Our Experience With Side By Side
This post on our experience with Side by Side was sponsored by Side by Side as part of a Two-Post Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.
Today Im happy to share more information with those of you that have been following our journey to finding the right dog food for Charley! As mentioned in my previous post, we decided to give Side by Side food a try. For those wanting to learn more about the food and how Charley is liking it, this post is for you! We couldnt have picked a better time to try Charley on a new dog food. She was starting to get to the point where she was picking at her old food and not finishing her bowl all at once.
Sometimes shed eat less than half of her food, and wouldnt come back to it until hours later. Considering she was once an excited pup that would devour all of her food in minutes, this made me start to wonder what was going on. She seemed to not care for her old food anymore, so a change in the near future was totally necessary. Our experience with Side by Side couldnt have been better! Charley instantly loved her new food! This made me incredibly happy since I only want whats best for our growing pup and nutrition is so important, especially at this stage in her life.
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Best Overall Dog Food
First ingredients are salmon, barley, and rice | Large breed | Dry food
According to the experts we spoke to, owners of large and giant-breed dogs should avoid foods that contain legumes as a protein source. Nicole Goudey-Rigger, the owner and CEO of doggy-day-care service Pets a Go Go, told us she took her two purebred Akitas and two medium-size mixed breeds off their low-grain diets after the potential connection between DCM and grain-free food was identified. Instead, she now feeds her four big dogs Purina Pro Plan Salmon Sensitive Stomach, which contains brewers rice and barley . She and three other experts we spoke with like Purina Pro Plan foods because, as Gstrein points out, the recipes meet AAFCO standards and are formulated by a veterinary nutritionist. Goudey-Rigger adds that the Purina Pro Plan line features a wide variety of proteins, including chicken, beef, salmon, duck, lamb, pork, and even quail. Looking for a variety of proteins in a brands line is important, she says, because not all proteins agree with all dogs. Ochoas dog also likes Purina Pro Plan and gets a small portion of the brands shredded-chicken food as a complement to Hills Science Diet.
Best Prescription Dog Food For Allergies
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Toxic Wasteand Euthanized Pets
However, this same system which converts waste into animal feed has also evolved into a recycling nightmare. Thats because many rendering plants are unavoidably processing toxic waste, too.
You see, dead animals are frequently accompanied by a host of unwanted contaminants. Pesticides enter the rendering process via tainted livestock.
Fish oil is commonly contaminated with mercury and other heavy metals.
Dead pets collected from shelters are frequently thrown into the grinder with their flea collars still attached. Insecticide-laced patches found on the skin of slaughtered cattle are also carelessly added to the mix.
Antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals follow livestock directly into the soup. And drugs given to euthanize animals have been regularly found in the rendered product.
Unwanted metal contaminants can be traced to a variety of sources including pet collars, ID tags, surgical pins and needles.
Even plastics can sometimes end up in the process.
The Side By Side Difference
Side by Sides patented technology determines the temperature or health disposition of a dog at a specific time using its Pet Health Assessment System. By looking at a series of physical indicators we can determine if a dog is running Warm, Cool or Neutral and then suggest the BEST whole foods formula that is RIGHT to help bring them into balance. Like people, a dog’s health or energy balance can fluctuate depending on life situations, seasonality or stress and this imbalance may lead to larger health problems and reduced longevity.
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A Word About Aafco Regulations
Dog food manufacturers that adhere to the AAFCO standards are allowed to put the wording ‘a complete and balanced diet’ on their food bags.
Thismeans that the food has been tested during feeding trials and isconsidered a well balanced diet…. however, not ALL foods whose labelcarries these words provide the nutrition that your dog needs!
Toget all the information you need to understand AAFCO regulations, dog food ingredients,the different dietary needs of puppies, large breed dogs, small breedsand super-active dogs and much more, visit my About Commercial Dog Food page.
It’spacked full of important information and will help you understand and interpret these comparison charts fully.
Choosing The Best Food For Your Dog
Once you’ve found out what’s inside the dog food you’re interested in, the next thing to do is to figure out if it’s the right fit for your dog.
How To Estimate Carb Content
The carbohydrate content of any dog food isn’t the most important thing you need to know. But if your dog has health issues which mean you’re looking for a low-carb formula, it can help. There’s a simple way to work this out from the info. you’ll find on any dog food bag label…
Add up the figures given for Protein, Fat & Moisture. Then if there’s a figure for ‘ash’ add that in too. If there isn’t one, just add 8%.
Now, subtract this total from 100 and the number you’re left with is the percentage of carbohydrates in that particular food.
There are a lot of things to take into consideration at this point. The most important being:
- General health and specific health problems
Every pet food store carries a dizzying array of dog food choices. Many of them are good, a lot of them aren’t, but now you know what to look for so you can evaluate them yourself.
The very top, premium brands are more difficult to find offline, but the smaller, specialty pet stores often stock them, and Amazon.com carries 99.9% of them… at excellent prices.
Here’s a very quick look at the different categories of dog food on a broad scale:
Small Breeds
These little ones need a dog food which has a high calorie content . They also benefit from above average levels of protein and fat.
Large & X-Large Breeds
Active/Performance Dogs
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Unfit For Humansyet Legal For Dog Food
Heres a short list of some of the unsavory raw materials already mentioned plus a few others. And although each of the following ingredients are appalling, each can be lawfully used to make dog food:
- Slaughterhouse waste
- Bread and cereal rejects
- Dying, diseased and disabled farm animals
- Contaminated grain middlings
- Dead zoo animals
What Were Looking For:
Meets AAFCO nutritional standards: Its important to look at a brands recall history and to locate an official nutritional-adequacy statement from the Association of American Feed Control Officials on the bag, box, or can. The AAFCO statement is a sign that the food is nutritionally complete and balanced, explains Dr. Zay Satchu, the co-founder and chief veterinary officer at Bond Vet. All of the dog food recommended below meets or exceeds AAFCO standards.
Made with high-quality ingredients: While ensuring that your dogs food meets AAFCO standards is a good starting point for your research, when youre shopping for dog food, you can definitely dig deeper. I personally prefer to only select companies that employ a full-time board-certified veterinary nutritionist on staff and dont just consult with one, says Texas-based integrative veterinary expert Dr. Hunter Finn. Veterinarian Dr. Shelly Zacharias, a vice-president of medical affairs for Gallant, also stresses that dog-food ingredients lists should name the exact type of meat included and should not contain white flour, preservatives such as BHA or BHT, propylene glycol, or rendered fat.
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Side By Side Hearty Stews
One of the biggest questions pet owners have is: What food is best for my dog?
Whether youâre a new pet parent or a seasoned vet, youâve likely wandered down the pet food aisle and shopped through the never ending options. Making healthy choices for your pup can be overwhelming & we get it! We created Side by Side to get back to feeding our pups the way nature intended, with whole food ingredients & create dog food thatâs, well, food!
Weâre on a mission to take it back to basics. To source the best ingredients possible. To say NO to fillers, synthetics and artificial ingredients. Because when we say âall naturalâ we mean that every SINGLE ingredient is one that you know so you can feel good about giving your pupper Side by Side!
How do you know what food is best for your dog? Itâs not like they can talk, right?
Actually, they can! Well, kind of. Just like they say âI love youâ with a wiggly butt, they can tell you if they need something by their external actions or discomforts! That scratching, scooting, excess shedding, constant panting & blanket hogging are all signs they need something. The best part is you can help them just by incorporating specific functional ingredients!
Learn To “Speak Dog” With Eastern Food Therapy
Product Overview:
- AAFCO Complete & Balanced Adult Dog Food
- Recipes Curated Using Eastern Food Therapy
Dog Food Comparison Charts
These easy-to-follow dog food comparison charts will help you compare a host of brands according to the most important factor…. ingredients!
With the huge selectionof options available today, we could all do with a little bit of helpchoosing the right formula for our pets.
Youcan use this page to decode the confusing world of dog food labelingand to find out what ingredients are in a whole range of popular dogfood brands.
I’ve taken a close-up-and-personal look at the nutrient profiles of twenty dry dog food formulas.
They’re all quality brands, but two of them have had issues with recalls and reports of dog illnesses being related to certain batches or formulas.
At this point no research has proven them to be poor choices, but I’d recommend doing some research yourself before choosing a food.
To see what I personally consider to be the best options, visit my Top 10 Best Dog Food Choices page.
The dog food comparison charts below will help you to make sure you’re giving your dog the nutrition he needs, without all the ‘stuff’ that he doesn’t.
*A growing puppy has completely different nutritional needs to those of an adult dog.
to find out more about the very best puppy food choices.
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Even Spoiled Grocery Meats
Every day, out-of-date supermarket meats as well as spoiled fish and poultry arrive by the truckload, right in their original Styrofoam trays and shrink wrap.
Theres simply no time for the tedious task of unwrapping each individual package of the many thousands of rejected products.
Plastic cattle ID lags, pesticide patches and even the green waste disposal bags containing dead pets from veterinary clinics and shelters are tossed directly into the pit.
As difficult as it can be to imagine, literally all of it plastic, paper, cardboard goes right into the rendering machine.
As shocking as it is to believe, much of what goes into some dog food is simply whats left over after the processing of human food whats commonly classified as unfit for human consumption.
Why We Love It:
- Patties: Freeze-Dried to Lock In Raw Whole Food Nutrition made with savory beef , & Omega rich Salmon , plus vitamin rich carrots, this recipe helps build good overall health.
- Belly Balance: restores the GI tract back to full functioning health. Packed with probiotics, it helps your dogs intenstines heal & repair so they are able to absorb all the nutrients from the food they eat.
- Beef Heart with Blackstrap Molasses: Freeze dried to lock in the nutrients these neutral treats are made with only 2 ingredients: Beef Heart & Blackstrap Molasses and are a great source of Taurine!
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