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Originally Posted by james t kirk
I think that the potasium supplement was more for the fact that my one cat is suffering from Kidney disease.
The big thing in feeding your pet properly is to bear in mind that dogs and cats especially should not be eating grains - carbs and rice under any circumstances.
Processed pet foods are loaded with all things bad for your pet, including carbs and assorted other garbage.
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Why shouldn't dogs eat any grains? I mix a little brown rice or oatmeal in with our prepared foods. I don't disagree with you I just don't understand!
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I just got back from a good dog food store and decided to share this info, so this is part two of a post since no one posted in between.
I checked with my neice the vet on which dog foods might be best and also sent her two of the links osted in this thread. The second link she mentions was
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spri...d/Contents.htm and the first and good one was
http://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/contrast.html. I still the the link she doesn't like has some merit. More important, I think her overall response provided a broad, common sense explanation of how to look at things. Thought everyone might be interested in her response:
"Ok, the first link has merit and offers two very good references, and is in general, an accurate explanation of dogs' and cats' dietary needs.
The second link you can stick in your urban legends categories. Whenever a web site starts off with my, me, I, just click the little x in the corner of the window, because the likelihood of it being anything but subjective, personal opinion and hearsay is fairly low. Notice no references were sited for their remarks about road kill and euthanized animals. There are very strict regulations about disposal of euthanized animal carcasses, so strict that many rendering companies are closing shop, because it's getting to be cost prohibitive to jump through all of the hoops necessary for proper disposal, so selling them to pet food manufacturers is not an option.
Just think about wild cats and wolves/coyotes and how they consume a kill. They do not preferentially just eat the muscles of their kill, they eat the whole carcass. That includes the organs, the intestines, the bones, etc. In so doing, they are ingesting protein (muscle), carbohydrates (ingesta of herbivores intestines), minerals (organs, and bones), in a very balanced fashion. The key element is balance. People have killed their exotic cats by feeding them meat only diets, so no diet consisting of meat alone is appropriate for a carnivore...don't let the name fool you.
When you are looking for information, look for well-referenced sources, and be especially careful with fats. There is generally not much fat in the diet of the wild carnivore (they normally kill the weaker prey animals, very young, very old, or sick and debilitated...therefore, not much fat on these animals). The canine and feline pancreas is not designed to handle the amount of fat that we consume in our diets, so trimmings from steaks, bacon grease, etc. are big no-nos.
Be sure to get a good reference for the vegetables and fruits that are safe for animals, as there are several that are toxic (grapes and raw onions) and should not be added to their diet.
Hope this helped somewhat."