You really have to watch if your "go to" food is sold to a corporation. Wellness, Natural Balance, and apparently Blue Buffalo suffered that fate. They'll coast on reputation while the actual ingredients are gum, wood pulp, grains, and some generic chicken, lamb or beef that is legally feet, anus, beak, hoofs and eyeballs. Dave's is still good. Orijen the same. If you are really concerned, cook the damn food yourself.
Vets: my previous dog (died last year) died of chronic kidney failure. I only had her just under six years. My first dog. Adopted her as an adult-bordering senior. Shih tzu. She had very bad teeth, and had had one dental at the ASPCA whose adoption services were holding her, and two with me after I adopted her. Bad teeth can admit bad shit that can cause kidney issues. She needed another dental at the time she died. When my vet brought me the news of her CRF, he also said I had to now feed her Hills Science Diet for Kidney, which, when I opened a can, looked like somebody had thrown up a couple of leaves of spinach and to finish off had squirted out corn diarrhea. I'm sure Hills had added whatever the janitors had scraped off the soles of the workers on the factory floor.
The thinking was, CRF dogs have too much protein in their blood, so let's do a low protein diet. My vet had no idea if a low protein or high protein diet correlated to protein levels in the blood. To compare, if I have a lot of cholesterol, I should knock off high fat food, since our bodies process fat into cholesterol. High cholesterol foods don't = our bodies processing high cholesterol. So I asked - is there a correlation between a low protein diet and lowering protein levels in the blood or is it one of those assumptions? He shrugged. I said - canines need protein - if I deprive her of protein, she'll suffer from a nutritional deficiency, right? He agreed. So for the ensuing six weeks that she survived, I fed her home made food plus a FORZA 10 kibble. Egg, lean turkey meatballs plus green beans. She gobbled it up. A nutritionist friend says it was just her wanting the bonding while dying - she would have eaten anything. I doubt it. If I'd tried to spoon her the Hills Science bullshit, she'd have died miserable. Hand feeding her good food, whatever the outcome , was the right choice. She liked me hand feeding her, and she even liked getting her medicine through a syringe (I used milk to get it down, so it was like nursing for her).
I have two new rescue shih tzus now. I used to LOVE my vet, but over the past year have had the occasion to take these two to Vetcoe vets, who are clearly better than my vet, and these are only volunteers.
With your dogs, just internet yourself to death, talk to people, stay vigilent, use common sense. For me, it's come down to a quarter cup of Dave's kibble, plus human grade homemade food (chicken, veg, yogurt, egg) that is not even expensive.