food advice, our dog may have grain allergies, so is it not good when 1st...

[annie]

...ingredient say "deboned" or "meal"? our 7 year old dog has excessively dry and scabby skin (vet said its not mange) and ear infection (vet said to use vinegar even though he did not do a culture). we are pretty sad and would like to do anything we can to correct it. our vet is kinda maybe too holestic & money hungry for us. lol. we are probably switching vets and switching foods.
so, our doggy would of course love your help. we've seen dogfoodanalysis.com

1.) i was always pretty sure that when shopping for dog food, you should always select a type that indicates meat as the 1st ingerdient. so, what is meant by "deboned" meat or meat "meal"??? would that not be as good as just the named meat product instead?

i am trying to pick among conidae, orijen, wellness core, and innova....but some feature deboned and meal as the first ingredients and some feature fresh meat or just the named meat and it's all pretty confusing. help.

2.) raw diet? could this be better? suggestions? sounds expensive but possibly healthier
i say money hungry bc even after a $500 visit for sedation, dental cleaning, and lump removal, he still wanted to charge me $100 for culturing the ear swab. i think that's kinda lame, but maybe that is the normal price? if so, ill do it. if not, ill switch vets.
what is the most reasonable site for purchasing these high quality dog foods?

[tom l]

There is no such thing as a kibbled dog food that has fresh meat in it. Even if it was fresh meat when they threw it into the pot all meat regardless of what the label says is "meat meal" by the time the dog food is put in a bag.
You will find a lot of dog foods these days that has "meat" as the first ingredient and "meat meal" as the second ingredient. The "meat" was added for your benefit and the "meat meal" was added for the dogs. When they remove the water from the "meat" they have a little bit more "meat meal" to add to the food.