IAMS - Healthy Dog Foods?
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Great Grooming, friendly people and home to Carrie Underwood.
- Free Dog and Cat Food
- What Is In My Pet's Food?
What the label on your dog food really means. This will answer the 75% question about what your dog or cat is eating in the pet food you feed.
Ask Susan Peters Other Sites Of Interest:
Cat Food Review - Cat Food Ratings
Cat Food Safe To Feed After The Cat Food Recall
Free Online Pet Food Recall Information - Buyers Guide - Understanding the Pet Food recall and why cats and dogs continue to get sick and die - written by Susan Peters
Dog Treat and Snack Review and Dog Food Ratings
Iams 4# Green Bag Mini Chunks Dog Food 1+ Years Dog Food Review
Iams Dog Food
- Animal Digest - Plus 1 point = No Animal Digest
- Corn - Minus 1 point = Corn Meal
- Wheat - Plus 1 point = No wheat
- Soy - Plus 1 point = no soy
- Gluten - Plus 1 point = no gluten
- The Goodies - Minus 1 point = Dried Beet Pulp, Natural Chicken Flavor, Dried Egg Product, Brewers Dried Yeast, salt
- By-Products - Minus 1 point = Chicken By-Product Meal
- Animal Fat - Minus 1 point = Chicken Fat
- Pet Food Recalls - Minus 1 point = Recalls Iams
- Class Action - Minus 1 point = Class Action Iams
Iams Healthy Dog Foods Total Score = 4/10
Ask Susan Peters Are Iams Healthy Dog Foods?
Corn is responsible for a number of dangerous conditions. Corn causes hair loss, dry skin, hot spots, turmors, warts, moles, fever, ear aches, ear infections, bloating, liver inflamation, kidney inflamation, sore feet, abnormal nail growth, bad breath, dental disease, heart conditions, deafness, blindness, and early death.
Natural flavors are obtained by gathering manure from the animal which the pet food company wishes their product to taste of. This Iams product has natural chicken flavor. How would you like to have your dinner flavored with a heaping helping of chicken poop?
Animal fats are used to lure a dog to eat a pet food which the dog would not normally eat if the fat wasn't used. I'm talking about a pet food which is built around grains instead of meats. Dogs are meat eaters and would not eat grains if given the option.
By-products are floor sweepings collected from a rendering plant. Anything that hits the floor and is not fit for human consumption is by-product. By-products can't have "added" feathers but the ones included in the mess are just fine. Meal means the floor sweepings have had the water removed and the feathers, poultry poo, whatever has hit the floor is now concentrated.
Brewer's rice and brewer's dried yeast are by-products of beer production. There you go, your little pet gets what is left over after a beer run, the stuff not fit for human consumption.
Beet pulp is another cheap filler used by pet food companies. "Beet Pulp" sounds good, doesn't it? Well it's not. Just because Grandma told us we had to eat our beets as kids doesn't mean it is good for our dogs. Grandma didn't take the nutrients out of the beet and leave us just the dried fiber to eat, did she? Beet pulp is junk.
Iams has a history of recalls and has a class action filed against the company for the inclusion of substandard ingredients.
Iams is not a dog food I would consider to be a healthy choice to feed my pet.
I found that after testing several other dog food brands and types on my dog, Odie, that I found she was faced with some itching and scratching after eating Iams. Once I began using a dog food with little or no corn in the contents the itching seemed to have stopped.
Iams are not healthy dog foods - Susan Peters and Odie
See How Other Brands and Types Tested
Do you have another dog or cat food you would like to have tested? Please submit a comment and I'll check it out.
Susan Peters
Pet Food Recall Class Action Law Suit
- retain food samples for analysis
- save all packaging and receipts, and document the product name, type of product, date codes and/or production lot numbers
- document the dates that the product was fed to your pet, how much was eaten, and the time when you first noticed symptoms
For more information, please visit ASPCA.org. Helpful tips for veterinarians and pet parents may also be found at the American Veterinary Medical Association online.
I have had so many people contact me asking for recipes for dog and cat foods. I have to admit I am a pretty good cook but I haven't made much dog or cat food, myself. I have gotten a few recipes searching around the internet. I'm going to pass a...
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Glad the rating system works for you. I'm open to suggestions.... Thanks, Susan
i had my male rottweiler puppy on iams puppy for large breeds from the time he was 8 weeks until 16 weeks old. in that time of feeding him iams...he started going down on his pasterns. i called my breeder and she said none of her dogs did that. so we decided it could be the iams that was causing him to go down on his pasterns. i mean it was real bad...it was like he was walking on his wrists and his front feet were flopping.
well, i switched him to purina one and surprisingly it improved and he came back up off his pasterns and was normal. this is my potential show dog for which i paid $800 for him since he was and now still is show quality. Iams nearly ruined my rott boy....they should look at their ingredients more closely and i would not ever recommend iams puppy for large breed to anyone else.
I will immediately stop purchasing Iams pet food. I just saw film footage regarding Iams inhumane testing of dogs. I will tell EVERYONE that I know to never purhase any Iams products ever again.. I am extremel disappointed in this Company and it's products!
My puppy has been on Iams since he was born. When we adopted him and took him to our vet they told us that he should stay on Iams, it's a good brand of food. I tend to believe my Vet rather than posts on here, after all he is the professional correct?
Thanks for the tips here- this is great - especially with all the problems that have been going around.
For Kim,
yes your vet is a professional and probably makes good money and kick backs selling those products, especially if you buy it at the mark up the vet sells it for. I really don't want to be rude about it but... I personally don't believe everything any vet would tell me. I have had to learn the hard way myself. You would be surprised if you went to several more vets, they all would share a different opinion. I tend to stay away from preservatives and grains which means I wouldn't feed Iams. Besides did you see the footage on how cruel they are to the dogs and cats that have to suffer for the product. If I were you I would learn how to read the labels yourself, trust yourself and if you still choose iams, than more power to you. But Learn for yourself what is good and what is bad. Iams has chemicals and preservatives in it, just like most of the other pet food that is considered "commercial grade" Iams ingredients were part of the recall which means more than likely china or canada is their supplier? I wouldn't trust it and I used to feed it, until I became better educated. I will admit that as commercial grade food goes, iams is the higher end. But there are so many BETTER foods out their. I like Susan's rating system. She has several that are rated higher than a 7/10. You would be surprised how much better my dogs and cats look since I dumped the products with the preservatives and chemicals. i have 9 dogs and I could tell you how each one improved right down to no more runny eyes. Sorry, but I tend to get a little passionate about this pet food thing and all of the recalls, deaths and cruelty.
Sherry,
Thank you for your answer to Kim. I think your answer was a very good one. I couldn't have said it any better. Learn to read the labels yourself. It isn't that hard to read the labels. Sherry is right about the preservatives and chemicals in pet food. I just felt there were more pressing matters at the time I came up with the rating system.
Susan Peters
Your welcome, I hope that I was not "out of bounds" sometimes I can take things a litte far, especially when I believe in something.
Sherry,
You've never been out of bounds in my book!
Susan
Thanks!
Susan, We feed 11 dogs and 20 cats now. Our family is equivalent to 31 families that will not only boycott commercial pet food for one week but FOREVER :)
I used Imas cat food years ago until I became better educated about reading labels. My dog would not eat their dog food. She was smarter than I was at the time I guess. There are two things on this label that scream put this bag down. sorghum and by-product. There's plenty more but those two or any one of those two are enough.
We have beagels and have tried every dog food on the market, our dogs always seem to be hungry. Any1 have a suggestion on what would be the best dog food.
Michaela,
Your dogs are always hungry due to the fillers in the pet food. Look for a 10/10 rating http://hubpages.com/hub/Dog_Food_Review
I am boycotting Iams also. I saw the video about how they do their testing and treat animals, plus their food isn't any good. WE had a Golden Retiever that we fed Iams and she had allergies all her life, but I never realized it was the food. The poor dog had hot spots all of the time and she had to be treated for a thyroid problem. I wonder if the food caused that too. Iams is not good for life, like they claim!
Bart,
Both hotspots and tyroid are conditions of a poor diet.
My whole problem with the pet food industry is that if they want to produce crappy food, so be it. But I think they should let us know what we are feeding is not intended to be a healthy pet food. I pray some of the pet food companies will realize we love our pets like family members and we want to treat them better than we treat ourselves (sometimes) and feed our babies healthy, quality foods.
If I were a pet food producer I would make every product with healthy ingredients and not change the quality of the pet food with every flavor change. The reason I have to review every flavor is because the pet food companies change all the ingredients and sneak in things we don't want in our pet's diets instead of just changing the main ingredient.
I feel like if I am buying a product called "Beef something" the beef should be the first ingredient and not some old cow manure 15 items down the list of ingredients. I could buy 50 pounds of corn at the feed store for a fraction of the cost of pet food, toss on some lard and kill my dog a whole lot cheaper than feeding pet food.
Susan
Very good points. I feel so bad for my animals, and I wish I would of found your site sooner. I think my horses would do better on most of the pet foods than the dogs and cats with all those grains they put in there. When it said natural flavor I thought they ment broth from the meat not CRAP! I pray too that pet food makers will wake up. Don't they have pets they love too? I'm just glad I've learned what I have now, my husband keeps asking me if I'm done looking for dog food? I say no our food is bad and I have to find something good for everybody!
Bart,
Something to think about.... if natural flavor really was natural flavor why would the pet food companies have to list it as an ingredient?
Your horses would do better on the dog food than the dogs provided there wasn't any chicken scratch to make 'em founder. I guess with the chicken poop for flavor you shouldn't risk it. You know I am just teasing Sweet feed it cheaper than dog food!
Susan
Yes, isn't that crazy?! I actually know what is in that! I just mix my own form of COB so they don't get any junk either! I just buy a bag of cracked corn, barrley and cleaned oats and feed that way! I keep thinking I should do something like that for the dogs and cats. With meat of course! I do plan too at least add some meat to the Eagle I am now feeding.
Bart,
I don't have horses these days I lost my horse I had for 32 years. She was in great shape until one day when she got down and couldn't get up. I liked to add "shorts" to my feed, too.
Susan
My son had a horse that lived into his 30's, he was a great horse. What are shorts??
Like corn chop.
Hi! I own a pet store and I know all about dog nutrition. Iams is not a good dog food. I would probably rank it one of the "ok" dog foods for grocery brands. Newman's best is the best "grocery brand" dog food that I have found. It is very expensive though. You can get a better dog food for the same price of Iams though! It is called "Healthwise." It is a a great dog food and all they do is take out the bad ingredients (by-products..) and add good. Verus, California Natural, Evo, and Innova are also made by the same company with slightly different formulas. For example, Evo has more concentrated protein for working dogs. If dogs that have little exercise eat too much they will gain wait. But believe it or not it is great for losing wait as long as you give them the right amount. We have had so many people come in all excited and surprised at what a difference the new food is doing for their pets. Just check out some of the brands I listed and give them a try they are really great!
PS- Science Diet is bad too. Most vets think it is great but look at the ingredients!! Would you eat chicken by products? Just think about that stuff before you buy a dog food! =)
livelonger says:
3 years ago
This is great stuff, and so rare because we can't usually rate dog food like we do human food because...well, you know. Clever rating system.