Best food/diet for a German Shepherd

If_My_Pennies_Were_Pounds

Hi everyone, I've been looking over the forum and I know that a lot of people ask advice about which food/diet is best for their dog, I can't seem to find one relating to German Shepherds though so thought I would ask rather than take the advice given for other breeds.

For a bit of background our German Shepherd is now 9 months old, she is currently being fed a mix of wet and dry food and gets two meals a day, one in the morning and one at night. Sometimes she eats it all in one go and other days she barely looks at it, so we're not sure if she likes what we are feeding her.

I'm also not sure if we are giving her too much, I go by the guidelines on the Bakers Complete bag and give her the average amount they suggest as it varies so much! She currently gets 500g a day, split in to two meals (this includes her wet food also). I think this may be too much for her age?

She is a pedigree (not that that is what's important here!) and because of this my OH wants to feed her good quality decent food. From what I've read it would seem that I'm right in thinking that the mix of Bakers Complete dry food with some Pedigree wet food is certainly not good quality decent food!

Please can you help advise me as to what is best for her?

Fawny_2

Not sure about just for a German Shepard but I beleive that dry complete food is the best way forward. We feed our Springer on CSJ which is an excellent quality food & if you email the girl there with details of your dog, age weight any problems etc she will recommend a food from their range, normally send lots of free sample too.

Here the website, no connection just a happy customer

http://www.csjk9.com/

Beckyy

I feed my dog (Great Dane) raw/BARF. At first it might seem a little daunting, but it's fantastic. He has a soft glossy coat, his teeth are all clean and he general seems to benefit from it greatly. It consists of mainly minced chicken/turkey/beef/tripe and now and then pheasant/venison/rabbit as wellas bones. He gets various other things to ensure that he's getting a balanced diet, but I won't go into detail unless you're interested.

I don't really have a clue when it comes to complete food brands, but if she had a good breeder I would probably make them my first port of call and see what food they recommend. I'd try to avoid anything that has cereals in, and try to keep the meat content as high as possible.

With regards to how much to feed her it will really depend on what food, but knowing her weight is very important as you should eb able to work it out from that and the recommended amount on the food.

Kinski

Bakers is a rubbish food with very little meat in it but loads of cereals which dogs don't need and can make them hyper. I feed my pair on Orijen http://www.orijenpetfoods.co.uk/, and they are doing brilliantly on it, it's costing me about £3 a week to feed two shelties.

Terri

If_My_Pennies_Were_Pounds

Thanks for the replies so far everyone.

At the moment she weighs about 26kg, the vet said that this was good for her age but it wouldn't harm her to lose a little and develop a bit more of a waist, so I assume she is a little bit overweight

I have heard many people talking about the BARF diet and was wondering how much work is involved in it? Also how you know if you are giving them the right nutritional balance?

When we first got her the breeder gave us a 3kg bag of Eukanuba puppy food but said that she didn't expect us to keep to that as many people don't. To be honest the dog wasn't that keen on the Eukanuba and we struggled to get her to eat it. The breeder also gave us some Pedigree puppy pouches when we got her, which is why she still gets Pedigree as the wet food now.

We occasionally give her boiled rice or some plain pasta in with her wet food for a bit of a change, and she loves it, wolfs down those meals, but we know that isn't a stable diet to give her that often...

Frugalista

Royal Canin do a complete food specifically for German Shepherds.

Bakers is absolute carp - so you need to change from that ASAP.

undaunted

There's no perfect answer, everyone will have an opinion or preference but many will agree that most are better than Bakers (somewhere on here I cross posted a list of the additives in it)

Your budget may or may not be an issue for you to consider but natural ingredients, decent meat & protein content, fewer additives etc could be amongst things you could look at & even at the budget end of the market there are foods that are better on these than Bakers!

If_My_Pennies_Were_Pounds

So for nutritional purposes should I look at feeding her just a dry complete food or is the mix of wet and dry that I give her ok?

Although I can't afford to spend a fortune on food, I would rather buy her something decent to eat than be feeding her rubbish

I had a look online to try and find the best/worst dog foods but it seems that the most readily available and widely known brands are the worst?

We tend to go to Tesco or Pets at Home for food as they are local, so it would be handy if any food recommended was available there.

bethie

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/


has a really good selection of available food brands - from the more well known to the more specialist.


per kg, Bakers is quite expensive, and you can get much better food for much less!


More specialists foods such as CSJ, Skinners, Orijen/Acana, Taste of the Wild, Barking Heads etc are really best purchased online, and there are a lot of websites out there which you can buy the foods from. Local independant shops may also be able to order them in for you.


we currently give our dog a mixture of wet and dry food. at the morning and a couple of spoonfuls of wet at night. Both of them are 'complete' foods.

We also give her some treats instead of her wet food at dinner, such as a chicken wing, or a raw bone.

tr3mor

bethie wrote: »

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/

I don't think that site is of much use. They're very American focused and don't even have accurate ingredients for the food I use - Arden Grange Premium. They criticise it for containing maize, which it doesn't.

If_My_Pennies_Were_Pounds

Thanks Bethie, that's really helpful.

Can I ask what breed you have and what brand(s) you use?

I had been told not to give her chicken on a bone as it splinters easily and she could hurt herself...is this not the case?!