Best food for 10 week old cavalier?

FloFlo

The breeder had her on webbox and another cheap dry food!

We have spoken with an independent pet shop and they recommended purina pro plan dry food. They said this is a complete food just to soak it in hot water (boiled) to soften it first for the puppy but no wet food needed. Pup is having 100g a day, she is eating it well, drinking plenty of water too.

Is this a good choice for pup?

Thanks

katie1234

I'm not sure about how good/bad the food is but if it's eating it and it's going down well I would stick with it for now. I have one thats7months and we spent ages trying to find a food she could tolerate and changing her food each time turned into a nightmare.
She's still very young so I wouldn't try to change her food too much at this stage unless you had to. Hope I've helped a little!

FloFlo

Thanks, we were worried changing her from the breeder's food but she seems to have coped pretty well.

jd2010

Hi i have a CKC too!

The best food I think for dogs is raw. A lot of vets and nutritionalists are advocating the "BARF" diet now. If that isnt suitable for you, there is a brand called Applaws, who make fantastic food. James wellbeloved is good too. Of the more "commercial" brands, I would choose Bakers.

jd2010

Sorry, I am quite new here, forgot to add the link to the RAW provider I use, they are FAB

naturalinstinct dot com

becky4131

Purina pro plan is a good complete diet high in fibre. I would avoid bakers as this has the highest sugar and colour content of most commercial pet foods.
If she eats the pro plan and it suits her fine then leave her on it, the most harm you can do is swap and change her food.

If you need anymore advice i would be happy to help (i am a vet nurse) so feel free to ask.

Rev

Burns mini bites.

Great for keeping the dog nice and calm during these important training months.

Arden grange, fish4dogs, orijen.

All of the above are great foods. Purina is okay. But you can get better for the price.

Looking at the ingredients

Chicken (20%), rice (18%), maize gluten, dehydrated poultry protein, maize, animal fat (protected with mixed tocopherols), wheat, digest, beet pulp, fish oil, dried egg, yeast, potassium chloride, calcium phosphate, sodium chloride, colostrum, calcium carbonate, minerals, DL-Methionine, L-Lysine. Antioxidant: Tocopherol rich extracts of natural origin.

Firstly it doesn't say if it's fresh chicken or chicken meat meal. If it's fresh chicken, by the time it's dehydrated it'll be about 3% of the stated amount. If it's chicken meat meal, it's actually be 20% chicken.

Rice, maize, maize gluten and wheat? That's a lot of fillers. Especially given the fact it's £40+ for 15kg.

catlou

Good advice from Rev there.

My personal experience Pro Plan made my pup VERY naughty and hyper I didn't realise that's what it was until I changed him onto burns at 10 months old the change in behaviour was unbelievable.

I realise that it won't affect all dogs like that, but agree with Rev that you can definitely get better quality / more natural food cheaper than that.

kingfisher500

Our CKC is now one year old when we first got her she was on burns but that made her hyper and her stools very soft. Changed her to Eukanuba which she was ok on but now due to difficulties obtaining it here we have changed again. Was going to use Bakers until read some of the online reviews about contents - she thinks bakers is a treat probably because of all of that bad things in it.

Now on Pets at Home which she is really enjoying and seems to like it more than the Eukanuba which is always a start.

Last time I spoke to the vet about food he said most ofthe complete foods are ok and in part it is about finding one the pup enjoys, their stomach tolerates and you are happy to pay for.

snowman2_2

Rev wrote: »

. Purina is okay. But you can get better for the price.

Looking at the ingredients

Firstly it doesn't say if it's fresh chicken or chicken meat meal. If it's fresh chicken, by the time it's dehydrated it'll be about 3% of the stated amount. If it's chicken meat meal, it's actually be 20% chicken.

Rice, maize, maize gluten and wheat? That's a lot of fillers. Especially given the fact it's £40+ for 15kg.

If the ingredients say 20% chicken that will be as a percentage of the final formulation so 20% is 20%. You wont actually get any better quality "for the money" than Purina Proplan and the list of ingredients only tell half the story. It is the quality, not the quantity that is important and also consistency of quality. Proplan, Hills, Royal Canin will all be consistently high quality, Burns, Arden Grange, James Wellbeloved would all be decent quality. The digestibility is directly affected by the quality, more of the Proplan, Hills, Royal Canin etc will be absorbed by your dog / cat and there will be less "waste" to clear up. The easiest way to check digestibility is to look at the feeding guide. Something like Pedigree Complete has a much higher feeding guide than Proplan as less is absorbed because of lower digestibility. On a similar theme, never look at the cost of the bag, work out cost per day as some "premium" foods will be cheaper per day than some low end foods, again due to digestibility.

At the end of the day, with pet food, you get what you pay for. A good quality diet is the basis of a healthy pet

Rev

snowman2 wrote: »

If the ingredients say 20% chicken that will be as a percentage of the final formulation so 20% is 20%. You wont actually get any better quality "for the money" than Purina Proplan and the list of ingredients only tell half the story. It is the quality, not the quantity that is important and also consistency of quality. Proplan, Hills, Royal Canin will all be consistently high quality, Burns, Arden Grange, James Wellbeloved would all be decent quality. The digestibility is directly affected by the quality, more of the Proplan, Hills, Royal Canin etc will be absorbed by your dog / cat and there will be less "waste" to clear up. The easiest way to check digestibility is to look at the feeding guide. Something like Pedigree Complete has a much higher feeding guide than Proplan as less is absorbed because of lower digestibility. On a similar theme, never look at the cost of the bag, work out cost per day as some "premium" foods will be cheaper per day than some low end foods, again due to digestibility.

At the end of the day, with pet food, you get what you pay for. A good quality diet is the basis of a healthy pet

You will and CAN get much better than purina for the cash. AG, Burns etc are much better foods.

Here's some independant reviews of purina

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog-food-index-p.html

So, for £40 I can't get better than a 1 star dry food, bakers is also a 1 star dry food btw.

The purina puppy food gets 1 star, burns gets 3, arden grange gets 3 also. In fact, all the variants of purina reviewed get 1 star - the same as bakers.

And stating 20% chicken is a very common plot by food manufacturers, there is 20% chicken, they just dehydrate ot after hugely reducing the amount, it's still 20% chicken, it's just dehydrated, so when conpared to the other ingredients after dehydration it makes up about 3%.

I honestly can't believe you think hills and purina are better than the likes of burns and arden grange. The ingredients speak for themselves. Hills and purina have more fillers and cost more.

Personal opinion, but I know which I'd rather put into my dogs.