Dog food!

[kentiiboii]

So I'm watching programme on channel 5 called truth about dog food. It tells you all different stuff about big branded commercial pet food, different opinions on how bad it is for your dog as you don't know what's in it, others saying it's good cos it has the right nutrition.

Other people are cooking their dogs home cooked meals with plenty of veg and nice meat. These people say it's made their dogs nicer, healthier and more behaved dogs.

Also people saw feeding the dogs on a raw meat diet because it's how they live in the wild it has the correct nutrition. But they say that's is bad because obviously camellia.

So all this is confusing about knowing what's best for my dog?
What so you all feed your dog's?

I always feed my dog on ceaser meat and butchers biscuits in the day. To treat her occasionally she has a butchers as good as it looks meat which is chicken casarole, beef stew and more.

Now and again she'll have some of our home cooked for. She loves chicken roast dinner!

What's ask your opinions?

[Niall]

My dog is fed on a breed specific food and really seems to work well. The typical supermarket ones such as pedigree are normally full of all sorts of shit and make some dogs behave badly and stink!
Its also worth not feeding dogs your left overs and keep them on a regular diet of their own food. They tend to behave much better and not scrounge for food so much.

[THE_Liam]

I buy my feed from a small firm called Blue Barn, I get a 15kg bag of complete dry feed for £9.25, which is very cheap and it's great quality, Diesel hates anything else, he goes through that in about 3 weeks! I supplement that with a good marrowbone once a week from the butchers to keep his teeth clean and jaws strong. Best thing about Blue Barn, it's outside Leeds on some great hooning roads

[MrsMidnight]

I could go on about this topic for hours!

I feed our puppy on a pure raw diet with vegetables, I use either nutriment or natural instinct, a pre minced and mixed raw food which comes frozen for convenience. I'm looking into getting the meat and veg and mixing it myself if it works out cheaper but the same quality.
Her training treats are cooked meats, purely because I don't want raw food in my treat bag and on occasion she has some dried treats and cheese. I'll be cutting out dry biscuit treats when we've moved.
My mum's 3 have one raw meal and one dried meal, mainly because we don't have the freezer space to feed 4 dogs on raw food.
It doesn't cost me much to feed her on raw, around £10 to £15 a week, this will reduce when she's stopped growing though!

I like the raw diet as I've seen many dogs with problems from work move onto a raw diet and it's like a miracle cure and they've cleared up in a couple weeks like they never had skin issues.
Dogs are most likely to be allergic to chicken or beef (according to a holistic vet) too, which is in almost every dry food or tinned food but you can choose easier and know what your feeding in a raw diet, making it easier to rule out possibilities if they did have skin problems.

Eve loves her raw bones and raw food, looks amazing condition, is very healthy and in proportion. I also give her natural flea and worming treatments too for her best interest rather than chemicals I don't really know (that's a different topic I'll shh about though).
In my personal opinion, it doesn't matter too much what you feed as long as your dog is as healthy as they can be.

And sorry for an essay...

[THE_Liam]

I definitely agree on the natural flea and worm treatments, first time I wormed Diesel it was with a well-known chemical treatment, within 3 days he was losing fur in lumps, poor fucker looked even uglier than usual!

[kentiiboii]

I could go on about this topic for hours!

I feed our puppy on a pure raw diet with vegetables, I use either nutriment or natural instinct, a pre minced and mixed raw food which comes frozen for convenience. I'm looking into getting the meat and veg and mixing it myself if it works out cheaper but the same quality.
Her training treats are cooked meats, purely because I don't want raw food in my treat bag and on occasion she has some dried treats and cheese. I'll be cutting out dry biscuit treats when we've moved.
My mum's 3 have one raw meal and one dried meal, mainly because we don't have the freezer space to feed 4 dogs on raw food.
It doesn't cost me much to feed her on raw, around £10 to £15 a week, this will reduce when she's stopped growing though!

I like the raw diet as I've seen many dogs with problems from work move onto a raw diet and it's like a miracle cure and they've cleared up in a couple weeks like they never had skin issues.
Dogs are most likely to be allergic to chicken or beef (according to a holistic vet) too, which is in almost every dry food or tinned food but you can choose easier and know what your feeding in a raw diet, making it easier to rule out possibilities if they did have skin problems.

Eve loves her raw bones and raw food, looks amazing condition, is very healthy and in proportion. I also give her natural flea and worming treatments too for her best interest rather than chemicals I don't really know (that's a different topic I'll shh about though).
In my personal opinion, it doesn't matter too much what you feed as long as your dog is as healthy as they can be.

And sorry for an essay...

That's a lot of great information there. :-) they was saying raw meat diet had cleared a lot of problems up for dogs.

My dogs very heathly but she has a constant itching problem. She makes her self really sore under her front legs. So I have cream for her which clears it. But I'd like to stop her from itching.

Cheers nial and Liam I think I'm going to try changing her dry food to something better.

Think I'm going to try her on something raw instead of commercial meat see how she goes for a week.

---

I definitely agree on the natural flea and worm treatments, first time I wormed Diesel it was with a well-known chemical treatment, within 3 days he was losing fur in lumps, poor fucker looked even uglier than usual!

I've always used stuff I get from the vets as I pay monthly for a pet plan and they're included what could I get that's natural?

[Toms306]

Must admit I noticed a big issue when we had a dog fed on 'wet' food, like tinned meat and stuff. The farts were terrible, literally cleared a room! Dry food doesn't seem to cause the same issue!

[C.A.R.]

I just set ours free so they can eat small children down at the local park.

One is a Jack Russell and the other a chihuahua of course....

[Niall]

My dogs very heathly but she has a constant itching problem. She makes her self really sore under her front legs. So I have cream for her which clears it. But I'd like to stop her from itching.

Boston used to get a constant itching on his paws and lumps appear which look like boils on his toes. After a lot of research it turns out it was a reaction to the food he was on. Put him on Pero and within a few days, he was much much happier, not scratching and biting his paws and within a week, the lumps had disappeared completely.
The nice thing with breed specific foods as well (if you can find them for your breed of course) is they normally are aimed to deal with breeds specific problems. Like for instance, labradors tend to have joint issues and get arthritis later on in like so the one we buy has a lot of natural stuff in to help with this.

---

Must admit I noticed a big issue when we had a dog fed on 'wet' food, like tinned meat and stuff. The farts were terrible, literally cleared a room! Dry food doesn't seem to cause the same issue!

Yep we have this issue lol. The food we feed him is dry but in the evenings for his dinner, mix it in a bit of gravy. Don't seem to cause any smelly issues

[MrsMidnight]

If you want an easy to try raw food, natural instinct do a 'working dog' range suitable for all dogs, it's called that so you don't pay any vat, nutriment are another raw company, they have a very good website with loads of info, worth a good read. They will deliver to you with it frozen, if you have the space to buy in bulk, they do good deals too!
If I was you I'd try things like turkey and duck and try avoid chicken and beef to see if there is difference and go from there! Cheaper than the vets lol. Remember to change treats to the same ie turkey if you want to rule things out completely too. You'll notice a difference pretty soon but try one flavour for 2 weeks at a time for best results.

I use a natural flea treatment called billy no mates and a natural wormer called 4 seasons from a website called the neem team. Very helpful and very impressed with their products! Eve has 1ml of flea treatment a day in her food and the wormer once a month, works out much cheaper than the normal stuff which can upset their digestive system too.. Oh and the wormer covers all worms they also so natural house sprays so you don't need to go out, move all plants etc which is handy and doesn't have a horrible smell!

[kentiiboii]

Must admit I noticed a big issue when we had a dog fed on 'wet' food, like tinned meat and stuff. The farts were terrible, literally cleared a room! Dry food doesn't seem to cause the same issue!

Haha tell me about it. Sometimes the dog let's some smelly ones off. but it just depends what flavor of ceaser she has. :-)

I just set ours free so they can eat small children down at the local park.

One is a Jack Russell and the other a chihuahua of course....

I suppose children is a good natural raw meat :-)

Mine a jack Russell too. :-)

My dogs very heathly but she has a constant itching problem. She makes her self really sore under her front legs. So I have cream for her which clears it. But I'd like to stop her from itching.

Boston used to get a constant itching on his paws and lumps appear which look like boils on his toes. After a lot of research it turns out it was a reaction to the food he was on. Put him on Pero and within a few days, he was much much happier, not scratching and biting his paws and within a week, the lumps had disappeared completely.
The nice thing with breed specific foods as well (if you can find them for your breed of course) is they normally are aimed to deal with breeds specific problems. Like for instance, labradors tend to have joint issues and get arthritis later on in like so the one we buy has a lot of natural stuff in to help with this.

---

Must admit I noticed a big issue when we had a dog fed on 'wet' food, like tinned meat and stuff. The farts were terrible, literally cleared a room! Dry food doesn't seem to cause the same issue!

Yep we have this issue lol. The food we feed him is dry but in the evenings for his dinner, mix it in a bit of gravy. Don't seem to cause any smelly issues

Yeah I think I'm definitely going to get her off butchers, we've always had this one because she loves it and it's small pieces cos she's only a small dog.


Emma thanks again some really great information there really appreciate it! :-) going to look into the raw meat some more, think I'll see about ordering a few of the ones your talking about and see how it goes.

Just not nice seeing her so itchy but vets said there's nothing that can really be done about it she's just an itchy dog. She's got no skin conditions or anything so I just agreed.

[Just Sean]

my 2 staffys eat anythign. sweets, chocs, roast dinners, cottage pie. grass, each others vomit, shit, carrier bags

[MrsMidnight]

Glad to be of help for once lol. I hate it when vets do that! I hope you trying different food does help though! Not nice seeing them itch and scratch all the time. Let me know how you get on love the poochies lol

[kentiiboii]

my 2 staffys eat anythign. sweets, chocs, roast dinners, cottage pie. grass, each others vomit, shit, carrier bags

My dog would if I let her. She used to love kebab meat but didn't do her stomach any good, was too much for her.

[mikey b]

The one thing my 2 staffs are hocked on are the rest of my cup of tea

[lolsteve]

Poppy really likes Malteseers that dad feeds here when mums not about

[Midnightclub]

^ Chocolate is poisonous to dogs mate, can cause long term brain damage in them.. so i'd lay off the malteesers lol

[gretsch-drummer]

We feed our dog on mostly mince meat and biscuits then sometimes gets cooked cows cheek and veg when the butcher has any in.

She's 15 years old so it must be doing her some good aye.

Oh, and she goes nuts for her carrots.

[ozonehostile]

My dog seems quite partial to the odd sock stolen from the washing machine. And anything the cat has got because of course it must be much better than bakers

[r3k1355]

Our dog was nice and simple, if a food wasn't any good for her it'd be blasted out of the back end like some disgusting geyser of shit.
Wag was one of the funnyest, it didn't produce liquid but she did manage 5 enormous shits in a day when eating that stuff - we nearly ran out of poo bags!

We use a dry mix from the supermarket now as it's well tolerated, keeps her regular and we don't get much wind.
Most human food is off the menu too, cooked rice/pasta is ok but anything with rich flavours is going to end badly.