Feeding natural premium dog food will help your Great Dane stay active, healthy and in shape.
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Did you know that quality premium dog food contains proper blends of minerals, proteins, meats, antioxidants, pro biotics and essential fatty acids?
Quality of food for a canine is as important as our nutrition. The better we eat the better our health!
Tip: We'll recommend a few brands a bit down this page:)
The Benefits
Help your Great Dane achieve its full potential and live a healthy, happy life. It's easy, why risk good health? Provide your dog proper nutrition and reward him with good health, healthy skin, shiny coat, and overall wellness simply by feeding a natural dog food.
Natural premium dog food is more nutritious, provides protein from meat sources, and has a greater caloric value than lower quality brands. Most of the ingredients are used by your dog's body resulting in less waste and smaller stools. You'll really appreciate this when cleaning up the yard after your Great Dane:)
Natural dog food is available in kibble and canned varieties, containing human-grade ingredients. There are no by-products, fillers, soybean, artificial colors, or flavors.
Tip: A wonderful source of all natural canine products, including raw foods, is Only Natural Pet Store, selection, service, and support is
second to none.
Your Great Dane will benefit from the meat, poultry and fish protein sources. Essential vitamins, omega acids, cultures, and digestive enzymes are also part of many premium dog food formulas. Most of the finest brands are further enhanced with minerals, antioxidants, and even glucosamine hydrochloride for increased joint health.
The Premium Dog Food Industry Is Evolving
We have mentioned the problems with puppy food being too high in protein with poor ratios of calcium and phosphorus. Not suitable for growing a Dane! However, many of the top natural premium dog foods have evolved and now cater to the nutritional needs of giant breeds. When sourcing your food read the lables and look for low protein/fat with calcium/phosphorus ratio as close to 1/1 as possible. For dogs with food allergies a diet providing protein from alternative sources such as fish, duck or venison is typically recommended.
What Premium Dog Food Do We Recommend?
Tip: Opinions vary so this is not gospel, simply put, this is our opinion..
Our food of choice is
Innova Large Breed Adult and
Innova Large Breed Puppy
for Danes up to 14-months. Innova contains only fresh, natural, wholesome ingredients and a calcium/phosphate ratio to promote slow steady growth. An innovative cooking method combines fresh turkey and chicken meat, fruit, vegetables and a variety of natural ingredients.
EVO Formulas are specifically designed to meet key nutritional needs similar to a raw diet with added convenience and benefits of 21st Century nutritional know how.
This Hi-Protein, Low Carb dry kibble is either red meat based, or ground chicken & turkey
, bones, fat, cartilage and connective tissue. There's also a fish based formula
now available for dogs with certain food allergies.
CAUTION that protein levels may be too high for a growing pup and I WOULD NOT feed EVO to a giant breed under 2-years of age. While not truly RAW, EVO provides a similar nutritional balance as a raw diet. The main difference though is that raw typically averages 19% protein due to moisture content, while EVO is 42%, that's very high! Many highly active, yet finicky and under weight Danes have thrived on this formula, smaller, firmer stools are an added benefit.
Another great looking formula for adult Danes, as protein is a bit high for puppies, is Precise Holistic Adult.
Precise Holistic Large Breed Adult Formula Dry Dog Food is made with high quality protein from chicken and several botanical, probiotic, and herbal ingredients-including glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate, which are two components found in healthy articular cartilage.
It also has less fat and less protein so your dog takes in fewer calories but still gets premium nutrition.
With appropriate protein/fat levels for both growing pups and adults Natural Planet Organics AdultAnother popular Great Dane food is
Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul adult formula. Known for its great taste and palatability, Chicken Soup contains the finest, simplest ingredients including four fresh meats, vegetables, fruits and whole grains, and provides a nutritious, well-balanced base for your Dane. Slightly lower in cost than the previous brands mentioned, Chicken soup is a great choice of premium dog food.
There are a plethora of additional brands that form the rank and file of the natural dog food regime. Many of the Alternative Brands are great foods and also favorite to others. What you will find is that with the lower cost brands, various grains and meat meals will find there way into the foods first three ingredients. The good news is, information is power and you browse over 100 different premium foods, access the ingredients panel and find a brand you are comfortable with here
.
Our advice..
Keep it real, assess your budget, your Great Danes needs and the ingredients.
Tip: To minimize stomach upset and digestive issues, switch your dogs food gradually over a period of 2 to 4-weeks.
Here is a partial list of ingredients right from a bag of kibble as manufactured by Natura Pet.
Turkey - Chicken - Potatoes Herring - Apples Carrots - Cottage Cheese Alfalfa Sprouts Eggs - Vitamin D3 Supplement - Vitamin B12 - Vitamin E Vitamin C - Linoleic Acids (Omega 6) & Fatty Acids (Omega 3)
Compare your dog's food to natural premium dog food using this free tool :)
Too Expensive?
Certainly premium dog food seems more expensive, yet it is higher in calories and nutrients so your Great Dane will eat less. The truth is that premium food is less expensive to feed than lower quality brands.
Since the calories per cup are greater compared to inferior foods, your dog will get superior nutrition with lesser amounts per feeding. Average price for a 35-pound bag of natural premium dog food is $35.00 to $45.00, about twice the cost of a lower quality brand. The key to savings is you will be buying dog food less often!
For instance, a 160-pound Great Dane eats 6 cups per day, the kibble is 557 calories per cup totaling 3,342 calories. By feeding a poor quality food full of fillers at 350 calories per cup, our Dane would have to eat over 9-1/2 cups a day. WOW, that's allot of extra poop to pick up!
Here at home we have actually switched to a raw dog diet, yet our kibble of choice has always been Innova® Large Breed Puppy up to 14-months of age, Large Breed Adult to 24-months and EVO® for our adult dogs. When feeding these brands our dogs did awesome with coats that shined like a mirror. There are many super high quality brands of premium dog food available as Innova® is not perfect for every dog.
Our Mission
Friends, our intent for this site is to share information about everything Great Dane, we are not trying to sell or push anything at you. However, if your dogs have on going health problems, you can't find premium food in your area, or you are wondering what the "buzz" is all about, the links on this page should prove helpful.
Our absolute favorite source for premium dog food is PetFoodDirect.com for variety of products, access to ingrediets, customer service, auto shipping & frequent promotions such as "Save 15% Site-Wide, Use Code: NOW15!"
.
It's always best to do a little research on your own, narrow down your selection to a couple different brands. Start out with a few smaller bags to find the formula that works best and satisfies your dog at dinner time.
And don't forget this great little article on how to choose dog food!
Feeding premium dog food is the way to go! Get ready to be rewarded with a healthy, active and energetic companion.
Jeff, Bruiser & the team:)
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