Help! I'm so discouraged! I'm trying hard to keep Moses healthy and I have him on Innova Large Breed kibble. He eats about 4 cups a day. I just bought a new bag & the price went up about $5!!! I thought $45 was high, now $50!!! Can I find a comparable dogfood at a lower cost. This is getting to be too much! Thanks, Mo'smama

Unfortunately, with foods like Innova, Nature's Variety, Timberwolf, Pinnacle, CA Natural, you are paying for top quality protein and what's NOT added to the food. I recently had to make a decision to go to a cheaper food because I am feeding 3 adults and 11 puppies. I went to Canidae chicken/rice, a food I often said I would never feed. My reason was that it's a bit grain heavy, compared to the better brands. It's got Brown AND White Rice in it as ingredients #2 and #3. They've gone up too, but it's still cheaper. I spend about $30 for a 33# bag.

You have to figure out what you can live with and what you can pay. 3DogNight just posted something the other day saying that beet pulp wasn't as bad as people were saying. With that in mind, it's the only "objectionable" ingredient in the Kirland (Costco) brand dog food, and that runs $20 for 40# if you have a Costco near you.

It could be a case of pay me now or pay me later. He may not do well on a different food so you may end up switching and tossing the newer food or might have ear problems, etc. He is about 6 months old so you could take him off puppy food and put him on adult food, which in some cases is cheaper than puppy food. Also, no need to get large breed adult food - marketing gimmick.

I understand and share your concern with rising dog food prices. We've had both our 7 yr old golden retriever and 9 month old lab Luna on Orijen. The price of that has now jumped up to $55 for the 29 lb. bag (fish formula is $60) While I love the food I'm interested in trying to find some other options that are less expensive and that I feel OK about. I also thought it might be good from a rotation standpoint anyway. So, earlier this week we bought a large bag of Wellness Core for $45. Not inexpensive, but at least helpful. It's grain free with 34% protein and 14% fat which seems good. You can check out their info at www.wellnesspetfoods.com There is also a $10 rebate for it right now. If I needed to drop down in price even more, I probably would not find a grain free product I liked, so I would consider Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul which has a pretty impressive ingredient list and is very reasonably priced. My daughter's dogs do well on it.

I'll be interested in what others have to say. Also, we live in a large enough area that I can shop around and sometimes find a variation in price.

I called wellness about their core formula a few weeks ago and they said the core is for adults only because the calcium in their grain free is like 2.49% which they said was too high for my 5 month old. Just wanted to let you know that. It is fine though for the golden retriever!!

My Canidae ALS went from $36 to $42. It's happening to everyone, unfortunately.

The other thing to remember is that dogs eat different amounts throughout their lives, especially during that period of rapid growth. Heck, I remember a period of time when Monty was something like 9 months old (?) where he needed 8 CUPS (!!!) a day just to keep some weight on him. Males seem to require more during that period of time (rapid growth) than females. However, once they have gotten through that period and start to slow down with their growth/maturity, their food requirements also slow down. ;) For instance, Monty went from 8 cups down to 6, then 4, and finally down to 2.5 cups/day of the same food. This is an expensive time for a dog when it comes to food (especially with the price increases), but know that it will get better.

I called wellness about their core formula a few weeks ago and they said the core is for adults only because the calcium in their grain free is like 2.49% which they said was too high for my 5 month old. Just wanted to let you know that. It is fine though for the golden retriever

HUH?? I don't get what you mean, it's fine for a golden retriever?

All grain-free's (except Orijen) have approximately the SAME calicum, and it IS true that it's not good for many different breeds of puppies--Large breeds, breeds that have joint issues (labs AND goldens to name 2).

So grain-free is not suitable for lab or golden puppies, but once EITHER breed is over 18 months, it's fine.

HUH?? I don't get what you mean, it's fine for a golden retriever?

All grain-free's (except Orijen) have approximately the SAME calicum, and it IS true that it's not good for many different breeds of puppies--Large breeds, breeds that have joint issues (labs AND goldens to name 2).

So grain-free is not suitable for lab or golden puppies, but once EITHER breed is over 18 months, it's fine.

Jen, The previous poster that was going to feed Core has a golden that is older than the recommended age and lab that is younger than the recommended age. That's why the poster said it was fine for the golden. :D

Yes I was talking about the 7 year old golden retriever!!! Sorry i was not clear on that

Haha we feed Innova too and pay $70 a bag plus raw lol.

We are BARFer's. When we made the switch our food cost actually dropped by more than half. Having 3 Labs and a Dane, feeding raw makes it easy to control who gets what and more importantly you know what is in their bowl. Most meat companies will give you a discount if you tell them you are buying for your dog. I pay $48 for 160lbs. of chicken. I go to the local farmers market and get fresh organic fruits and veggies. If you are interested in learning more you can visit barfworld.com or get Ian Billinhursts book The Barf Diet.

Another option for kibble feeders is to look on the Smart Pak website. They carry many different brands of kibble and shipping is / was $6.75 and it did not matter if you ordered 1 bag or 10 bags. Shipping was the same. We have a friend who orders from Canine Cuisine, they feed Eagle Pack, and shipping is free. Just a thought with the cost of gas....

We switched from Royal Canine because of the price, started using Nutro Natural adult kibble, True didn't like it so I mixed with Nutro chicken rice and oatmeal puppy food. Still didn't like it and coat was getting dry, so I tried chicken soup for puppy lovers, he likes it fine but then I learned that this is the same as the kirkland chicken and rice from costco which is less expensive. But True is showing definate joint problems at 9 months which also seemed to start with the change of food, probably coincidence, but I think the Royal Canine had more Glucosamine, so I'm not sure if I'm saving anything if I have to buy supplements.

Abby is on Royal Canin and she is doing great with it. It is $40 for a 35 lb bag and 12.99 for a 6 lb bag. The Iams large breed puppy is 16.99 for 20 lbs. I have a sister who uses Pedigree for her labs and they are beautiful...so who knows...I do feel good with feeding royal canin, but I would get double the dog food feeding something middle of the road. My husband said to at least feed her Royal Canin through the important growing stages of her skeleton etc. so if anything happens within the first 1-2 years we won't blame ourselves on not feeding great food!