Dog Food

minimiser

My dog is now a year old. I bought expensive dried food so she would get a good start in life. I am now finding it quite expensive and wonder if there really is so much difference nutritionally in the top brands. I do make my own biscuits for her which she loves.
Any experts out there?

merlin1

hi there, i'm in lincs and i buy our petfood suppliers own brand, called meaty green - big sack for 7 quid, our 18mth collie loves it - i mix in a bit of dog meat, and leftover veg for him too.

personally i dont go for the big brand foods as more often than not they are too rich for dogs we've owned before.

you could also go down the homecooked route, or the barf diet - many prefer homecooked to barf, but both can be economically sound and you know exactly what they're eating. :cool:

JayJay14

I have a 5 year old German Shepherd and every now and then he goes off tinned food. I then feed him chicken stew. Boil a bag of smart price frozen chicken drumsticks (I didn't bother defrosting them as I cooked them for ages) When cooked thoroughly take all the meat off the bones and put back in the stock. Add chopper carrots and a couple of handfuls of pasta - smart price again (you can use rice but Kelso wasn't a fan).

When cooked you should still have stock in the mixture, when it's cold it ill set to a jelly.
This used to make about 3 x cart de'or tubs full and each one made 3 meals added to mixer. So it took a little effort but the cost was actually less than for comercial food.

The vet always tell us what a healthy dog he is so if must be OK.

I also make his biscuits - he used to be adicted to bonios.

vij

I use burns, we moved to it as one of our cats had a food allergy and the cheaper supermarket food was making her pretty ill the burns solved pretty fast and it seemed right to feed it to the dog when we got him. Its not cheap (£24 or so a sack) but a sack will feed him for 5-6 weeks with a couple of shapes a day as a treat and a carrot every so often which he loves we buy direct from burns and they give a small discount if you buy so much at a time (every little helps)

happytails

WE used to feed all natural, bones and raw foods (BARF) but found it too expensive and far too much protein for my hyper dog. WE now feed Chappie, protein content not too bad compared to pedigree (full of additives and colourings!) and a reasonable price. For a 15kg sack its about £14 from pets at home x

esmf73

I buy from a shop on ebay - will tell you the name of the shop if you mail me (didn't want to be accused of advertising!). They're FANTASTIC - 2 x 15kg bags of dried food which last for a month for about 20 pounds (depending of the offer of the moment).

Delivery is always within 2 days of my making payment and the dogs lick the bowls clean. Plus on the description of the dog food they detail the amount of protein etc in the feed.

GREAT!!

tori.k

we fed our's Arden Grange until i made the mistake of giving her left overs from the roast and the odd chicken raw chicken wing,
She went right off kibble so we spent the next couple of months trying them all it cost us a bomb, so i gave up and she is now on tin food and left overs and loving it. we've got her on butcher's as its 12 cans for a £5. she only has a can a day.
people tut at cheap dog food (i was guilty myself) but to be honest i see no difference in her from when she was on kibble, i suppose its just down to how sensitive the dog is.

leekat21

I feed my dog CSJ K9 food. Google it and you'll find their website. I buy from a local supplier and it's around £19 for a 15kg sack, it lasts my dog 6 to 7 weeks and he is still on 2 meals a day. They have a very good reputation and will happily send you some free samples if you email them telling them about about your dog and what you look for in a food. The one I buy is lamb and rice (it's wheat and gluten free) but they have many other types with varied levels of protein.

magpiedawn

My german shepherd was aways fed james wellbeloved
untill
1)The price shot up by over a 1/3rd
2)I was made redundant

So for the last year he has been on Autarky £20.99 15kg bag completly natural ingredients, classed as working dog food so no VAT makes a good quality dog food a reasonable price ,sold at most pet shops but not pets at home.

Penelope_Penguin

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Catzpaws

I currently feed my 1 year old lab cross

http://www.petsathome.com/find/category-is-2+dog/category-is-2f+food/category-is-2f01+dry+food/brand-is-pets_at_home/category-is-2F01C+Puppy+and+junior/product-is-V00439

£28.99 for 10kgs. When we adopted her she was on this, but I was wondering whether there are better/cheaper alternatives. Have been told this is a good one...

Don't want to feed her any old cheap junk... interested to hear suggestions.