Home Forums Birds & Dogs Hunting Dogs Best Dog Food for 2yr Lab

As for the basic feed I would recommend a high protein/high fat feed, . And that is especially true the more work a dog gets. Studies have shown working dogs on a high protein diet have less soft tissue injury. Look for food that the first few ingredients are meat or meat meal. Supplement with a high quality fish oil capsule that is pharmaceutical grade/molecular distilled with a EPA to DHA ratio 2/1. Plain yogurt or kefir is also good for a dog. And a MSM and Glucosamine capsule as well.
I feed Evo a 42/22 feed. I also train A LOT. It is not cheap but meat cost more than grains. You get what you pay for. Those that don't have dogs that get a lot of work 28-30 % protein should be enough.

I had been using Canidae for a couple years, then they changed the formula w/o telling anyone. Google the complaints and you'll see what I'm referring too.

After a quick but extensive search (before my bag of old Canidae ran out) I switched to Innova.
http://www.naturapet.com

Diamond

Had the same problem with Canidae. They changed the formula and he had loose stools. Now I feed him Nutro 30/20.

Best dog food for my Lab Im my opinion is

http://www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com/

I feed Purina pro plan. It's pricey but you should see my dog's coat. Everyone comments on his coat.

30/20 ratio and the number 1 ingredient is corn.

I too feed Purina PRO-PLAN but only with 2 other dry dog foods! I just don't trust the dog food companies 100% anymore. Especially after what happened a couple years ago with the DIAMOND DOG FOOD COMPANY...YIKES!!! OVER 100 dogs died from their tainted dog food and they tried to LIE their way out of the problem, saying it was only an isolated incident.

YEP, isolated in 23 frigging states folks, I almost lost 6 dogs over that deal but lucky for me I only gave them 33% of the product mixed with other feed. NO MORE DIAMOND!!!

Let the dog be your guide.

Some dogs thrive on some food that would render another dog low.

My lab pup thrived on Iam's Large Breed Puppy food till it was a year old. It now (believe it - or not) thrives on Wal Mart "Old Roy"! No gas, no runs, great coat, great teeth etc.

Don't judge a dog food by what you read in other dog food company's ads.

Brian I use Ole Roy and mix it to a ratio of usually 25% with my other brands of dog food. I been feeding that feed for over 20 years now and it has always been very stable as far as the dogs doing good on it etc.

Hunters Special is another feed I use to help keep the weight on the dogs throughout the years. Our dogs get exercised at least 2 hours every day unless it is storming outside. Excell is another all chicken product that is very good for hunting breeds, at 30%protein and 20% Fat.

I meant, the number 1 ingredient is CHICKEN. Duh.

Did you feed corn based food to ALL labs? That's quite a broad statement to make. Labs are NOT allergic to corn. YOUR labs may have been, but mine aren't and never have been, and a good friend that has several labs aren't.

It's been proven that corn is not GOOD for the canine system as they don't digest it, funny but neither do humans!! Eat a couple corn on a cob, or a can of corn and then take a close look at you poop! The corn will be WHOLE!!

Back to the question, as was said by several people, get a good non-corn based food. But better yet, get one where the first ingredient is MEAT! Lamb, beef or chicken, doesn't matter, if the first ingredient is meat -NOT meat-BY product- then you have a decent food, doesn't matter the brand.

gundogpa - do you really think the dog food companies (or people that they hire to write their reports) that put corn in their dog food are going to say it's bad?? Would be kinda counterproductive for them!

Wolfwoman perhaps your need a new set of teeth to chew that corn well before you swallow, pushing it going down to your digestive track.

Duck-Dog.......Yes, the number one ingrediant is CHICKEN alright! I raise all my pups on this food and they do very well indeed. It is more money but the results are worth the cost in my humble opinion and I have over 15 dogs in our kennel.

Nope you can look it up, corn (the outer part) is not digestible by humans. You would have to chew a heck of a lot of times to get that outer shell (or husk) macerated.

Wolfman, even if a human cannot digest the outter shell of the corn, it does NOT make it a bad choice for use as a dog food! Now if it did, there would be a whole lot of uprising in the dog food and pet industry period.

Humans have been eating corn for several centuries forum member and it is approved by ALL the medical fields in the world as a proper food for the human body.

Actually it has been found to be a terrible choice for dogs foods and that's the reason SO MANY have gotten away from it. There is NO nutritional value in corn for dogs, it's nothing more than a filler that goes in one end and comes out the other. If you switch to a dog food that has no corn or fillers in it and you feed the dog the PROPER amount of food you will see that there's less cleanup.

I feed my dog the Dick Van Patton food. My vet said its good. No grain,corn syrup,ect. My Lab loves it!

You cannot judge food quality by a lab - they will eat ANYTHING!! lol

I use Science Diet Allergenic for my black lab. No ear problems or skin problems. It has all the nutrients she needs so she is never lacking in energy, also she doesn't crap as much because shes eating good food. As she is a working dog I cant afford to give her cheap food.

Dog foods are interesting marketing tools.

Iams was originally a mink food recipe that's been added to over the years.The corporation that owns Iams decided that Eukanuba(which for years was sold right along with the rest of Iams line,until Iams began selling to grocery stores)would bring them in more cash if it was turned into its own specialty line.Now it's not uncommon to find stores that only sell Eukanuba.Iams was always hard for retailers to make a profit on,because the wholesale prices were so high.

Science Diet at one time was actually a Co-op owned by vets.This Co-op would then sell exclusively to other vets and of course those vets would gouge the [bleep] out of clients.I saw some of the wholesale lists on it and most of it was 300% mark up.Most vets were even candid about science diet a racket for them.

Diamond got a bad rep for killing dogs,but Ole Roy has the same rep if not worse.I've talked to plenty of vets who have seen all kinds of health problems related to ole roy.Of course most people think nothing of it because it's wal mart,kind of like when walmart got caught using child labor.People got pissed for about 15 minutes and then immediately went back to buy more [bleep].

As far as corn causing skin allergies.Rice causes far more skin issues in dogs.Plenty of vets will vouch for seeing more problems with rice based foods then corn and this was made evident and easily traced when all the rice based foods became vogue.Rice and soybean are cheap fillers and you see both used and pimped as "special diets".

As with people,dogs get over medicated by doctors also.A lot of major skin issues can be traced back to over use of antibiotics.Immune system is actually weakened rather then built up and skin disorders pop up.

The over use and abuse of high protein foods cause all kinds of problems in dogs.I've seen more bird dogs with kidney problems directly related to a high protein diet,then any other cause.A local vet that bird hunts all over the country,along with owning a pheasant preserve.He started blood testing his own dogs and those of some local outfitters.His finding was standard diets provide plenty of protein and the majority of dogs do nothing but piss and [bleep] out higher protein diets and worse case they develop kidney issues.I've hunted over this vets dogs and they're balls to the wall all day on standard diets,with perfect health.A friend has hounds that we run both lions and coon with,the same vet started blood testing them and the hounds were on a diet of around 30% protein.Tested the hounds after back to back lion hunts where they were easily covering ten times the distances of any bird dog and the blood tests showed that the dogs weren't assimilating all the protein they were being fed,along with one hound having kidney problems related to too high of protein diet.We went back to feeding Iams chunk and retested the dogs and had better results and the dogs health was still fine.