to realize how bad dry food is for cats.

It was when I started joining forums... there was probably not one particular situation that made me re-think my dog's diet, but the more topics I read regarding brands of food, the more it started to click.

We fed Molly Nutro Natural Choice her entire life... which is by no means the worst we could have done. I know for sure that I was a little more "nutrition savvy" about the time we got Lucy, because her breeder sent us home with some Iams and I immediately chucked it in the trash when we got home. My friend had given me a bunch of samples of Innova and California Natural, and I knew those were good brands. So this would've been almost 6 years ago.

It all came together when I finally convinced my mom to let me switch our cat's food.... I switched him from Iams, to California Natural. We saw a change for the better and that's when I was fully on board with paying attention to what I feed my pets.

Wow interesting stories keep them coming!

Nice to hear some members have never used a garbage brand, lucky dogs.

Sometimes I feel really bad and guilty for what Oso had to eat, but the real ones who are to blame are the dog food factories, who don't care at all for the heath of our beloved pets and only care about the money.

And they used a lot of monet to brainwash people wit agressive propaganda and sponsorship. :thumbdown:

I've always been a label reader and what I was reading just did NOT seem right. When I got Bimmer I started looking for something better, and then, when studying up on Filas before getting Buffy, I really started digging after reading some of the admonishments of some of the breeders on their sites.

Mainly it was before I got Teagan. I always fed her a high quality kibble with the intention of feeding her raw. It took me about 2 years to actually feel comfortable to start feeding her the raw and its actually not as hard or as complicated as it looks, especially for a 16lb dog.

I really have never fed any of our dogs crap dog food...we've always sort of known better. Even with our first dog, we wanted to feed the best food available, not grocery brands.

I've been researching dogs and their care since I was like 6 years old. Our first 2 dogs were fed Royal Canin (they're in London, England) and at that time, Royal Canin was pretty much literally the best there was in England. Orijen and Acana didn't get imported there until about 2 or 3 years ago and none of the American brands like TOTW, Wellness, Innova, Solid Gold, Go! exist there. But once Orijen and Acana was imported, we immediately started feeding that.

Nia was always on good quality kibble. The worst one she's had was Royal Canin and that was because her breeder feeds that brand.

I've never really fed a "bad food."

Our first dog (who is in a different home now) came to us on Dog Chow- which we knew was bad since it was a grocery store food (and the name just sounded cheap!). I put him onto Eukanuba since my parents' fed that to their dogs.

We didn't even finish the bag before I researched foods and switched to Nutro. After that, we switched to Innova.

I've fed 10-15 different foods over the past 6 years... but everyone is on raw now which they will be on indefinately.

This forum actually! More-so than the information being thrown at me, I SAW the results in other peoples dogs here. The shiny coats, the teeth, etc..etc..

and just like that I was sold!

Chaz. I was 14 and feeding Iams. Millie always did so much better on Iams than Pedigree (which is what who we were living with at the time bought for the dogs sometimes), so I actually felt like I was feeding a good brand.
I thought about her coat and how much better it looked on Iams, but after reading on here I started on Canidae, which was like night and day. After the problems with Canidae I started feeding EVO and once again that wonderful change came. Since then I've been aiming for grain free kibble and supplemental raw.

What Chaz taught me at the beginning was the good brands, and then I learned to read an ingredient label myself.

I was actually a teenager when our veterinarian suggested we get off the plain-label crap and on to Iams, which wasn't quite the worthless label it is now. We saw enough improvement to continue on that food, and to look into even better ones. I kept it going when I got my first adult dog, and have since blossomed into full-on dog food geek-dom. I soak up any information that's dog food related these days.

I have to thank Chazhound and all the amazing and knowledgeable people here who (without knowing it because I was lurking for a long time before I joined) educated me on the evalz of the icky foodz.