I know there have been several posts on what food people feed, but I'm wondering where you buy your food for the best price? Do you go to Petco/Petsmart etc? (i.e. your local superstore), do you buy into a pallet (and if so, is it easy?), do you buy at dog shows (haven't seen vendors at our local shows lately) or do you buy over the net?
A good question we struggled with for a few years. Recently, my DH was able to sweet talk our local ACE Hardware into carrying Canidae, our food of choice. This is a really customer satisfaction/neighborhood driven type of store and we really love the service. They have the food when we need it. Since they started carrying Canidae, several friends have started buying it there. It's possible to get a store to carry a quality product if the demand sustains expense. Give it a try...it's working for us.
I worked out a deal with the local Agway same as the poster above did at ACE. The Agway was already carrying Canidae so I contacted the pet department buyer and worked out a lower price per bag on purchasing large numbers of bags of each of the Canidae formulations we feed. They, too, were very customer service oriented. I just call about 5 days ahead of time so they have the number of bags on hand and they load it into the truck for me. I tried working the same deal with other chain type pet food stores in the area and they were not very receptive to giving us a break on bulk purchasing.
We talked our local feed store into carrying our Eagle Pack foods.Living "in the middle of nowhere"I was sick of driving 40 miles to buy dog food.This is working nicely for us and our local puppy buyers.We buy fresh meats/bones at the grocery store also.
We raise our puppies on the Chicken and feed our "keepers" the Chicken until about 6 months of age. From 6 mos to 2 years, we fed the 4-protein (chic, lamb, turkey, fish) formula we buy in 44lb bags. For our adults, we feed the 4-protein grain free as we have that it sustains muscle and coat with the higher protein and fat/less carbs. We feed the grain free after 2, because of the higher calcium/phos ratio in the GF. I'm sure if the GF fish formula was a bit more cost effective, we'd use that one too. For the seniors, we feed the 4-protein reg formula.
Since my guys tend to do well on high protien diets. My Canidae preference is 50/50 mix of the regular ALS (with Grain) and the Grainfree Salmon. Currently my co-breeder and I have a 5 week old litter getting this mixture and they are looking good. I'm happy. Between Her and I we have multiple dogs from as young as 5 weeks to 9 years on this mixture and I'm really happy with the way it works for us.
Thankfully Canidae has several formulas so that one can mix and match what works best for their dogs. They are very breeder friendly, give their customer service line a call they are always happy to send coupons out.
