We're Expecting!

MentalMinnie

Some of you may remember my past thread, my girl died in January of this year. I'm very happy to say that we've just paid a deposit on a puppy. The last few months have been awful without her, so we're looking forward to having something to be excited over.

I wondered if someone could help me with recommendations with food though. Would like to go with a dry complete food, I've heard these are better than canned food, but there are so many different ones! Can anyone point me in the right direction? X

big5

You might want to have a look here: http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/255727-updated-dry-dog-food-index.html

Our dog has Arden Grange - suits our budget and the dog is doing well on it.

Hope all goes well with the new pup - need more details about him/her!

MentalMinnie

Well, I was looking at Royal Canin, now I'm not so sure

krlyr

Personally I wouldn't feed Royal Canin - in my opinion it's a premium price food without the premium ingredients

E.g. medium puppy/junior:
Dehydrated poultry meat, animal fats, maize, dehydrated beef and pork protein*, wheat, beet pulp, wheat flour, rice, maize flour, hydrolysed animal proteins,vegetable protein isolate*, maize gluten, fish oil, yeasts, soya oil, minerals, fructo-oligo-saccharides, hydrolysed yeast (source of mannan-oligo-saccharides), egg powder, marigold extract (source of lutein).

The dehydrated poultry is good - with dog food, if they stated "chicken" then it means that - a whole chicken. They can list the volume by the pre-processed weight, so they put a 2kg chicken in, they count it as 2kg of chicken. What that doesn't account for is the 40-60% (roughly) of water in said chicken - so that 2kg can drop significantly. When a company used dehydrated meat (also called "meal", e.g. chicken meal), 2kg of meat remains 2kg of meat.

But then you have a lot of fillers. Maize as the third highest ingredient (one of the cheaper fillers - and poorly digested by dogs), wheat, wheat flour, rice, maize flour, maize gluten, etc. - also a 'trick' companies use is separating these ingredients out so they appear lower down the list of ingredients, if they listed it as "cereals" then it may well appear above the dehydrated chicken and obviously makes the food look lower in meat content.

For a food around the £50 mark for 15kg, I would much rather spend that money on a brand like Fish4Dogs, with ingredients like this

Ocean White Fish (28%), Pea Flour (21%), Potato (18%), Salmon Meal (16%), Salmon Oil (11%), Beet Pulp, Brewers Yeast, Minerals

Or perhaps spend a little more on a brand like Orijen

Boneless chicken*, chicken meal, chicken liver*, whole herring*, boneless turkey*, turkey meal, turkey liver*, whole eggs*, boneless walleye*, whole salmon*, chicken heart*, chicken cartilage*, herring meal, salmon meal, chicken liver oil, chicken fat, red lentils, green peas, green lentils, sun-cured alfalfa, yams*, pea fiber, chickpeas, pumpkin*, butternut squash*, spinach greens*, carrots*, Red Delicious apples*, Bartlett pears*, cranberries*, blueberries*, brown kelp, licorice root, angelica root, fenugreek, marigold flowers, sweet fennel, peppermint leaf, chamomile, dandelion, summer savory, rosemary, Enterococcus faecium.

Or a similar but slightly cheaper one to Orijen, I've actually got 2/3 of a bag given to me as it didn't agree with their dog, is Nutrivet (Zooplus stock it). As a raw feeder, mine don't get kibble often but I will sometimes use it for treats (and find it handy to have on hand when needed, e.g. staying overnight somewhere with the dogs I'll take a few meals worth to save on needing a freezer), though I do lean towards the grain-free varieties like this

Chicken (min. 30%), lamb (min. 11%), turkey (min. 10%), potatoes, peas, chicken oil and fat (min. 9%), dried salmon (min. 5%), whole eggs (min. 4%), dried chicken meat (min. 4%), dried lamb (min. 4%), dried pea protein, salmon oil (min. 3%), beet pulp, green beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, apples, alfalfa, chicory , dried yeast, fennel leaves, cranberries, black currant jelly, vitamins and minerals, plasma protein, hydrolysed poultry livers, potassium chloride, calcium carbonate, fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS), taurine, fucus vesiculosus (bladderwrack) extract, ascophyllum nodosum (rockweed ) extract, yucca schidigera extract, chondroitin sulfate, N-acetyl-glucosamine, L-carnitine tartrate, rosemary extract, green tea extract.

I'm not sure that dry food is necessarily completely better than wet - there are some benefits, and a lot of cheap wet foods full of sugars, fats, etc., but there are some good quality wet foods I wouldn't rule out either. NatureDiet, Wainwrights, Nature's Harvest to name a few. Applaws I believe do a complementary range (i.e. to be fed alongside dry as it's not quite complete on its own) and there are some other good brands around. I raised my last pup on a mix of NatureDiet and Nutro dry food (it was a good brand at the time but not so easily available in the UK anymore I believe), though my two were solely on dry before we switched to raw feeding.

con1888

I've just moved on to Millies Wolfheart, I have searched a lot recently for a good quality kibble as was using pro plan which has a premium price but not premium quality ( in my oppinion ).

I also feed some raw but a 100% raw diet didn't work for my boy so decided I wanted his kibble as natural as was possible.

con1888

http://www.whichdogfood.co.uk/dog-food-reviews/0842/millies-wolfheart-riverside-mix

Duck meal (min. 32.4%), trout (min. 21.9%), sweet potato, potato flakes, duck fat (min. 4.1%), pea fibre, duck gravy (min. 1.6%), salmon oil, vitamins and minerals, Joint care pack (glucosamine (min. 0.01%), methylsulfonylmethane (min. 0.01%),chondroitin sulphate (min. 0.01%), dried apple, carrot flakes, lovage powder,seaweed meal, dried cranberry, aniseed and fenugreek, mixed herbs (thyme,marjoram, oregano, parsley, sage), camomile powder, burdock root powder,peppermint, dandelion herb

MentalMinnie

Is it the general consensus that dry complete food is better than wet food?

con1888

MentalMinnie wrote: »

Is it the general consensus that dry complete food is better than wet food?

It depends on the food , you do get some decent quality wet like nature diet but I'm not a huge fan of the tins. Dry is better for the teeth where as tins seem to give dogs horrible teeth and breath.

krlyr

A good quality wet food like Nature's Harvest is going to be better than a medium quality dry good (e.g., as an opinion, Royal Canin). The wet food would probably be the more expensive choice though, in terms of comparing wet and dry of the same quality you will likely pay more for the wet food. Also, generally there is more choice in dry food therefore a greater amount of better quality brands to choose from. More choice = more competition = manufacturers having to be more competitive with pricing, too.

As said, my dogs are on a raw diet - and this can consist of a lot of mince meat depending on what supplier I've ordered from and what stock they have. So the mince itself may not do much for cleaning the teeth, but by feeding bones and meaty chunks, that keeps their teeth in great condition. If I was feeding a dog a wet food diet I would want to provide chews to help with cleaning the teeth, so I'd go with natural treats - cows ears, pizzle sticks, etc. because the nature of a dry biscuit will help (to a degree) with wearing tartar/plaque off the teeth, but to be honest it wouldn't make or break the deal.


http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/choosing-dog-food/canned-or-dry-dog-food/
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/choosing-dog-food/dry-dog-food-cleaner-teeth/

peachyprice

Don't stock up too much on the brand you think is the best, sometimes it takes a fair few changes to find one that a) your dog will actually eat and b) agrees with him/her.

Frugalista

MentalMinnie wrote: »

< we've just paid a deposit on a puppy.

I wondered if someone could help me with recommendations with food though.

Ask your breeder!

Presumably you are buying from a reputable, experienced breeder who only breeds from health tested stock? You are confident that the pup will be healthy, well nourished and reared in the best possible environment? I am assuming that the breeder cares for her precious pups and only has their best/future interests at heart?

So, why on earth would you ask a bunch of randoms on an internet forum, only to get 101 different suggestions?

Ask your breeder first and foremost - and please don't start chopping and changing your pups diet. That way lies trouble.

Good luck with your new baby .