I recently adopted my 11 mth old baby, Sushi, from a rescue group in New Jersey. I'm looking to feed him an all natural diet...the commercial dog food is so disgusting I wouldn't feed it to my worst enemy. I want my sweetie to have a long, healthy life. My Vet thinks I'm crazy.. of course, they want you to buy the Vet food where they make a huge profit from you... they obviously do not care about the ingredients. I've read that Akitas should not have corn, beef, soy, wheat, horsemeat, so why would my Vet be recommending a food with corn as a main ingredient (we all know it's just a filler). I'd love some advice from someone that has an Akita or has had one and has fed an all natural diet. I am hearing so many different things, I'm a little confused.

Cheers!
Diane

There is a lot of good kibble around. Not every dry kibble is bad. Stick with the all natural, holistic brands like, California Natural, Innova, Merrick, or Wellness are some examples.

I rotate feeding a homemade food, and kibble. Homemade in the morning, and kibble in the evening. I personally like the California Natural. It is easy on a dog's tummy.

I'm pretty lucky in the fact that my dogs do not have any allergies, so when I make food, I usually make ground beef with brown rice and veggies, or ground turkey with sweet potatoes. They also like an egg in there as well, with the shell ground up for calcium. I also give some raw meat. I really like boneless chicken thighs (more expensive, but easier to feed) and also organ meat. Every once in a while I'll give them a raw chicken bone.

By natural do you mean a natural kibble, or raw?? If you are going to go with raw there are a few pre-made you can buy as well. If you are gong to make your own you should not cook it as most of the nutrients are then removed. This is why kibble and canned food have vitamins added afterwards.

You might be interested in joining the raw forum on yahoo. They have lots of great advice.