Should you only feed your dog dog food?

When we started off with our puppy, we only gave her dog food but when we went for her jabs he asked us what we were feeding her (just out of interest) and we told him that she was having dog food and he said that human meet (like chicken) was better for dogs than dog food and that was just the gunk and leftovers. It seems that most people on yahoo answers feed their dogs dog food only and say that human food isn't healthy for dogs. I really don't know who to believe... Help me!

my dogs eat dry dog food with either, tuna, scrambled eggs, mackrel, cheese, veg or chicken mixed in with it.

There are web-site that you can find that will teach you how to make natural food for your pets.seefido.com/html/dog_food_recipes.htm www.recipes4gourmetdogs.com

It depends on the brand of food you feed - anything with corn, by-products, fillers, and littler/no/unnamed meat content is crap. However GOOD dog food is the only thing that has the proper nutrients and amounts of them for the dog unless you're a die-hard BARF feeder. And even then you have to use supplements.So find a good kibble - no corn, no fillers, named meat content in top ingredients, etc. You can add plain boiled chicken or beef, plain boiled rice, and some veggies if you want... but most human food is bad for dogs.Avoid: grapes, chocolate, seeds, spices, salt, sugars, fast food.

you really want to feed a good dry food, like Artemis, Innova, California natural, and if you want to go canned, try merrick, and innova, evo. they all use human grade foods and are excellent. feeding just human foods dont give enough nutrients to the dog and thats where problems show

There are plenty of dog foods that contain good quality ingredients and are well-balanced for proper nutrition....some dog foods contain organic &"human grade" meat sources. Husband & I drive a truck and wehave personally hauled a load of human-grade meat from a Tyson beef plant in Kansas to a small dog food company in California. Other foods do use a lot of fillers and the "waste meat" rejected from the human food supply for whatever reason. I have hauled chicken labeled "not fit for human consumption" on the bills, to an ingredient processing plant in Wilson, NC....it was going for dog food. Ask any cattle hauler what happens to the cows that die or become disabled in transit, or what happens if the truck breaks down in the July heat and all the cows die? They certainly can't be used in human food at that point so they get sold to a rendering plant (offsets the cost of cargo loss) and their byproducts are made into animal feed. That being said I am suprised your vet suggested you could just feed "human food" like chicken & other meat in lieu of a quality dog food. You CAN formulate a proper homemade diet but it's much more than just feeding "meat". You have to make sure you have the proper balance of nutrients. RESEARCH research research- don't just change your dog's diet overnight based on a half-baked comment from the vet. :)Commercial kibble has only been around since the 40's....people have had dogs much longer....it only stands to reason that before kibble existed, dogs ate table scraps, the leftovers from animals that were hunted or slaughtered, and other "people food" and did fine on it. Back then, people actually cooked MEALS instead of pulling crap out of the freezer and microwaving it....arguably "human food" in the 30's was better for dogs than a lot of "human food" today :).