Thanks for the input.
A couple things…
I have heard several times about rotating foods, and I am certainly open to that. For those of you who do rotate, do you switch cold turkey between brands? I don’t want to have 2 or more open bags of food at once… I have switched flavors within brands cold turkey with no issues.
The biggest reason I am looking at the calcium and phosphorus levels of the “new” foods is because I do have another pup coming this fall. I would like to feed them both the same food as I really don’t want to have 2 open bags of food if I can avoid it.
I don’t think I will be switching to a maintenance formula as we don’t really have an “off season.” We do field and water training April-August, Hunting season runs September – December. He runs free for 20-30 minutes 5-7 times a day (we live in the country). In the summer we also do weekly hikes where I will cover 3-8 miles, and since he is “free” while doing this he will cover probably 3x that. We will start using a roading harness and dragging weight for at least a portion of these hikes in the next month or so. We don’t hike during hunting season, instead we hunt both upland and waterfowl several days a week. In the winter we snowshoe (again he is free to run while I follow the trails). The only time he has held a “5” on the condition scale for longer than a week was January through April when we were only running 3-4 times a month and he was eating a 32/18 . This is also why all the foods I am looking at are all 3600+ kcal/kg.
I didn’t even think about the amount of heavy metals that could be in the fish formulas. I suppose it makes sense though. Humans are cautioned on consuming too much fish for the same reason. I was not familiar with the CLP, unfortunately none of the brands I was looking at are listed.
I am not dead set on grain free, but I do want to limit the amount of grain I feed. I would be interested in hearing more about which grains have a high bio-availability for dogs.
I appreciate the additional brand suggestions as well. I have heard nothing but good things about Dr Tim’s and there are several formulas that I think would work for me, however it is not available locally and at $70 for a 40lb bag from Chewy it is cost prohibitive. I have looked at a lot of “premium” brands including Nutro, Canidae, Acana, Blue Buffalo, Wellness, Royal Canin, Orijen, and Merrick… Most were eliminated from serious consideration due to lack of local availability, cost, or simply not having a blend with the nutritional requirements I am looking for. It seems there are not many premium “performance” formulas out there.
Anyone see any issues with the brands/formulas I am looking at? Any other recommendations of similar foods?
