# Kibbles to STAY AWAY from?



## Big Bad Bear (May 23, 2021)

Hey there,

I am looking for Kibble brands that are just not good for German Shepherds / not good companies at all. I am currently feeding my GSD the Fromm kibble, and while it has been great, I believe Bear is starting to develop a chicken allergy. 

After an at home allergy test (obviously not 100% accurate) it started to make sense. 

So I am going in search of more kibbles to test out on him!

Any kibbles to stay clear of would be great! 

Thanks!
David & Bear


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## LuvShepherds (May 27, 2012)

Fromm is good. They have chicken free kibble.


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## Big Bad Bear (May 23, 2021)

LuvShepherds said:


> Fromm is good. They have chicken free kibble.


Thanks! Yes, I see they have a tonne of different varieties on a different line, but I want to know what else people are using / what should people stay away from too


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## LuvShepherds (May 27, 2012)

My dog has a chicken allergy and was on Fromm Salmon a,la veg and a few other flavors of Fromm for a while. I rotated them. Eventually he had to switch to a prescription diet.


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## Rabidwolfie (Apr 9, 2021)

Almost all Grain Frees until they figure out the connection between those and heart problems.


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

If you have an allergy, don't fool around -- there is NO WAY to know what is really in kibble for purposes of a food allergy. They don't clean the machines in between extrusion runs. So if your bag of "Salmon" food goes through the machine right after a run of "Chicken" finishes, there will be a lot of the chicken formula in it. There was a test of LID foods a while back that found significant contamination. This means if you switch to salmon food and still have symptoms, it might be because you're still feeding undisclosed chicken! There's no way to know if the amount will be low enough not to trigger your dog -- it might be, or it might not be.

My dog with food allergies cannot eat anything Fromm makes. My other two do well on it.

If you have a food allergy, do a vet-supervised food trial with an elimination diet. Get him stable on an allergy diet for 6 or so weeks, then add the chicken back in to challenge him. If he flares, then you're sure what he's allergic to.

Also, if that "at home" test was a saliva test, know that it has allegedly come back with a report of "food sensitivities" when a sample of WATER was sent in by a skeptical vet derm wondering if they would catch it. They not only didn't catch it, but reportedly they claimed that the "water" sample tested positive food sensitivities. This was reported on the Skeptvet blog.


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## Clipper (May 7, 2021)

Rabidwolfie said:


> Almost all Grain Frees until they figure out the connection between those and heart problems.


+1, I switched my dog from grain free a while ago. The lentils, potatoes, peas are the suspects.


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## Sunsilver (Apr 8, 2014)

I had a great Dane come in for boarding. The owner was very new to dog ownership, and was feeding her one of the worst (and cheapest) foods on the market, Ol' Roy. 

At each feeding, I would fill the dog's bowl to the brim, but she still stayed skinny because the food was such poor quality. I told the owner she was wasting her money, and going to a better brand of food would not only be better for her dog, it would probably be cheaper in the long run!


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

Rabidwolfie said:


> Almost all Grain Frees until they figure out the connection between those and heart problems.


Even after they figure it out, if it turns out to be a spurious statistical correlation, it's still worth avoiding GF for the reason we all should have been avoiding it for years: it's always been a marketing scam unless a dog has a specific food allergy to a specific ingredient.

They somehow convinced consumers to pay more for a lot of peas and beans, which are very cheap ingredients (and are dried down with Roundup in the U.S.) The legumes are around 30% protein, so they boost the protein content on the label. In other words, if there are a lot of beans in there, there may actually be LESS meat in the GF bag! All kibble also needs at least 40% carbs to form the dough needed by the extrusion machine, so unless it's baked or air dried, GF kibble trades out highly digestible carbs from rice, oats, and barley for potatoes and tapioca.


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## Bella99 (Sep 4, 2017)

Magwart said:


> Even after they figure it out, if it turns out to be a spurious statistical correlation, it's still worth avoiding GF for the reason we all should have been avoiding it for years: it's always been a marketing scam unless a dog has a specific food allergy to a specific ingredient.
> 
> They somehow convinced consumers to pay more for a lot of peas and beans, which are very cheap ingredients (and are dried down with Roundup in the U.S.) The legumes are around 30% protein, so they boost the protein content on the label. In other words, if there are a lot of beans in there, there may actually be LESS meat in the GF bag! All kibble also needs at least 40% carbs to form the dough needed by the extrusion machine, so unless it's baked or air dried, GF kibble trades out highly digestible carbs from rice, oats, and barley for potatoes and tapioca.


Well this makes me want to return my bag of zignature I purchased today. I’ve been rotating foods. Grain or grain free...this is our first time trying zignature. 


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