Grain free food

[Branch]

Hello all you Basenji owners...a few weeks ago the FDA made a major call out on grain free foods and report that they have found them to cause heart disease! I thought I was correct in thinking these special dogs were not to be fed wheat,corn,soy
am I wrong? Currently using a dry food made by OPEN FARM. It is a humanely & sustainably sourced pasture raised Lamb recipe. Lamb raised on grass fed diet, free from antibiotics & added growth hormones. 100% traceable ingredients.
Ingredients ~ Lamb,Chickpeas,Ocean whitefish, Field peas,Herring meal,coconut oil,red & green lentils, pumpkin,salmon Oil,cranberries,chicory root,apples,choline chloride (?) , salt,mixed tocopherols (preservative) Vit E ,riboflavin,Vit d,vit b12, turmeric.
The report from FDA says ANY grain free is not good! especially those with chick peas, etc.
Please let me know your thoughts on this..my little guy is 12 and slowing down and usually does not eat well..any suggestions are appreciated.
One last thing, has anyone used "Pet-Fresh" dog food?

[Dagodingo]

@branch Others will have opinions on this but I feed Fromm foods. I think the FDA announcement was primarily for foods with legumes and peas in them. Also, I believe it was something like 0.07% of dogs or something, so not exactly panicking.

You can really go crazy feeding, depending on time and money available. Raw diets, home cooked etc. really depends on what you want and how much effort you want to put into it.

There is also a thread on here in feeding.

https://basenjiforums.com/topic/15084/warning-about-grain-free-dog-food

Here is a great site for researching foods and you can sign up for recall info. They usually send me a recall email before I find out about anything from anywhere else, so they are fast. They have reviewed fresh pet, which I think is what you meant?

https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/freshpet-select-slice-serve/

[elbrant]

@branch said in Grain free food:

report that they have found them to cause heart diseas

So, here's a question:
Does the report indicate that the ingredients (typically found) in grain-free pet foods cause heart disease?
Or, does a grain-free diet appear to cause heart disease?

If it is the latter, then wouldn't it make sense to just add a Tablespoon of Oats or cooked plain rice or another grain to their food? Is that a possible solution? It would allow the pet owner the confidence of knowing where the grains came from instead of the mystery ingredients we sometimes see on food labels. Our pets would still benefit by the added nutrition. And, since the pet owner is the one adding the grains -- they can adjust or switch them based on any known allergies, any sensitivities they observe, or their own preferences.

I circle back to my question(s)... is there anyone who has studied these reports enough to know and understand the answer?

[katieasling]

OPEN FARM is a very high quality food, and can only be good for your B, in my opinion. Another one I like is balancediet.com
It's amazing and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to feed it to all four of my big dogs! The guy will never advertise, doesn't do promotion except his own website, but that website tells you everything you need to know. Plus, my dogs like it more than Open Farm. It's not cooked at high temps, and it has no lentils, potatoes or any other filler.

[Branch]

@dagodingo
Were you aware of the recall on Formm dog food for high amounts of Vit D? think i mis-spelled

[Dagodingo]

@branch Yes, they were the first to recall, they also did so as a precaution. Even then, it was only if you fed the wet food affected exclusively. It is the only recall they have ever had.

They have a good history and are still family owned, so I trust them more. A lot of new places spring up but you just don’t know and I prefer to stay away from the large companies / corporations.

I also feed mine meat and chicken etc as a supplement.

[Branch]

@dagodingo
Good to know! Thank you :)

[Dagodingo]

@branch It’s tough with dog food. You can spend days researching, reading reviews and looking at ingredients. Then choose what is the best looking food, only to find it recalled a year later because of one thing or another.

I figure best to go with the one I trust best and add my own fresh cooked supplements in moderation. I also feed two dry foods mixed and wet cans in rotation.

One thing I do is to buy the food three months ahead of using it. I figure by that time, if there is a recall, at least I haven’t fed it to them yet.

[glenn.jalivay2]

Hello,

I brought my Basenji home as a young pup and had him on a raw diet. I've never given him kibble and he is doing excellent. I purchase from my local grocery store, everything from chicken, pork, lamb, duck, turkey etc. I also throw in fresh sardines and anchovies from time to time. He handles it all, along with the raw bones. I also throw a little quick oats in from time to time, along with a few veggies here and there. He is eight months old on the 27th and looks great. There is never a worry about any sort of recall..........do your research.

[elbrant]

@branch said in Grain free food:

recall on Formm dog food for high amounts of Vit D?

Why is Vit D an issue?

[elbrant]

@glenn-jalivay2 I do something similar.

[eeeefarm]

@elbrant said in Grain free food:

@branch said in Grain free food:

recall on Formm dog food for high amounts of Vit D?

Why is Vit D an issue?

It's toxic at high levels, can cause kidney failure/death.

[Dagodingo]

@elbrant It’s toxic in high doses. The advice was that if you had fed the dog only on the wet can food, to discontinue feeding and they returned / refunded. Over the next six months a whole bunch of foods were recalled because of high vitamin D levels.

[DonC]

I don't believe the issue was grain free per se. More that the foods contained a large proportion of peas, lentils, legume seeds or potatoes, which allowed them to be labelled "grain free". I posted this article from the NY Times which gives the best summary I've seen: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/us/dog-food-heart-disease-fda.html

Your food seems high quality with a a lot of good ingredients -- lamb, fish, etc.-- but it also has the potentially offending ingredients. My initial reaction would be to switch just because that's easy to do and there isn't a big downside. However, given the age and the fact he hasn't had any problems -- the heart issues were with young dogs -- if he likes the food not worrying about it would be a reasonable decision.I'd probably stick with what was working, lots of pups don't make it to twelve, but you could look for an alternative and not be wrong.

No matter what you do give him a hug!

[elbrant]

@eeeefarm said in Grain free food:

It's toxic at high levels, can cause kidney failure/death.

This article on the FDA website, Vitamin D Toxicity in Dogs seems to suggest that you need to watch for indications that your dog is sick and seek medical care. It also includes a frightening list of commercial dog foods that have been recalled for high Vit D content.

Ok, so.... what would be considered a "high dose" for the average B?
And how does natural sunlight play into this?

[eeeefarm]

@elbrant said in Grain free food:

@eeeefarm said in Grain free food:

It's toxic at high levels, can cause kidney failure/death.

This article on the FDA website, Vitamin D Toxicity in Dogs seems to suggest that you need to watch for indications that your dog is sick and seek medical care. It also includes a frightening list of commercial dog foods that have been recalled for high Vit D content.

Ok, so.... what would be considered a "high dose" for the average B?
And how does natural sunlight play into this?

"Requirements for vitamin D are dependent on dietary concentrations of calcium and phosphorus, the dietary calcium:phosphorus ratio, physiological stage of development and perhaps sex and breed........ For dogs and cats (and presumably other carnivores), vitamin D must be obtained from dietary sources due to the inability of these species to synthesize and utilize vitamin D from precursors in the skin."

article

You can read a lot more in the article, but basically it depends on the composition of the food. Higher levels are needed if calcium/phosphorus is not properly balanced.

[elbrant]

@eeeefarm said in Grain free food:

must be obtained from dietary sources due to the inability of these species to synthesize and utilize vitamin D from precursors in the skin

oh wow... I was making the assumption that they could absorb vit D through sunlight (just like us).Thank you! Learned something new!

[eeeefarm]

I learned something new, too, as I had to research it. I thought it might be the case since many/most dogs have protective fur and don't seem to sunburn like we do. Horses, OTOH, will sunburn if they have pink skin, and they do make vitamin D as we do.

[elbrant]

@prncmuhd said in Grain free food:

Top Dog Accessories 2019

Shame on you! If you had half a brain, you would have discussed legitimate issues with grain free food and then offered a link to a good option. Spam is never the way to get people to buy your products.