UKC

Hey all, some may remember that i have a choccy lab pup, which is now just over ten months old.

He is as fit as a fiddle and perfectly on weight (we weight his food at every meal as choccy's are prone to over eating, and he is no exception).

We have always fed him Royal Canin Maxi Junior as this was what he was weaned on from the breeder and the vet suggested to leave him on this for some time. He is still on this but at about a year we can consider alternatives. I spoke to the vet yesterday for advice and he recommended Purina Pro Plan as an alternative.

Problem is both are incredibly expensive - Ive just bought a 2 X 15kg bag of RC for about £85 online which will last a couple of months. Purina is pretty similar. both are about twice that in the high street.

What do other dogs owners feed their canines? There has to be decent cheaper alternatives.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Ours is on Chudleys Junior - she's 7.5 months old. If I remember rightly it's about £23 for 15kg, which lasts around a month. When we got her she was on Chudleys Puppy so it was a natural progression - and our petfood shop does a 'buy five bags, get the sixth free' offer - bargain!

She's full of beans, bright-eyed and has a shiny coat - no complaints here. Apart from the £75 vet bill last week when she ate half a box of sultanas, but that's another story...

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: No had dogs for a while but our Springers were on Chappy biscuits. Recommended by the vet because one of ours was prone to getting a dodgy tummy, but also conveniently one of the cheapest branded dog foods.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Another vote for Chappy. £18 for a 15kg bag of dry food or 69p for a tin.

In reply to Tall Clare:


To add: Lotta had one bag of James Wellbeloved as an experiment when she had a dodgy stomach but we went back to Chudleys as it made no difference - James Wellbeloved is *really* expensive but apparently a lot of places, including Jollyes petfood superstores, make an 'own brand' version which might be worth investigating.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Wow, i can see Chappie's online. Its about half the price. I will check in with the vet when my latest purchase of RC is consumed by the dustbin.

My dog now gets cooked chicken, pasta and veg for her breakfast and dinner every day. She stopped eating pedigree chum (I would have as well as it smelled horrible) and then got Chappie on vet recommendation which she eat for a few months and then got bored of. She will go go 5 days without eating on protest at any food she doesnt want so starving her out is too much of a risk as she has been taking seizures in the last year.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: My GSP gets Orijen (which is expensive so no interest to you) BUT he was on Pro plan and it effected his behaviour in a negative way. It doesn't come out very well on dog food review sites either so I would be cautious.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Cheap dog foods (kibble) tend to be full of grains which will cheaply fill your dog up but with little nutritional value.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: I just fed fly wagg... workers version 1 quid for 17 kilos.

She's fit as a fiddle.

In reply to Tall Clare:

What did the vet do for £75? Injection?

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Wow! That is pricey dog chow.

Our rescue Weimeraner is on Dr John's Silver.
http://www.pet-supermarket.co.uk/Products/CA4332/dr-john-adult-working-dog-...

£9.49 for 15Kg from our local farm supply store.

We were recommended to use this by the Weimeraner rescue group. No colouring which can have an impact on some dogs.

I can't pretend that our boy is thrilled by it but he eats it when he is hungry and he is super fit and lean. I liven it up with the debris left on our daughter's high chair.

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús:


Chappie has no more 'fill' than food twice the price. Some of the more expensive brands have lots of fill so it's not strictly a price thing.

In reply to Blue Straggler: Fly ate 3 big blocks of cooking chocolate.. dark stuff.. each dog was injected, late night vet call out bills.. I think it was 120 quid just to watch the bloody dog throw up...

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: James Wellbeloved for my mutt. It's worth looking at the nutritional content of the food and doing a bit of research online. You don't necessarily have to pay top dollar for a good food and I buy my dog food online from whoever has it on special in the UK.

In reply to estivoautumnal: Chappie is cheap because of the ingredients.

If your dog loves it, great. But it's not the best food for your dog regardless of whether there are more expensive foods which have crap ingredients.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

My border colly has been on dried food almost from the word go and now weighs 25Kgs. We have a local Seed Merchant near us where I get all my bird, fish and dog food from. The closest thing that I can find on the web is from PetsAtHome, and he has been on this for quite a few years. Their version says Adult while mine says Active. Its all the same to a dog. One minute they are eating horse sh1t and the next they are eating a dog treat.

At the Seed Merchant I pay £14ish for roughly two months worth of food so the weblink isn't that far off in price.

http://www.petsathome.com/shop/supadog-adult-rich-in-chicken-2.5kg-and-15kg...

I have had my pooch on other dried dog foods over the years however I stick him on Working Dog foods for the simple fact that they are sold VAT Free.

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús: TBH I don't get the obsession with dog food.. you get if off pedigree owners... I don't think I've ever heard it off people who get there mongrel from the local shelter..

I understand wanting your dog to be healthy, but then why chose a pedigree.. to open a huge can of worms...

If you want a healthy dog buy a medium sized mogrel thingy.. or a dog of working background.. they tend to be the healthiest. Large dogs/facially deformed dogs = short lifespan.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Scraps

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I've had my pooch on 15Kgs for under a tenner. Nowt wrong with the food and he was happy eating it, but I irrationally felt that he deserved better as he was part of the family. Irrational I know and I have no scientific evidence either way as he was fine and dandy with what ever I gave him.

Once you go down the road of dried food, then like having a dog, dried food is for life and nit just Christmas. My other half occasionally buys him a tin for Christmas which I keep telling her not to do. poor pooch suffers for days with runny poos.

In reply to IainRUK:

I got a fright one Christmas time when our pooch ate a whole Dark Terry's Chocolate Orange. I was on the phone straight away to the vets for advice. One lucky escape.

In reply to TMM:


this what we use for our rescue greyhound and previous lurchers, does fine on it and it lasts around three weeks or so.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: We feed our dogs on a raw diet. They get a selection of different mince e.g lamb, ox heart salmon tripe, chicken carcasses or wings, rabbits (whole just skinned), random veg, if we are having rice or pasta we will cook extra and put that in their bowls. We get it from a supplier who delivers frozen to our door its around 75p a kilo delivered. We are only at the vet once a year, never had any health problems.

In reply to IainRUK: Maybe you want a gun dog to point and retrieve?

You have a point re pedigrees having health issues...choc labs are a vets best friend (sorry OP but just repeating what my vet said to my sister before she bought a pup)

But pedigree or mutt, you love them the same...why feed them cereal with meat derivative and dye?

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: We have a lab x spaniel x whippet x everything else that was on hypo-allergenic Royal Canin stuff (Sensitive, maybe?). We weaned her off that very quickly after buying a bag for a small fortune. What we did was to phase out the biscuits by mixing them with 'people' food like left over bits of dinner, plain pasta, eggs and tuna for a week or so, then phased back in some cheap stuff from the Co-op. If you look at the packets from the big bucks stuff to supermarket own brand it's basically the same anyway; dry composition tends not to vary too much and this is what we went on (ie what it's made up of when the water is taken out of it.)

She had terrible guts when she came to us a year ago. She now eats an enormous bowl of the co-op complete stuff once a day at 5 o'clock ish and is fit as a fiddle with a much better digestive system! Keeps her in lean and muscular shape and hasn't altered her behaviour much at all. If i'm going on a long (15-20 mile) run and/or if it's very cold I might add some olive or sunflower oil as a calorie booster. She loves the stuff and runs around like a nutter when I get back from the shop with a new bag. £3.50 odd for a 3 kilo bag. Bargain!

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Lordy, so many preferences.

But as has been mentioned, who wouldnt want to give your best friend good nosh.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc84/RichieRambler/IMG-20130703-00004_zp...

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:
Our Westie gets supermarket own brand and scraps from the table and is absolutely fine. Given that most dogs prefer to eat rotten crap they find in hedgebacks and each others shit then expensive food is the least of your worries.

In reply to the sheep: If they prefer rotten crap and dog shit, why bother with the supermarket own brand ? Throwing money down the drain

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Yep. Might have been something, might have been nothing, but didn't want to risk chance of acute renal failure.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Yeah its hit and miss.. some dogs can eat a kilo and have no issues.. with chocolate white cholate is OK, milk should be OK, dark is bad, dark cooking is worse..

But uit all may be OK, it just may not be so for the sake of 100 quid I'd rather just get them injected..

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús: Fly loved sheep lollies..

In reply to the sheep:

Conker has a particular liking for sheep and horse shit. Not too bothered about other dogs crap.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Our two retired racing greyhounds get Wagg Chicken worker, or Doctor Johns silver medal.

They will eat just about anything - but get terrible guts of we feed them anything too rich.

In reply to IainRUK:

Exactly!

Better safe than sorry on that one. She's not getting any pocket money for a *long* time...

In reply to IainRUK: Cheap kibble is wheat and maise mixed with beak and claw. No wonder they find steaming warm turds so irresistable

Seriously though, most dogs will eat whatever is put in front of them, it's not like they get a choice. So just because they eat it and run around a lot doesn't really justify it for me.

Anyway...horses for courses (isn't that human food these days?)

In reply to Tall Clare: 7 brands in the 6* rating

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús:

Yep - just figured out how it works. How many in the 4, 5 and 6 star sections are available in the UK? Being realistic, I'd also like to see how much they all cost. Lotta goes through a 15kg bag of food per month (or thereabouts), and that much Orijen would cost the best part of £80/month. That's more than the kids' food costs us...

In reply to stumpy:



Quite possibly the best post on this topic and totally ignored by everyone.



I also find it strange that people are prepared to shell out loads of money on a dog, then quibble about how much it costs to feed them. If you've paid top dollar for your dog, give him top dollar food.

In reply to arch:

What about if you haven't paid top dollar?

In reply to arch: Top dollar for a dog more often that not means inbred - their dads their grandad... with health issues.. hip dysplacia.. heart defects.. susceptible to twisted stomachs.. breathing and hearng difficulties and numerous other health issues due to evilness known as the Kennel club...

In reply to Tall Clare: Yes, it's expensive so not for everyone (although worth noting that the food portions are less due to the higher protein content, but still works out expensive)
Due to the popularity of Orijen, a UK manufacturer has done a blatent copy for less (Purizon)

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús:

Oo - that's interesting. Just thinking about the wheat thing (I have wheat on the brain at the moment)... if Orijen is lower in wheat/cereal, does it make Sherlock fart less than other dogs? (sorry for such a blunt question).

In reply to Tall Clare: lol, he doesn't fart much at all. but when he does....

In reply to IainRUK: Wagg gets a poor show.

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showproduct.php?product=163...

but I do understand that we all have different attitudes towards our dogs and different circumstances...clearly Fly does well on it...so fair enough

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús:

It's just that Lotta isn't the most feminine-fragranced of hounds...

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Mine (collie) eats Skinners Field & Trial Maintenance mix, which is a low-protein working/gun-dog food and suits dogs with relatively low energy energy requirements. She's thriving on it, having been fed on it for over a year now, and has a lovely coat, no health issues, good solid turds and no lack of energy. Cheap too, at £15 a bag from the farm stores (working dog food = no tax), which lasts me around 2 months.

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús: She was a stray.. so she will eat anything.. guts of steel..

In reply to TMMr John's Silver.. http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showproduct.php?product=112...

In reply to Tall Clare:






Bakers...........

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: My owner feeds me raw food. It is cheaper and healthier than the processed alternaticves, as well as being wheat the dog's digestive system has evolved to eat.

Examples: chicken wings, vegetable, certain fruits, eggs, nuts, seeds, yoghurt (not "natural" I know, mince, bones and offal, not to mention boneless fish as well as things like sardines and pilchards.

Meals can be bulked up with wholegrain pasta and rice, and leftovers from any cooked meal, especially with gravy.

Whole rabbits are pretty good too, as are unattended buttered crumpets and any single shot latte.

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús: Blimey, just read the review

"this food receives 1* rating simply because we have nothing lower"

ouch

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: We have always fed our dogs on one of the Vitalin dried dog foods. There are several recipes for different aged and active dogs. You can see contents if googled. They have no e numbers , Also half diet made up of a good mix of table scraps rice veg meat scraps etc. keep dogs hungryish dont over feed.2 tablespoons of dried food plus a half cup of extras Tinned : "Butchers dgo food" meat also used There is a web site "Check whats in your dogs Food"

In reply to IainRUK:



Totally agree. We paid (Donated) £50 for our 2 Lurchers and have done lots more for the rescue centre since. But the dogs get some of the best food available (Does help when your Daughter works for Pets at Home though) The 2 of them would get it anyway TBH.

What about Bones, does anyone give their dogs bones any more ?? Never see White poo knocking about nowadays.........

In reply to Tall Clare:

I was not criticising you for spending money on Lotta! I was interested to see what the vet did, whether medication was involved or he just induced vomiting or something!

In reply to joan cooper: as i'm on a roll...some reviews here

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showproduct.php?product=186...

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showproduct.php?product=186...

In reply to arch:

Lotta gets cow bones - big femur-ends.

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús: I will stop now because I'm sure i am coming across as a bit of a sanctimonious tw@ , but that was not the intention.

All dogs are ace, they are not just for Christmas (if you carve them well enough they will do boxing day too BOOM BOOM)

Enjoy your next dog walk all of you, cheers

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Disregard the title of this book.
http://www.skycatpublications.com/pages/titles/Running%20Dogs%20Main.html

Lots of good advice for all Dog owners it there.

In reply to arch:

Yes plenty of bones from the ones in the chicken to beef bones and venison bones when I am butchering a Roe. Beef bones are particularly useful if you want to keep them occupied for a length of time. The day after there is plenty of white poo. If it rains before it is picked up it turns into white poo powder and almost disappears.

In reply to stumpy:

Beef bones are a godsend for our dog - one butcher gives away raw ones free, and another does roasted ones for 50p a bone. Money well spent!

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Quite glad I read through all this. No wonder my JRT doesn't rush to eat the Bakers Original.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Re the posts on chicken bones, we've always avoided this as cooked chicken bones are prone to splintering into very sharp shards.

The hound gets a cheap working mix, plus leftovers, plus sheep turds, rotting sea creaures off the beach...

In reply to Ridge:

Yep - one butcher gave Lotta a rib, which fractured into very pointy bits. We stick with big bone-ends now.

In reply to Ridge:

Yum................

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Good evidence that dogs have evolved specifically to survive off scraps http://tinyurl.com/o248kmx

In reply to Ridge:

All posts with the mention of chicken bones also say raw. Yes, cooked chicken bones are dangerous to dogs, all our cooked chicken bones go from the stock pot to the outside bin to prevent any cooked chicken bones being eaten by a bin raiding dog.

In reply to arch:


And we're not really talking a lot of money here in the big scheme of things. The costs mentioned by the OP work out at around £1.40 per day. That's not even half a pint of lager any more so why quibble about feeding a valued member of your family something decent?

We've got a border collie and he's been on Hill's Science plan Advanced fitness dry fodo since we adopted him a year ago. At about 60EUR for a 12kg sack that's only slightly cheaper than what the OP mentioned. If you've got several dogs I can see it getting a bit pricey but I hope it will be worth it down the line having a healthy and active dog.

In reply to yorkshireman:

I got picky about Science Plan for our cats since discovering it was full of cellulose - didn't seem like the best of ideas.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: We feed our two on Call of the Wild. It's not based on grains so doesn't bulk them up, just made up from meats, fruits and veg. It's not cheap at about £55 for a 13 kilo bag, and we go through one every 7 days, but they've been great on it and are really fit and healthy.
We also mix raw meat chunks, usually something like Tripe,fish and Ox heart.
Admittedly it's expensive, but worth every penny.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: Check out Burns - not cheap on the face of it but they need less of it and it's seriously good.http://burnspet.co.uk/

In reply to Tall Clare:

Interesting, I'd only ever gone on recommendations from a vet, and annecdotal evidence (coat, eyes condition etc).

A quick search turned this up: http://www.optimalpetfoods.com/index.php?page=article-whats-really-in-pet-f...

However its a website trying to flog alternatives so needs to be read in context. A bit more thought and research might be required.

With our cats it seems a waste of time anyway - they'll generally eat anything (they love picking out dry biscuits from the dog's bowl - they sneak in between his legs while he's eating and run off with one) or go out into the garden a scoff down a shrew or god know's what - I caught one squaring up to a (thankfully non-venomous) snake the other day!

In reply to yorkshireman:

This thread has also got me thinking about what we feed our dog too! I think I just had a 'cellulose is wood, isn't it?' reaction and that was that.

I tried to change the cats from their Iams a couple of weeks ago (after having some dodgy practices by Iams highlighted on here) but they both went off their food - Eric is a feline dustbin who will normally eat anything, but Milly is a slender cat anyway and we didn't want her to starve, so back to Iams we've gone.

In reply to Tall Clare:

Without wanting to sound like a yoghurt-knitting Guardianista, all the meat that I buy comes from local, organic and free-range sources. I'm a strong believer in that not only does it taste better, is generally more environmentally friendly and better for the local economy, my lack of spending on multinationally owned, intensively reared meat hopefully sends a 'message' no matter how small.

Its hard to do that with pet food though as I'm sure any meat that does find its way in there has not been particularly ethically sourced.

In reply to yorkshireman:

Hence the phrase "as fit as a butcher's dog"?

D.

In reply to yorkshireman: "Its hard to do that with pet food though as I'm sure any meat that does find its way in there has not been particularly ethically sourced"

Hence why I buy Orijen. See here

http://www.orijen.ca/bafrino/fresh-regional-ingredients/

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: My wee collie and my dads 4 vislas and lab are all fed on Vitalin with a little tripe mixed in. they all love it and it keeps them healthy with a nice shiny coat plus if you shop around you can normally pick up a 30kg bag for £10-£15

Hope this helps

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús:

Do you live in Canada?

D.

In reply to Nick Alcock: Nope, London.

So ethically sourced meat shipped thousands of miles to a dog bowl. I don't like to mix my crusades

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús:

I wouldn't feed your dog crusaders - he'd enjoy the horsemeat but the armour would play havoc with his stomach.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Hi we have tried various foods with our border collies & the best we found was a food from CSJ www.csjk9.com. Excellent quality food, gluten & dairy free, (we feed them the CP21 salmon variety as one has a sensitive stomach). We also supplement with a small amount of tinned piltchards in the morning also & they have fantastic condition coats even though the closest they get to a bath is a daily paddle in the river!

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: We use Wellbeloved. When we first got the pup the breeder gave us a very simple rule to think about when you're picking up their crap: what you get out of one end depends on what you put into the other. Having occasionally run out of the good stuff and resorted to something like Bakers which is all they sell at the village shop I can confirm that the breeder knew his shit.

In reply to Robboj: CP21 reviewed here, 3* but 5 yr old review..

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showproduct.php?product=192...

In reply to Tall Clare:

Maybe Canadian crusaders are tastier?

D.

In reply to Bjartur í Sumarhús:

Stop making everyone feel terrible!

In reply to What Goes Up: This is a good bit of advice.

At the moment, his turds are good and solid (and orange because of his fixation with carrots) and he does appear to have problems passing then.

I think I will have a little and error when I run out of the new batch of pricey stuff.

In the end, he cost a small fortune and I dont want to screw up his innards for the sake of a few quid.

In reply to Tall Clare: You're right...I should have taken my own advise from yesterday. Ok, no more