Dog Food Questions - merged

tiamai_d

Please keep her on a complete diet. It is untrue that they are more expensive.

At first glance, they look to be more expensive, but unlike mixed diet, you only buy the one food stuff. You also feed less. It's better for teeth and less chance of something disagreeing and leading to upset tummies.

And modern dogs are not like their wild counterparts, requiring a 'natural' diet (unless they have always been fed this) it can be a lot more trouble than its worth.

She will need a senior diet. They are lower in fat and higher in essential fatty acids.

Stay away from pedigree and what not, they are marketed to humans hence the multi colour biscuits when dogs are colour blind... They are more expensive than your plain foods.

Then, you have a range of complete diets. One bag may be £10, another £30. but the £30 bag may cost less when you work out that the £10 bag tells you to feed 300g per day where the £30 tells you to feed 100g per day.

You can continue to feed her supplimets, but a good quality meal should have everything she needs.

On the ingredients list, the ingredients are listed in order of what there is more of. So a cheap bag of chicken and rice would list, rice, corn starch, wheat etc etc, chicken meal. (chicken meal is all the scrappy bit of chicken). A good quality should list something like, chicken breast, wheat, corn, yukka extract etc.

If you can go for chicken breast not chicken meal. Avoid turkey, beef, liver, rabbit flavours (there is very little meat in these and is usually made up with chicken anyway).

Personally I'd use Burns, Beta or James Well Beloved. My own dog is fed on Pets at Home complete (as its made by hills science plan, but a LOT cheaper).

You can add in some grated carrot, dairy, cooked meats, pilchards, sardines etc to make it more interesting. Of course if any of these start to upset her tummy, cut them out.

Once you have a food that she does well on, stick to it.

Oh and a cheaper alternative to cod liver oil is corn oil. Available from most supermarkets now. A tea spoon or so in her dinner does the same as cod liver oil. And its only £1.25 a litre!

Spudnik_2

Fresh tripe is great to feed to your dog, but obviously not on its own. It makes a nice treat and, if you're raw feeding, you could probably make a meal out of it once a week or so, but it isn't balanced enough to feed as an entire diet. Make sure that you're feeding GREEN tripe. I do try to feed it, but green tripe is exceedingly difficult to get hold of around here. My butchers won't sell it- I was given a reason when I first asked but it was a couple of years ago, so I can't remember what it was!

Horace

Dunno about feeding it to dogs - the woman who lives in the basement flat, cooks the dratted stuff all the time for her family...it bloomin' well stinks and I get the nasty niffs coming out through my airing cupboard (I am on 1st floor).

*shudders* at the thought of tripe.

RHYSDAD

Horace wrote: »

Dunno about feeding it to dogs - the woman who lives in the basement flat, cooks the dratted stuff all the time for her family...it bloomin' well stinks and I get the nasty niffs coming out through my airing cupboard (I am on 1st floor).

*shudders* at the thought of tripe.

Didn't Gordon Ramsay do a feature about eating tripe on one of his shows? It looked rank but it probably tastes ok!!:cool:

skyrocket

i have never laid eyes on the stuff but from the little i have heard i dont think i would want to eat it!:rotfl:
i will get a bag of the frozen stuff maybe and just feed it once a week to them! hopefully that will be the green stuff!

teffers

My mum's had dogs for over 50 years and she uses tripe as part of her three dogs - stinks like hell when it's cooked but they love it.

bulchy

My 2 get tripe about twice a week, they absolutely love it, but it stinks. I would never cook it, it smells bad enough as it is :rotfl:
Sue

DanceInThe_Dark

I feed raw kennel tripe to all my dogs as the main portion of their food - with my breed they get roughly 1-3lb a day. It costs around 25p a pound and I buy it from a company who delivers all over the country. Look at the back of Dogworld or Our dogs for suppliers. It comes frozen and every day I put the following days amount in a large airtight container to defrost (it smells).
I've been feeding it for well over 10 years and my dogs are brimming with good health and it is rare to have them have the runs.

pether2907

as dancein the dark said this is roughly 25-35p a pound if u get it from a proper company unlike [EMAIL="p@h"]p@h[/EMAIL] were its 57p per pound it is recommended for working dogs only as it gives them enough to keep goin not get fat. you r not supposed to be allowed to buy green tripe (which is untreated and unbleached) enywere by law. BECAUSE of health regulations this is y tripe for humans isnt cheap anymore because it has to be bleached and stuff
i feed my 2 staffs on it as a main diet with greyhound biscuits

hope it helps

nona85

I really would recommend Burns complete dry food for any dog owner. This food is fantastic for your dogs health. My dogs adore it, they're never hyper active or aggressive, have perfect dental hygiene and really glossy coats.

http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk/

Not exactly cheap, but I really don't think it's a good idea to feed them cheap food. So many dogs get behavioural problems, skin conditions and all sorts from being fed cheap food.

I know we should be going for the money saving brands, but consider the cost of treating your pet if you should receive massive vet bills somewhere down the line, for a condition which may be linked to the cheap food you feed your dog. I am positive that what you feed your dog greatly affects their future, just as what we eat definitely affects our health later in life.

Worth considering anyway.