Old dogs - new tricks?

mm244

Hi

For years I've been buying tinned dog food plus mixer at supermarkets for our two rescued dogs, both 11 now, but I desperately need to cut down on everything because of money troubles. Are they too old to change their diet to dried complete dog food, or any other cheaper alternatives?

Thanks
mm

LillyJ

mm244 wrote: »

Hi

For years I've been buying tinned dog food plus mixer at supermarkets for our two rescued dogs, both 11 now, but I desperately need to cut down on everything because of money troubles. Are they too old to change their diet to dried complete dog food, or any other cheaper alternatives?

Thanks
mm

How about trying them on a complete food that you can add water to and microwave for a minute, then let to cool. It says to do this on the back of Wag Premium. It might make it more palatable! If they are fussy though they might just not eat it.

suki1964

Any changes in diet needs to be done slowly so choose the dry food you wish to feed (and remember cheapest per bag doesn't equate to cheapest per meal) and instead of using all your usual mixer, use a wee handful of the complete. Slowly up the amount of complete and decrease the amount of tinned and mixer. If you notice a change in bowel habit - go back a step and stay there for a few days till stable and slowly proceed. You should take about 10 days to change over fully.

As lillyj has said you can always add some hot (hot boiling) water to the kibble to soak it a bit to make it easier.

Just to add, complete foods sold in Supermarkets are not always the best in terms of quality or value for money. Personally the only ones I would buy from a supermarket would be James well beloved or Autarky. Remember you need to work out price per meal and not just go for cost of bag

foreign_correspondent

My dogs have always done well on Wagg - its not a posh brand, but it is made in the UK, with human food grade meat and has no artificial colours or flavours. Also, unlike IAMS they do not do any cruel animal testing.

As LilyJ says, letting it steep in hot water can encourage dogs who are used to wet food to eat it, especially at first. You can buy small bags (2.5k) in Wilkos to try, but the 15kg bags are more ecenomical, and the 'working dog' is even cheaper as it has no VAT.

more info (including a price checking tool) here:

http://www.waggfoods.co.uk/

Bromley86

Another way of cheaply making it more palatable is to boil up your leftover carcasses.

Buying chicken whole and butchering it yourself is much cheaper (usually cheaper than buying chicken portions on offer). So that leaves you with a carcass. Boil it up for 30-60 mins with some potatoes/rice/pasta and some leftover veg (not onions). Strain and leave the carcass to cool (I've never measured how much liquid there is, perhaps 500ml).

Recover as much of the meat as you can be bothered to, making sure no bones are in it and add to the stock. Stick it in the fridge and it'll jellify. Add a tablespoon or so to the complete food, with or without a splash of hot water.

Of course, the above works with any bones, but there's usually so much left over on a chicken carcass.

Our !!!!! also has tomato sauce - a small amount (teaspoon) added to a meal. Make sure there's no onion in the ingredients though.

Burns complete looks expensive, but isn't if you stick to the feeding guide. If your dogs are stout fellows, that might be hard to do though. On offer at £36 delivered for 15kg at PetPlanet, with a free 750g bag of some other food at checkout.
http://www.petplanet.co.uk/category.asp?dept_id=459

LillyJ

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

My dogs have always done well on Wagg - its not a posh brand, but it is made in the UK, with human food grade meat and has no artificial colours or flavours. Also, unlike IAMS they do not do any cruel animal testing.

As LilyJ says, letting it steep in hot water can encourage dogs who are used to wet food to eat it, especially at first. You can buy small bags (2.5k) in Wilkos to try, but the 15kg bags are more ecenomical, and the 'working dog' is even cheaper as it has no VAT.

more info (including a price checking tool) here:

http://www.waggfoods.co.uk/

Mine likes it too, and it is less brightly coloured than other high street brands which can only be a good thing.

Although the working dog one makes him sick, too rich for him!