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Is IAMS Smartpuppy puppy food for puppies1-24 months old, good food to feed my 10 week old chihuahua?
It's all i feed her, and fresh water, about 4 to 6 small meals a day. I never give her table scraps or human food. Is she getting enough nutrition? She is so active, happy and seems very healthy...she races around here like a rabbit, and can be very, playfully aggressive..thanks
15 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Nope, Iams is a poor quality dog food.
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, Timber Wolf Organics.
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 diet's include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now! and Sold Gold Barking At The Moon, Taste of the Wild.
Some of the high end foods can be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness and Solid Gold. If you can't find a 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:
http://www.wysong.net/controversies/rawmeat.shtml
More on dog food:
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=main (Learn how to determine the quality of your dog's food.)
http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/ (Dog food reviews. Anything with five or six stars is a great food.)
- 5 years ago
I've been feeding my two dogs Iams since they were 8 week old puppies with no problems. They are very healthy high energy dogs. Chicken is the 1st ingredient which is always good to have a meat protein for the first ingredient. IAMS is a good premium dog food that is not that costly. IAMS is much better than dog/puppy chow and I would highly recommend it to anyone.
- 5 years ago
Hi, I understand that you are looking for some advice or resources to help fully train your dog or fix behavior problems. If a professional dog trainer is not an option at this time, or if you want to trt training your dog on your own (a great way to bond), I'd suggest you https://biturl.im/aU3xL
A friend recommened it to me a few years ago, and I was amazed how quickly it worked, which is why I recommend it to others. The dog training academy also has as an excellent home training course.
- Anonymous5 years ago
The owner of the dog needs to know how to "operate" the dog, same way you can get into a car that's in perfect running order but if you don't know how to drive you won't have much luck making the car go anywhere. If the owner doesn't know how to maintain the training, the dog will soon become untrained again. Read more here https://tinyurl.im/3bUJq
People seem to think that once a dog is trained, that's it. Not true. You must reinforce the dog's training every single day in some way. It's best if the owner and the dog go together to get trained. As a professional trainer once said to me "We can train any dog in 2 days. It takes longer to train the owners
- 7 years ago
I honestly hate all these biases answers people give. Many people feed these "lower quality" dog foods to dogs their whole life without any problems. They are all people that are just pushing others to use thei "higher quality" dog food cuz it is honestly the best but they don't take into consideration peoples budgets, and seriously don't give me the whole thing about "Oh if you can't afford to take care of it properly you shouldn't have gotten it in the first place" bit. Many dogs can do perfectly fine on this lesser quality food. I say sure...if you can afford it go for the more expensive brands and give your dog good food. But also take into consideration your dog. Some dogs like my beagle just don't seem to like many of the good brands and make buying the cheaper ones almost a need. Don't listen to biased people pushing the most expensive stuff down your throat, listen to your dog. Go for what you can afford that your dog clearly likes and stick with it.
Source(s): I have done plenty of research on the matter and have been a dog owner for a long time. - Fetch!Lv 61 decade ago
~ Iams, Beneful, Pedigree, Purina, Royal Canin, Nutro, Bil-Jac, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Alpo, Cesar, Ol Roy, Kibbles N Bits...
ALL JUNK FOODS and not goof for any dog!
Quality dog foods
Orijen, Innova, Merricks, Soild Gold, Eagle Pack Holistic, Natures Variety, Canidae, Avoderm, Pinnacle, Fromm, Go!, Now!, Timber Wolf, Taste of the wild
- ?Lv 44 years ago
Dogs are surely man's best friend. This animal is the most loyal and protective animal that you can ever take care of. Read here http://onlinedogtraining.enle.info/?1C4k
Once you have become a master of a dog, you are sure to be protected by your pet especially if you have treated your dog very right. Aside from providing what the dog needs, you should also train your pet dog. This is to give your pet the right behavior and habits so that it will become disciplined and well mannered. You will not have a difficult time taking care of your pet dog once it has undergone dog training. Training your dog is easy and fun especially if you have the right information to use. Here are some of the most basic advices to follow when you are training your dog.
Advice #1: Be the boss at all times. It is a known fact that dogs can sometimes be bossy. These animals are born leaders. But keep in mind that you are the master and should always be followed by your pet.
Advice #2: Show what is right through your actions. If you say that your dog should not hurt other people, and then show it through your actions. Do not show any sign of anger or violence. Dogs have the tendency to become violent especially when it sees it in its environment.
Advice #3: Treat your dog as a dog and not as a kid. Do not expect your dog to understand each and every single thing you say. These are still animals that have different ways of communicating. You are actually training your dog according to their personality and behavior. One needs to be very patient in order to successfully carry out the dog training.
Advice #4: Be consistent with your commands. You should not change mind every now and then. If you are teaching a specific lesson, stay with it until your dog learns to follow it completely. Inconsistency will have your dog confused with the commands that you are calling out. Be firm with what you are teaching. But be sure to reward your dog once it has followed your command successfully.
Advice #5: Commit to daily dog training. Make sure that you train everyday. Skipping days will make your dog be lazy in following you. You need to make sure that you can allot time for your dog so that it can learn something new everyday.
Advice #6: Be positive and appreciative. Dogs like to impress their boss. So if you are impressed with what your dog has done, show happiness. Give encouraging words to your dog. It will also help if you give out rewards like food or toys.
Training your dog to be well mannered and well disciplined means that you are accepting the pet to be a member of your family. Dog training will prevent you from experiencing unlikely incidents because of your pet's misbehavior. Having a pet at home is enjoyable especially if your pet does know how to communicate with you through their behaviors.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Iams is not a good food, it has by products, any type of commercial food like pedigree, iams, purina, stuff like that is not good to feed your dog, i suggest you find a higher quality food for your pup.
all these people saying that its good obviously dont know how to read dog food labels, and what to look out for.