best dry food for your dog?

WolfSong2000

First off, be very careful about suddenly switching brands of foods - this isn't good for dogs, especially puppies...ideally you should mix in a little bit of new with the old, gradually increasing the amount of new over a week or two until the dog is used to it...otherwise you end up with upset tummy, etc.

I'd also suggest mixing wet food/leftovers with dry food. Can you imagine how bored you would be if you were fed exactly the same dry food every day? Doesn't bear thinking about. Our dogs have been on a mix of food over the years, but mostly on Burns, which I really recommend...Butchers is good for wet food as well, and quite cheap.

I'd advise staying away from Iams and Eukanuba (same thing!). Not good stuff and the company have got into trouble in the past for this, so I'm amazed they're still up and running.

Wolfsbayne

My two dogs (cavaliers) are on burgess supadog sensitive - elder dog (12) needed it and the younger dog (2) has thrived on it. We get our local petshop to deliver but https://www.vetuk.co.uk also sell it online (along with most of the other brands mentioned already).

snowman2_2

catlou wrote: »

I didn't realise that Proplan was a super premium brand do you mean that as Super Premium brand in Quality or Price?

Super Premium is the industry's own classification and it is usually defined in terms of digestibility and quality of protein. I would be happy for a friend or relative of mine to feed a premium or super premium food. Essentially you do get what you pay for - Rubbish in, rubbish out

valkirn

My dog is a wagg dog he seems to preferr it to other brands but i do give him butchers tripe wet food along with the scrapings off our plates......

Our kittens are now 5 months and are being gradually moved from kitten over to adult food (both wet and dry) on account of them stealing the dogs wagg!!! (only the wagg though they wont bother anything else)

Penny-Pincher!!

We feed our 4.5mth pup BetaPuppy dry food and is excellent! We bought from [EMAIL="Pets@home"]Pets at home[/EMAIL] online and they were on 3 for 2, so I stocked up with about 6 months worth.

HTH

PP
xx

foreign_correspondent

snowman2 wrote: »

Super premium brands - Proplan, Hills, Royal Canin

Premium Brands - Burns, James Wellbeloved, Eukanuba, Wafcol

Average - Bakers, Pedigree, Wag

Own Brands and very cheap diets

It is all down to the quality of ingredients and digestibility.

whan I look at the ingredients of those, as a layperson, I do not always see clear differences...bear with me here, I am going to try and do some (quite unscientific) comparisons... !

Super premium: Royal Canin medium adult - ingredients:
Dehydrated poultry meat, wheat flour, maize flour, maize, wheat, animal fats, hydrolysed animal proteins, dehydrated pork protein, beet pulp, fish oil, soya oil, yeasts, minerals, yeast extract (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), egg powder.
analysis: not specified
Cost: 15kg = £40
Amount to feed daily (med dog): 185 - 330g

Premium: Wafcol complete original adult - ingredients:
Wholewheat Flour, Wheat Bran, Poultry Meat Meal, Soya Millings, Vegetable Oil, Calcium, Salt, Yeast, Vitamins and Minerals
Analysis:Protein 20% Oil 6%
Ash 5% Crude Fibre 4%
Cost: 15kg = £22.99
Amount to feed daily (med dog): not specified

Average: Wagg original complete adult - ingredients:
Wheat, Meat Meal, Wheatfeed, Maize, Oils & Fats, Linseed, Beet Pulp, Peas, Lucerne,Vitamins and Minerals. Added Citrus, Yeast and Yucca. With Antioxidant: EC additive.
Analysis: Protein21.00%Oil8.00%Fibre3.00%Ash8.00%
Cost: 15kg = £9.78
Amount to feed daily (med dog): 200 - 400g

Then, throw something like CSJ champ in for comparison; ingredients:
Beef and Lamb Meal, Wheat, Bread, Chicken Fat, Maize, Chicken Liver, Unmolassed Beet Pulp, Green Leaf Vegetable, Full Fat Linseed, EC permitted natural anti-oxidants, Mixed Tocopherols, Vitamin C and Rosemary Extract.
Analysis: Protein20% Oil9% Fibre3% Ash8.5%
Cost: 15 kg = £9.75
Amount to feed daily (med dog): not specified


So, on the ones I can find a feeding guide for, I will use that, otherwise, I will use Wagg's estimate of 400g a day, and estimate the daily food costs for a 20kg dog...
Royal canin: 330g = 88p per day
Wafcol: 400g= 61p per day
Wagg: 400g = 26p per day
CSJ: 400g = 26p per day

To be honest, I do not see much difference in terms of ingredients between Wagg and Wafcol, but the price of Wafcol is more than twice that of Wagg...

Generally, the rationale given for cheaper food meaning lower quality is that the meat content is lower, and more grains are used as fillers... but in comparing these foods CSJ appears to have more meat content than Wafcol does... but at less than half the price. I would say CSJ looks to compare pretty well with Roya Canin.

Of course it is hard to compare, as we do not know the percentage of meat, or any other ingredients - they are just listed in order of quantity of any given ingredient, with the largest coming first.. I wonder if RC grouped together 'wheat flour, maize flour, maize, wheat' under the category of cereals, or even if it gouped together 'maize flour' and 'maize' whether these would in fact come higher up the list than 'dehydrated poultry meal'?

I do not know by the way, this is just the result of a bit of googling and speculation, but I do wonder how much of dog food's price reflects the quality and nutritional value of the food... there is also a 62p price difference per day between RC and CSJ or Wagg - over a month (30 days) that is £18.60... enough to cover most people's pet insurance!

clairibel

This the info i got from Burns and i get 18kg for £37.90.

Burns Canine Active Food for active working dogs
Burns Dog Food Active 15kg
Contains: White Rice, Chicken, Chicken Oil, Oats, Peas, Sunflower Oil, Fish Meal, Beet Pulp, Linseed, Yucca, Seaweed, Minerals and Vitamins

VAT Free

• Burns Dog Food is more palatable than many dried foods so can be enjoyed even by fussy dogs
• Feeding Burns Real Food s economical - the approximate feeding cost for a small dog up to 10kg in weight is 24p, a medium dog up to 20kg is 47p and large dog 30kg is around 17p daily.
• Because Burn Real Food is a low residue food there is less to clean up - which is good for the environment.
• Burns use chicken meat, free range duck, ocean fish, UK pork, New Zealand Lamb and Venison as sources of quality protein.
• Burns Dog Food doesn't use meat from battery hens

Burns Dog Food (other than high energy foods) are low in fat and protein and high in complex carbohydrate. There are no chemical additives. This minimises the amount of waste matter which the body has to eliminate. When metabolised, carbohydrate produces less harmful toxic waste than protein and fat
Burns Dog Food Feeding Guide for Adult Dogsweight of doggrams per day
1 - 5 kg 25 - 50
5 - 10 kg 50 - 100
10 - 20 kg 100 - 200
20- 30 kg 200 - 300
30 - 40 kg 300 - 400
40 - 50 kg 400 - 450
Feeding amounts can be adjusted to meet the needs of individual dogs and the above chart acts as a guide from Burns

foreign_correspondent

clairibel wrote: »

foods) are low in fat and protein and high in complex carbohydrate. There are no chemical additives. This minimises the amount of waste matter which the body has to eliminate. When metabolised, carbohydrate produces less harmful toxic waste than protein and fat

that's interesting - I have also read sources that say that dogs do not need carbohydrates, and should get their energy from protein and fat... I wonder if anyone actually knows - as in, has done some extensive research and found evidence relating to health and longevity... cos if not, I think it is all supposition really...

...anyway, my dog has just had Wagg, chicken scraps and half a jacket spud skin for tea... estimated cost -about 5p- but she looks happy and healthy so I am not worrying!

Rev

clairibel wrote: »

This the info i got from Burns and i get 18kg for £37.90.

Can I ask where you get 18kg of burns for that price? Our local pet shop has the 7.5kg bags for £24. I'm planning to change my dogs food to burns, I tried JWB but he's been hyper and seriously, erm...windy lol on it. And the 15kg is £43. So getting 28kg for under £40 seems a bargain.

clairibel

Think your right foreign correspndant all supposition and really dogs are all different so what suits one maybe bad for another

Rev got it off ebay, have been getting this for a while, suits our dog well :cool:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Burns-Dog-Food-Adult-Active-Working-Dogs-15kg-3kg-FREE_W0QQitemZ260478005745QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Pet_Supplies_Dogs?hash=item3ca5b2f1f1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

But i have recently found this one also, not sure if it's in stock but bargain!

http://www.valupets.com/pets/burns-pet-nutrition/burns-alert-chicken-and-brown-rice-dog-food-15kg/25048.html