Dog Food Questions - merged

lala1974

suki1964 wrote: »

Ok, dogs dont need a change of feed every mealtime, they are happy with a food that they will eat being fed morning noon and night every day of their lives.

They are dogs - they dont have the same thought processes as we humans do.

A complete food is just that - complete. Start adding to it and you mess with the balance and you get a fat dog

And a dog certainly doesnt need tea and toast in the mornings (dogs actually develop a lactose intolerance and you can make him very very ill )

Toast and butter is like feeding a couple of big macs to a child on top of its three meals a day


So stick to a complete (maybe think about changing to a premium brand rather then a supermarket brand) and feel free to add vegigies - raw or cooked in unsalted water, and if you must - the tiniest bit of left over meat ( my spaniel will get say like HALF a sausage snipped real small or a tablespoon of mince or cold chopped chicken),

Go easy on adding meat - to much protein for a dog can make them bounce of walls (as can the colours and additives in bakers)

Dont feed them human processed food - its not good for them - full of salt, fat and sugar. Also look up on what foods are actually dangerous to dogs - bigger list then you are possibly aware

Thats me told then!

missstropy

My 13 year old lab has chappie chicken and has for years. Sometimes if shes a bit miffed at just getting dry food and not the odd sausage that the kids chuck under the table for her etc I put a bit of weak gravy on her dinner and mix it up and she scoffs the lot. Let it cool down 1st though.

She always gets a full christmas dinner and pudding !!!! and then farts for two days solid.....

pollyanna24

Our dog (pedigree staff) is incredibly fussy with her food. We give her a small handful of Bakers in the morning and a tin in the evening, but she hasn't eaten anything since Tuesday.

We figure we know why this is. There are no scraps in her dinner at the moment. She's starting to "demand" better food that she likes.

I don't think there is anything wrong with feeding the same thing every day, like someone else said, they are dogs, they don't know any different.

At the same time, I'm not going to throw away any food that doesn't get eaten by us. I wouldn't feed it to her from the table, but collect it in a tupperware point and then put it in her dinner. But, as I've mentioned above, she's started to get fussy about it, so I think we are going to stop and just give her plain ole dog food.

We don't pander to her, so the fact that she hasn't eaten since Tuesday is her fault. We put the food down, then pick it up after about half a hour like all the experts tell you to do.

LillyJ

We add some chopped carrot sometimes, or cooked brocolli, cos I think fresh vegetables can only be good for him. We feed him complete food (Wagg - cos it hasn't got colours, is cheap and it suits his tum). Then we just occasionally add the veges.
If he is REALLY lucky, he gets a bit of weak gravy, or just hot water poured over his food!
He also likes boiled rice when he is poorly, or when he goes off his food like when we moved house. We also used to add it when he first came to us as he was underweight, and it fed him up a bit.
Occasionally he gets tiny scraps of my chicken (about a spoonfull), as I don't like the bits that come from near the bone.

By the way the caffeine in tea makes dogs hyper like it makes kids hyper!

foreign_correspondent

yeah, tea is actually not good for dogs at all - although my old dog used to drink it given half the chance!

pollyanna24

Gosh, my first dog was a nightmare for tea and coffee. If you left your cup on the coffee table while she was away, you didn't expect there to be anything left into when you came back to it.

Thank goodness my staffie isn't like this, but we have trained her that she isn't just allowed to "take" anything.

On the plus side, last night she ate a whole tin and biscuits afterwards and ate all her Bakers this morning (I'm not too keen on Bakers either, but we bought 2 bags ages ago when they BOGOF, so just using them up).

orlao

I have to admit I'm a fan of complete foods (I rarely cook for myself, let alone the dogs!) and I'd be a little concerned that you'd get the right mix of vitamens and minerals such a young dog needs while it's growing if you went to a homemade diet at the moment.

A friend of mine changed her dogs food to Autarky from Bakers recently.....her dogs actually prefer the Autarky and she reckons it works out cheaper, similar price (£18) for 15kgs and you feed less, also much better quality IMHO.

Rowan9

My 4 yr old dog gets Wagg and the 9yr old which is getting a bit stiffer in joints gets Supadog Young at Heart. Both queue up when I'm chopping veg and get raw carrots, cabbage, courgette. They love pieces of apple as well.
w

foreign_correspondent

dogs are funny with raw veg - mine comes running at the sound of carrots being peeled, and yesterday ran off with the end slice of a very hard marrow which she chomped up and ate! I think a bit of raw veg helps their teeth stay clean!

ailuro2

missstropy wrote: »

She always gets a full christmas dinner and pudding !!!! and then farts for two days solid.....

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I had to laugh at this...for once the dog really will be to blame for the silent but deadlies it normally takes the blame for!!