3. Fresh cooked meats, calcium, organ meat, with very small amounts of fresh
vegetables. Include a vitamin/mineral mix, and omega 3 essential fatty acids (salmon
oil). There are several books on the market that help you create your own home-
cooked diet. It’s best to follow the recipes in these books.

4. Ultra Premium commercial canned foods and augmented with some fresh, raw
foods. Canned foods, which are lower in carbohydrates, are much better for your
pet than dry kibble. Some of the brands I like are Nature’s Variety, Merrick, and
Evanger’s. These products are mostly meat, are usually grain-free, and very low in
carbohydrates. The meat they use is human quality and they do not use by-products
or chemical preservatives.

5. As in #4 above, but adding fresh cooked foods

6. Ultra Premium canned commercial foods WITHOUT fresh raw or cooked foods
added

7. Super Premium canned foods are very much like the brands above, but they use
more grains.  They still use good quality meats and don’t contain by-products. Brand
examples: Solid Gold,
Innova, Pet Promise.

8. Super Premium grain-free dry food (kibble) like Instinct by Nature’s Variety.  Grain free diets that utilize legumes are linked to heart failure in dogs.

9. Premium canned foods. These brands use substantially less meat. Water is often
the number 1 ingredient (in the Ultra Premium brands meat is the number one
ingredient), they use meat by-products (poor quality waste parts) and they usually
contain significant amounts of grains and chemical preservatives. Often, if all the
grains are added together, they would equal or exceed the meat. The meat quality is
OK, but just barely.

10. Super Premium kibble like Innova, Prairie, Canidae, and Timberwolf

11. Grocery store brands – canned or dry. These contain very little meat,
are made with substantial amounts of meat by-products, and primarily consist
of grain and grain by-products. The rendered meat used in these products
came from condemned animals, ie – animals that were deemed unfit for human
consumption. These products normally contain artificial colors, flavors
and chemical preservatives.
Worst – Unhealthy

How to grade your dog’s food:

Start with a grade of 100:
1) For every listing of “by-product”, subtract 10 points
2) For every non-specific animal source (“meat” or “poultry”, meat, meal or fat)
reference, subtract 10 points
3) If the food contains BHA, BHT, or ethoxyquin, subtract 10 points
4) For every grain “mill run” or non-specific grain source, subtract 5 points
5) If the same grain ingredient is used 2 or more times in the first five ingredients (i.
e. “ground brown rice”, “brewers rice”, “rice flour” are all the same grain), subtract
5 points
6) If the protein sources are not meat meal and there are less than 2 meats in the top
3 ingredients, subtract 3 points
7) If it contains any artificial colorants, subtract 3 points
8 ) If it contains ground corn or whole grain corn, subtract 3 points
9) If corn is listed in the top 5 ingredients, subtract 2 more points
10) If the food contains any animal fat other than fish oil, subtract 2 points
11) If lamb is the only animal protein source (unless your dog is allergic to other
protein sources), subtract 2 points
12) If it contains soy or soybeans, subtract 2 points
13) If it contains wheat (unless you know that your dog isn’t allergic to wheat),
subtract 2 points
14) If it contains beef (unless you know that your dog isn’t allergic to beef),
subtract 1 point
15) If it contains salt, subtract 1 point
Extra Credit:
1) If any of the meat sources are organic, add 5 points
2) If the food is endorsed by any major breed group or nutritionist, add 5 points
3) If the food is baked not extruded, add 5 points
4) If the food contains probiotics, add 3 points
5) If the food contains fruit, add 3 points
6) If the food contains vegetables (NOT corn or other grains), add 3 points
7) If the animal sources are hormone-free and antibiotic-free, add 2 points
8 ) If the food contains barley, add 2 points
9) If the food contains flax seed oil (not just the seeds), add 2 points
10) If the food contains oats or oatmeal, add 1 point
11) If the food contains sunflower oil, add 1 point
12) For every different specific animal protein source (other than the first one;
count “chicken” and “chicken meal” as only one protein source, but “chicken” and “”
as 2 different sources), add 1 point
13) If it contains glucosamine and chondroitin, add 1 point
14) If the vegetables have been tested for pesticides and are pesticide-free, add 1
point

100+        = A+
94-100    = A
86-93       = B
78-85       = C
70-77       = D
<70            = F

Here are some foods that have already been scored. If you don’t see your dog’s food
here, Score it and email us the results to add to our list.  

Dog Food scores:

Authority Harvest Baked /  116 A+
Bil-Jac Select /  68 F
Canidae /  112 A+
Chicken Soup Senior /  115 A+
Diamond Maintenance /  64 F
Diamond Lamb Meal & Rice /  92 B
Diamond Large Breed 60+ Formula /  99 A
Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance Ultra Premium /  122 A+
Dick Van Patten’s Duck and Potato /  106 A+
Flint River Ranch Lamb Millet and Rice / 115 A++
Foundations /  106 A+
Hund-n-Flocken Adult Dog (lamb) by Solid Gold /  93 A
Iams Lamb Meal & Rice Formula Premium /  73 D
Innova Dog /  114 A+
Innova Evo /  114 A+
Kirkland Signature Chicken, Rice, and Vegetables /  110 A+
Nutrisource Lamb and Rice /  87 B
Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Puppy /  87 B
Pet Gold Adult with Lamb & Rice /  23 F
Premium Edge Puppy (gold bag) by Diamond Foods/  99 A
Premium Edge Adult (green bag) by Diamond Foods/  96 A
Purina Benful /  17 F
Purina Dog /  62 F
Purina Come-n-Get It /  16 F
Royal Canin Bulldog /  100 A+
Royal Canin Natural Blend Adult /  106 A+
Sensible Choice Chicken and Rice /  97 A
Science Diet Advanced Protein Senior 7+ /  63 F
Science Diet for Large Breed Puppies /  69 F
Wellness Super5 Mix Chicken /  110 A+
Wolfking Adult Dog (bison) by Solid Gold /  97 A

If you have a food you would like us to add to the list whether it is good or bad please let us know!
This article added 1/20/09

Supplements

Brian Miller, Evolution Bulldogges

Delayed walking and aspiration pneumonia are possible consequences of this flattened shape.

Treatment and prevention are pretty much the same thing. Do not allow a bitch with too much milk to spend an unlimited amount of time in the box nursing her puppies. Watch for the first evidence of this problem and take steps to get mother away from the puppies for a couple of hours at a time if you see it starting. Even if this makes more cleanup for you, it will help the puppies. Place sections of orthopedic “egg carton” foam under the blanket in the box, raise one end of the box 2 to 3 inches, or put lots of small soft toys in it so that the puppies can find a place were they can get the weight of the stomach off their lungs, and can orient with their head and chest higher than their abdomen.

Do not have the room too warm. A heating pad under the blanket in the center of the box will give the puppies a reason to move around when the bitch leaves the box, going to the warm spot where they can use each other as ramps to get their head and chest going uphill. If your puppies are spread out all over the box when not nursing, your room and box are too warm. They should want to congregate in one area, and touch one another. If they pile up (literally) and whimper, they are too cool. Keep the room at a comfortable temperature of 68 to 72, so the bitch can be comfortable and not stressed by heat, and so that the puppies will gather in one area of the box. This has the additional benefit of keeping them from being squashed by the bitch or against the sides of the box when she enters the box and lies down.

Traditionally ‘hobbling’ the puppies legs has been used to help get these puppies up on their feet. In some short legged breeds this may indeed help, but generally speaking, the prevention and treatment guidelines above will be all that are necessary. If puppies have aspiration pneumonia from pressure on their stomach and lungs, cold nebulization and antibiotic treatment may be needed.

this article added 1/20/09

Demodectic Mange mites crawl a shallow distance down into hair follicles to eat the oils produced in the skin’s sebaceous glands located towards the top of the follicle. Once they clean out one gland they move to another. After a short period of time each emptied buffet bin is refilled and can be feasted upon again without instance. The mites cause little to no damage to the hair follicles themselves since the sebaceous glands are very near the surface, but what does cause damage is when they decide to reproduce. The female mite will deposit her eggs deep inside the hair follicle where they will sit for about 48 hours until they hatch. In that 48 hours, the tiny soft shelled eggs should be detected by the dog’s immune system and a massive strike launched to break down the protein shell of the eggs and effectively destroy the baby mites before they ever hatch. Occasionally a problem occurs and the immune system either doesnt identify the eggs as a threat, or the immune response is weak and ineffective in breaking down the eggs. In that event, the baby mites hatch deep inside the follicle and begin eating and eating and eating. A whole swarm of nasty little bugs crawling, climbing, scratching, and eating their way out of the hair follicle will cause massive damage. The hair shaft and papilla are torn to hell, swelling ensues, and the severely damaged hair shaft itself falls out.

This is why a dog having fleas or ticks does not indicate that there is an immune deficiency, but demodectic mange does. A healthy immune response will easily destroy some weak little demodex eggs sitting inside a hair follicle, but a defective immune system does not eradicate them within the 48 hour window. Any dog that is not able to destroy the mite eggs prior to the hatch, is either immune compromised from being deathly ill or on immunosuppressive medication, or the dog’s immune system is defective on a genetic level.

Any degree of hair loss with the identification of demodex mites through a skin scraping indicates an infestation, and an ineffective immune response. Any dog showing any degree of infestation of demodectic mange (even one spot) is evidence of a defect in the immune response as mite eggs are relatively easy for a canine’s lymphatic system to mount an effective attack against. Even in an environment swarming with adult mites, a healthy dog with the proper immune response will effectively destroy the mite eggs long before they hatch. This is why some dogs will break with demodex and others will not, even when in the same house or kenneled together. By the time enough eggs hatch to cause hair loss, the dog is infested. Any dog who shows any degree of hair loss from the presence of demodex should be spayed or neutered to preserve the effective immune systems within the breed, and stop the proliferation of unhealthy dogs.

This was written by Brian Miller of Evolution Bulldogges and permission is given freely to copy and paste and share this information. I have hope that this detailed explanation of the process of demodex proliferation clears up some of the misinformation that has been pumped into the heads of the less informed in the dog world. Demodex can be a very serious infestation that can be bad enough that it cannot be cured without some degree of immune response and euthanization of the dog is the only option. Responsible breeding is the only effective means to eliminate demodex infestation, as immune response is genetically passed to the offspring. Only those dogs with the strongest immune systems should be bred to maintain the integrity of health within each breed.