What is the Best Food for a Mini Dachshund?

jenn n: What is the best dog food for my Mini Dachshund?
My Mini Doxie is currently eating Royal Canine for Mini's but I think she is getting bored with it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answers and Views:

Answer by ɐdɾ soɐɥɔ ǝnlq
Wellness Fish and Sweet Potato. Doxies have issues with dry skin, and the Omega fats in the fish will help a lot.

Photo Credit: Roshan Vyas/Flickr CC

Answer by darksong17
Royal Canin is a low-quality dog food anyway.

Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to dump cheap leftovers in. Will it kill your dog? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot.

Corn is a low-quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low-quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets.

Thankfully, there are some excellent dog foods being made these days that include organic, human-grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption.

Examples of low-quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Pedigree, Kibbles n' Bits, Beneful, Ol'Roy.

Examples of high-quality foods to look for: Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Canidae All Life Stages, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety Prairie, Nature's Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix.

Although the high-quality foods are more expensive, you're getting what you're paying for. Less filler material means more concentrated nutrients... this means you typically need to feed far less of the high-quality food than you would of the low-quality one. Which also means less poop!

A great option is to go with an entirely grainless diet. Many of the high-quality foods now put out grainless formulas. Some good grainless diets include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Horizon Legacy, Merrick Before Grain, Canidae Grain Free All Life Stages, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now! and Sold Gold Barking At The Moon, Taste of the Wild.

Blue Buffalo Wilderness Grain Free Dog Food on Amazon (#ad)

Some pretty decent foods can even be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain-free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness, Solid Gold, Natural Balance, Eagle Pack Holistic, Blue Buffalo, Castor & Pollux Organix, Pinnacle, and Halo. If you can't find food, most of the high-quality food brands have websites with store locators on them.

Remember that foods should be switched gradually, especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies.
Another option for feeding dogs is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted.

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