Mike S, this comment of Shawna’s deserves it’s own thread!

Love you girl!

Examples of what I mean specific to this food
1.  “Natural Flavor” is very likely a source of MSG (well the g (glutamic acid) in MSG).  MSG is an excitotoxin that can cause brain damage, agression, multiple sclerosis, dementia plus many more.
2.  “Organic Barley” even though this is organic it can still have the same negetive effects as non-organic barley.  Barley, like wheat, being a gluten grain.
3.  The Omega 6 fatty acids in grains are very inflammatory.  And there are A LOT of grains in this food.
4.  They add canola (which has some more omega 6) and flax back in but these two products provide plant based ALA omega 3 fatty acids.  ALA is not converted well to EPA and not at all (in adult dogs) to DHA.  DHA is needed for brain, eye and heart health.
5.  The food is still cooked (even though organic) which kills all the health promoting enzymes and probiotics.  None are added back in.
6. Because the ingredients are so damaged by the heat in production they have to add a significant amount of synthetic nutrients — which are in no way natural. Ascorbic acid is not truly vitamin C as an example. It it the protector of the actual vitamin. And, there are 8 forms of vitamin e. The four tocotrienols are never added back in.
7.  To keep the cost of the food reasonable they don’t add a species appropriate amount of protein in the food.  And the 24% that is in the food is augmented by the protein in the grains lowering the actual better utilized animal protein even more.

I’m a raw feeder and feed organic and mostly free range proteins to my pups.  I have one that was born with kidney disease so it is pretty important that she get the highest quality foods.  Anyway, the amount of protein in a commercial raw diet varies between 40ish to 50% of the diet.  More then most kibbles and significantly more then this kibble.  I say this because protein is the MOST important nutrient in the diet.  The cells that make up the body, the digestive enzymes that digest the food and kill cancer cells, glutathione which is the “master antioxidant of the body” etc are all made from the amino acids in protein…  If protein is too low in the diet there will eventually be consequences.

One way to help is to add organic whole food proteins to the kibble.  Organic, free range eggs are an excellent option …  This won’t resolve the other problems with the food but it will at least help get the protein up …

Sorry I butted in..  Just thought you might be interested…