opinions on authority food

[sskbreed]

i feed my puppy authority large breed puppy food. golden ret. i picked because the first ingred is chicken meal and price was reasonable. any opinions?

[scarfy]

I feel like as long as you're not feeding Razor Blade flavored food made out of Staples and Garbage, then you're doing okay. Seriously, in my opinion... you could feed it Ol' Roy and I wouldn't have a bad opinion. If the dog is happy and healthy with regular vet checks and is taken care of and speutered and LOVED that's what matters to me.

[sskbreed]

she is happy and appears healthy. will be spayed at end of july. does scratch and bite self occas. so not sure if that is a food sensitivity.

[SmoothCollieluver]

Every dog scratches sometimes. especially puppies. don't worry about that. I don't know anything about that food but if you like it go with your gut.

[DoggyMom]

Don't know a whole lot about Authority dog food, but I do know some of it has been recalled. Might want to make sure what you bought isn't on the list. http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/petfoodrecall/brand_list.cfm?brand=Authority&pet=Dog
I agree, if that's the food you want to feed your dog, go for it :)

[Patch O' Pits]

Personally I wouldn't feed it and here is why

Here are the main Ingredients
Chicken Meal, Brewers Rice, Corn, Animal Fat (Preserved with Vitamin E mixed tocopherols), Chicken, Corn Gluten Meal, Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken Liver Digest, Dried Egg Product

I have put in bold the ones I think make it a poor choice JMO

[sskbreed]

the first ingred is chicken meal, which is the best. just wondering what is wrong with those other ingred you didn't like. thanks

[sskbreed]

and..authority harvest baked is rated so high but first ingred is chicken, not chicken meal. so don't understand what makes it so good.
and also my authority food is large breed puppy which i understand is important for hips, but not sure what ingred help that.

[poketmouse]

While chicken meal sounds nice, it means it is basically by products like feet, beaks, feathers and such rendered into a form that can be used in dog food. If the first ingredient is chicken it means actual chicken meat. The fda has rules about what can be called chicken and what has to be called meal. I don't have the website that describes it offhand, but you can do a google search and find out what goes into it. Corn, rice and such are just fillers in the dogfood to add substance. The dog can't actually digest most of it so a dogfood that lists these as some of the first ingredients doesn't offer much nutrition to a dog. These are also common allergens so many dogs may be itchy or have yeasties because of the fillers in food.

[sskbreed]

this is what i found on internet.

When selecting the best dry food for your dog, why is it better to go with the chicken meal than the pure chicken?
Chicken meal is simply chicken that has been baked to remove bacteria and other toxins. Chicken is simply pure chicken.

What people dont know about chicken, is that it is made mostly of water. If a label on a bag of dog food says %60 whole chicken, that is quite misleading as that does not take into account how much of that %60 of chicken is left after baking it to remove unwanted substances!

When the label on the bag says %60 of chicken meal, your getting more of the chicken because the product has already been baked to remove unwanted affects such as bacteria.

[Baconstrips]

this is what i found on internet.

When selecting the best dry food for your dog, why is it better to go with the chicken meal than the pure chicken?
Chicken meal is simply chicken that has been baked to remove bacteria and other toxins. Chicken is simply pure chicken.

What people dont know about chicken, is that it is made mostly of water. If a label on a bag of dog food says %60 whole chicken, that is quite misleading as that does not take into account how much of that %60 of chicken is left after baking it to remove unwanted substances!

When the label on the bag says %60 of chicken meal, your getting more of the chicken because the product has already been baked to remove unwanted affects such as bacteria.

I am afraid I do not completely agree with that statement. All dry food contents 10% moisture. It is true chicken contains more moisture compare to meals at a pre-processed state, but in order for dry food to be shelf stable all moisture is baked down to 10%. So in dry food, 70% chicken meal and 70% pure chicken yields at the same content since the moisture is extruded out. (Think of it like grapes and raisin). Another issue is digestibility, pure chicken has 90% digestibility while meal which yields a much lower domesticity lets say... 45%. This means the nutrients your dog gets from 30% pure chicken you would need 60% meals to get. This is why generally meal is considered inferior. If you won't eat chicken feet, beaks, feathers and rendered by product (which aren’t really real MEAT), then it isn't the most optimal diet for your dog. The moisture is only misleading if they measure it in weight, not percent. Example: 10gram in 50% moisture is less than 10gram in 10% moisture, assuming the product size is the same.

[KoyXX]

Yup I agree =D If you wont eat it you shouldn't feed it to your dog. Also like to add that Meals contain high levels of Ash!

solely based on top 5 ingredients


Authority Dog Food
Chicken Meal ----> Number 1 ingredient
Brewers Rice ----> Rice, the less harmful grain filler, Not bad
Corn Gluten Meal ----> Gluten is not very good
Ground Corn -----> Corn as filler, as if Corn Gluten meal wasn't enough of a filler
Chicken ----> Good ingredient, but consider 5th

[PatchworkPits]

Harvest Baked...all I can say...LOVE IT...its by Authority also!

[Broadwaybones]

I am with Baconstrip and Koyxx... although you may believe there are no effects of feeding your dog lower quality ingredients, it will negatively effect your dog in the long run. Research is showing that dogs suffer from excess weight gain, cancers, Diabetes, r shorten life spans. Look at it this way....if you feed your children waffles for breakfast, frozen dinners for dinner and had them stay in doors all day while you were out, how healthy do you think they would be. It is the difference between a well balanced meal and a lower quality meal. They both fill you up, but one have a positive effect on your body, and the other do not! Stick to the higher quality foods like Blue Buffalo, Life's Abundance, Solid Gold, just to name a few.

[KoyXX]

Also forgot to mention... read up on ingredient splitting. Even thou sometimes when the frist ingreident is MEAT... companies will trick you by splitting Corn, into Ground Corn, Corn Gulten, Corn by product. This way Meat might appear to be the highest contain, but its really not.

[sskbreed]

i just bought blue buffalo large breed puppy at petsmart. while there a natures valley rep tried to sway me to that so it was a hard decision. she said most dogs won't eat the little pellets in blues food and that is the nutrients, but mine ate them, at least tonight she did. the ingred in both were excellent. will be working to grad switch her over.

[StarfishSaving]

While chicken meal sounds nice, it means it is basically by products like feet, beaks, feathers and such rendered into a form that can be used in dog food. If the first ingredient is chicken it means actual chicken meat. The fda has rules about what can be called chicken and what has to be called meal.

Poketmouse,

I'm going to respectfully disagree. Meal does NOT mean by-products. Meal means the food was rendered/dehydrated before it was added to the process. On some food you will see "Chicken by-product meal" and THAT is when you have the "unfit for human consumption" parts.

"Chicken meal" means it did start as whole chicken, but the moisture was removed through rendering. I personally prefer to feed a meal as first ingredient vs. whole meat because for instance: 10lbs of meal has much more actual "chicken" than 10 lbs of whole meat thanks to moisture content. (Chicken is mostly water which makes up for most of the weight.)

The FDA's definition of "meal":
On the other hand, "meat meal" is "the rendered product from mammal tissues, exclusive of any added blood, hair, horn, hide trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents." Thus, in addition to the processing, it could also contain parts of animals one would not think of as "meat." Meat meal may not be very pleasing to think about eating yourself, even though it's probably more nutritious. (Taken from http://www.fda.gov/cvm/petlabel.htm)


A good place to learn about pet foods: http://www.dogfoodproject.com

[sskbreed]

on advice of others with more experience i now feed blue buffalo large breed puppy food.

[DiggityDogs]

I have a less bad opinion about by-products than I used to. I mean, if you feed raw, some people feed feet, organ meat, etc, and when I worked at the wildlife sanctuary I learned that they feed their wolves and wolf dogs all raw, including fur, feathers, beaks, antlers, hooves, etc, because not only do they love it, but the keratin is good for them. Granted it shouldn't be the staple in the diet, but I don't see it as bad. It just made sense to me. I don't particularly like autority (glad you switched off of that stuff) because of all of the corn and fillers. As a former petsmart employee I can tell you that that is their store brand, and they like to cut corners to save costs.

[DoggyMom]

I can agree with some of you, yet disagree on a few things :)
I used to feed Lily Beneful, until I got a whole load of wisdom on fillers and by-products from everyone here. She is now feed Natural Balance.