My Corgi mix Corky (now passed on due to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever--caught in a regular suburbian housing development in a small town in the middle of Oklahoma while on flea and tick preventatives/dips/etc., bless his heart) and his buddy the beagle mix Cato (passed on at 18+ years) ate Hill's Science Diet Senior free-choice together for several years after I married my husband. I always feed Hill's Science Diet because after working for several vets and observing the condition of dogs on various diets, I came to the conclusion that yes, it does matter what you feed your dog. Not only do table scraps make them fat and give them dental problems, but dog foods differ in quality.

The best way to find out which foods are mainly high quality ingredients and which are mainly junk bulky fillers is to walk dogs for a boarding kennel when all the dogs first come in and are still on their home diets. Just look at what comes out the 'other end'. It will amaze you the difference in waste in similar sized dogs on different diets. The dogs on high quality diets have much less waste to deal with than dogs on low quality diets.

You know Hill's is high quality by noting how much food your dog needs to eat each day--and it's not much. Yeah, the 40 pound bags of food may cost $30--certainly a LOT more than the same sized bags of El Cheapo at the local supermarket. But is El Cheapo going to last a month or more, depending on the size of your dog? A 40 pound bag of Science Diet Senior was lasting my Corgi/Chihuahua dog (15 pounds) and my beagle mix dog (30 pounds) right at 2 months, or 25 cents a day to feed each dog. Oh boy, that's breaking the bank to feed the dogs good food!!!! Considering the fancy foods some people feed their dogs (cutesy cans, etc.), that's nothing!

The kibble size of the original science diet (about marble sized) was not a problem for Corky, but he'd grab one or two pieces, carry them away from the food bowl (sometimes a foot or two, sometimes to the other side of the yard) and then eat each piece one at a time, crunching down on them like they were jawbreakers. The small bites, which I gave him after Cato passed on, were much smaller (about pea sized), and he would stand over the food bowl and eat those right there. Occasionally he would carry a mouthful away from the dish and eat them one at a time, but it didn't look as 'fun' (tiring?).

Other than kibble size, senior small bites is the same as the original--same addition of glucosamine and chondroitin for healthy joints and cartilage (I know they work for that purpose because my horse is on those supplements, and when she misses a few doses, she starts going lame), same lower calorie and fat content for less active older dogs. As its a dry food, it helps prevent tartar buildup (unless you are feeding your dog table scraps or canned food also).

Ingredients: Corn meal, chicken by-product meal, animal fat, soybean mill run, flaxseed, corn gluten meal, dried egg product, chicken liver flavor, L-lysine, L-tryptophan, taurine, glucosamine hydrochloride, preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid, L-arginine, chondroitin sulfate, minerals, rosemary extract, beta-carotene, and vitamins. I always wonder about the taurine--that's something that cats need or they'll go blind eventually. I used to see cats brought into the clinic that were blind because their owners had fed them dog food to be cheap. I wonder if this is just in case people are feeding their cats dog food?


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