Working hard on Dog Food Reviews...

[rannmiller]

I know, who's the crazy Bil Jac fan who destroyed our accurate ratings? Everyone else on the site with an ounce of common senes and/or knowlege should go rate it lower so people aren't misled by it.

I checked out their website and they have some really great PR person in charge of that, I almost fell for the whole "by products are good, corn is amazing" thing they had going on...NOT. Then I checked out dogfoodanalysis.com just to reassure myself I wasn't going crazy and sure enough, they give it one star. Whew, not crazy, at least not in that respect. It's good to know.

That sucks that you broke your thumb, I'm sorry! That sounds so painful! I broke my middle finger once, gives me a good excuse to flip people off when they ask to see my messed up fingernail from it hehe. I hope it heals soon!

[claybuster]

Did you ever feed the product before reviewing it?

Charlie

[rannmiller]

I've talked to several people who have used Bil Jac and they all report of their dog's teeth getting huge amounts of tartar and plaque build-up because of all the sugar. Or their fur falling out, or lots of poop, diabetes, excessive weight gain, etc.

[claybuster]

I was referring to the opening post about the Abady Classic Granular. I was wondering if the OP (GreenDog), had ever fed the product before writing the review, or is it similar to your approach with the BilJac, just based upon what you have heard. I think trying the products first would be a good approach before writing the reviews. Maybe an asterisk or a notation at the end mentioning, BTW, never tried the product and the review is based upon what other people think?

Charlie

[ChattyCathy]

I'm a beginner w/the computer but your dog food reviews were easy to navigate around. They're great! Good job! Can't find objective reviews like these anywhere else!

However, I was just wondering, maybe I missed it, as I said I'm a beginner, but is there something in your forum that can compare the brands (Like up to three, etc.) at the same time to be viewed in the same screen? When I'm comparing brands I find I have to go back and forth lots of times to compare brands and sometimes lose track of where I'm at -- I'm sure it's the beginner computer user syndrome.

I love these reviews!

Oh, I forgot... hope your thumb is better!

[rannmiller]

However, I was just wondering, maybe I missed it, as I said I'm a beginner, but is there something in your forum that can compare the brands (Like up to three, etc.) at the same time to be viewed in the same screen? When I'm comparing brands I find I have to go back and forth lots of times to compare brands and sometimes lose track of where I'm at -- I'm sure it's the beginner computer user syndrome.

That's a really good idea!

Claybuster, it would be really hard to try feeding every single product before reviewing it. You would have to have several different dogs of several different ages and breeds to get a proper sample size, otherwise people would just say "well that's just YOUR dog that has problems with it." Also, it would be extremely expensive and we'd have to have our dogs on it for several months at the very least to see how it effects them and even then we wouldn't know the long-term effects of it. Hence, I can use personal anecdotes for my own dogs with the foods they were on long-term because I was feeding them what I thought was the best at the time so I wasn't really experimenting on them, which is how I would feel if I did try out every single food.

This is why, on the foods I haven't personally fed, I use the stories of others who do have that large sample size and I can get a general picture of how well the food works in general. If I've never met anyone who's used the food, I can usually tell based on ingredients how the food is going to perform. However, these are merely my opinions at that point so I try to make it more like "It is known these ingredients perform like this, ergo, feeding this food could possibly do this to your animal." When I say things like "This food causes this myriad of problems in several dogs" then you know I've probably heard that from several of this food's customers/users.

However, I will try to specify from now on that the food with bad ingredients who I've heard does terrible things to dogs has not yet been fed to my dogs, nor will it ever be based on the terrible reviews of its customers.

[rannmiller]

And the reason Greendog says not-so fantastic things about Abady is because by-products are their first ingredients and according to AAFCO standards those contain the chicken's heads, feet, intestines, and undeveloped eggs, etc. Those are not really good quality protein sources as most of the protein should come from muscle and organ meat. If Abady were to disclose what was in their by-products, that might help. But even then, I'd never feed a food that has by-products in it, nor would I recommend it since it's usually like the mystery meat of the pet food world. I'd rather see "chicken meal" as the first ingredient. Then it would be an excellent food.

[ChattyCathy]

I was referring to the opening post about the Abady Classic Granular. I was wondering if the OP (GreenDog), had ever fed the product before writing the review, or is it similar to your approach with the BilJac, just based upon what you have heard. I think trying the products first would be a good approach before writing the reviews. Maybe an asterisk or a notation at the end mentioning, BTW, never tried the product and the review is based upon what other people think?

Charlie

This may be outrageous but I have an out of the box question that kinda goes along with the above. I agree that it would be quite difficult to try all of the products being reviewed but perhaps we, the Members, could help. GreenDog: Have you ever done a questionnaire just for the Members of this forum to get information for some of the products reviewed. We use to do that at one of the jobs where I had to qualify peoples statements for statistic purposes. It's just another tool to get info. Like I said it's probably a bit outrageous. But, just a thought.

[ChattyCathy]

OK. Here I go again. Thinking too much. I have another thought regarding the dog food reviews. I have read through alot of this site and lots of Members know lots about nutrition, etc. Me, I know zilch but am trying to learn. I now know what dog & cat food to use. THANKS SO MUCH TO EVERYONE AND THE REVIEWS!

Anyways... I can't seem to remember what ingredients are good, so-so, or bad in my animal's kibble. And, what they do and why. Is there somewhere or can you list this in the reviews for people, like me, who know very little about nutrition for animals. For instance: can all the good ingredients be listed w/an explanation of why, then the so-so ingredients and why and then the bad and why. And, then someone like me could print it out and use when shopping. And, this can also be updated periodically w/an update date on it so we would know to replace the old one????

And, to go one further... perhaps a list for dogs who may be sick and need to eat a special diet, i.e. a diabetic dog, etc. A list in the same format for these animals as well. That would be AWESOME! (Is that word still used?) Thanks for listening.

[rannmiller]

Of course we still use "Awesome" it's a great word! The members of this forum are able to rate the dog foods and make comments on them, so that's sort of like a questionnaire/way for them to give their input too. I like your idea of maybe just having a page dedicated to ingredients to look for and ones to avoid. Good ideas!