Potential problems with Arden Grange food?

bikelesschick

Thank you for the tip Dollardog. I don't normally shop at waitrose and wouldn't have thought of looking there for it!

I don't think she's poorly kylyr as she's her usual self and this has been going on for weeks now. I've been thinking about all the comments and maybe she's just bored of it. I'll get some smaller bags in different AG flavours first to see how it goes and will add some wet food if that doesn't work.

As for BARF, I first gave her some bits of chicken breast for a few days, then chicken drumsticks for another few days, then some mince beef and then some offal once. I've always given her little bits first and always on top of her usual meals as I wanted her to try. I can't remember how much offal I gave her, maybe 100g? Is that too much for the first time? I don't think it was chicken liver, maybe beef liver?

As for bones, the only ones I've given her have been the chicken ones which I know she is ok with and knuckle bones, which didn't go that well. She was on it the whole day and it gave her a poorly tummy for the following 2 days so now I literally time it 2 hrs and then take it away from her.

pulliptears

Ocado will deliver them to, so if you do a shop, add a few bags and hunt around you will probably find a money off your first shop code as well

big5

Have you tried adding a bit of warm water to the dry food? That makes it smell more enticing as well as changing the texture.

I very rarely feed my dog from a bowl - I put food in her Kong and hide small amounts around the garden or house so she has to sniff it out. Maybe you could try something like that to make the food seem more interesting.

krlyr

If you do fancy trying it again, I would go a lot slower. I fed solely chicken (meat, bones and offal) for a couple of weeks to get their tummies used to raw meat (ditched the complete food straight away as the raw seemed to suit them so well - they were used to getting Naturediet wet food in Kongs so as Fire Fox said, may help to get her used to a wet food first), then introduced one other meat at a time. I wanted to get liver in her diet so after chicken I went for lamb - being able to get hold of lambs liver in Iceland quite easily. So I started off with lamb mince, small amounts fed alongside the chicken and increased over the week, then introduced small amounts of lamb. I would say 100g was probably too much, I would start off with little titbits at first (e.g. 2cm cubed roughly) and up that amount really slowly. Some dogs find raw liver too rich and I know some raw feeders will lightly cook it first - some find that they can eventually feed it raw once the dog's stomach has adjusted, it will provide more nutrients raw than cooked. You don't have to worry about feeding a huge range of meat ASAP - it won't do harm to have a slightly limited/unbalanced diet for a few weeks, think of a kid eating a week of junk food when they're on holiday or in the care of a soft relative, if their diet is balanced the majority of the time then it won't harm.
Ditto with the knuckle bone, probably too much of a new thing too soon. If the knuckle bone had marrow it, that could be another factor - marrow has quite a laxative effect!


The above post mentions the Kong - does she eat with more enthusiasm if you hand feed her or scatter the food on the floor? Sometimes dogs can develop an aversion to a particular bowl, sometimes the sound of it (especially a metal one if it's made a scary clanging noise) or smell of it can put them off for no apparently reason, could be worth trying to scatter feed or use an alternative bowl to see if that helps.

Dollardog

I have one of the raised feeders and I found that my last dog hated his food in the metal bowls it came with, he didn't mind the water being in it but he ate with such gusto that the food bowl used to whizz round in the holder and he hated the noise. I changed the metal food one to a plastic one which didn't go round in it and he was fine. Not that that probably has any bearing on your problem OP!! lol

bikelesschick

Thank you for letting me know pulliptears. I'll look into it!

Big5 - I haven't tried to add warm water on its own to her food. I've added warm water with a tiny bit of chicken stock though and it made no difference The kong may be worth a try though. She loves the one she has but I normally stuff it with treats and chicken paste. I could try to feed her using that and if it works I could get a bigger one (her is tiny!).

krlyr - I'm afraid hand feeding, scattering on the floor doesn't work, I tried! If she wants her food, she'll eat it, if she doesn't she won't... as for BARF. I may try that again, but probably at some other time as I'd like to do lots of research before I do it. Thank you for all the tips though.

At this moment in time Dollardog, I'm open to most things;). I'll bare your experience in mind, thank you.

pulliptears

Anyone in Stoke on Trent/Newcastle Under Lyme Area, Garners Garden Center in Newcastle are having an Arden Grange day on the 18th August. I believe there will be the opportunity for pups to taste varieties as well as speak to representatives of the company and get a few pounds off

bikelesschick

Thanks pulliptears but I'm not local to Stoke.

Just a quick update. I tried adding hot water on its own to her food last night, no joy. She ate all her food this morning though so who knows what's really going on?

Anyway, I ordered a couple of smaller bags last night (1x lamb and rice and 1x fish and potatoes) so we'll see how it goes.

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions. If changing flavours doesn't work, I shall be trying all of the other suggestions one at a time so I can tell what the problem was.

krlyr

Does she suffer from any anxieties at all? An anxious dog won't always eat. For example, my dog had bad seperation anxiety when we moved house and I found she wouldn't touch her Kong in the morning because she was anxious about me leaving for work. I was recording her and found she would only start to eat about an hour after I'd gone, when she calmed down a bit. Have you noticed any links in the times she wouldn't eat, e.g. is it when you feed her just before you go to work, or after a walk that might have stressed her out a bit?

bikelesschick

I know she can be anxious and she's quite insecure but I'm not sure her eating is related to that as I've not noticed any patterns.

Since we got her, lots of things have changed though, we moved houses, I got pregnant, I started working, I stopped working so maybe too many changes for a recently rehomed puppy? Also, when we first got her she was caged but we slowly changed that and no longer use it at all.

The eating thing started several weeks after I started work so not sure that's related to separation anxiety. When I first went back to work, she wouldn't eat her breakfast there and then but when I got back home she'd eaten it all. Over time, she went back to eating normally and then this started.

I'm not working at the moment (stopped about 3 wks ago?) and I spend most of my time at home. I have uni work to do but I stay downstairs because of her (upstairs is off boundaries for her) so she's rarely alone now.

I'm aware that being a staffie, she likes company and she'll follow me around the house, nap by my feet, but she's quite happy to go sunbathing, etc too. We never got any complaints from neighbours about noise levels and she seems fine when we come back from shopping etc.

Do you think this may be related to anxiety?