to think that my friend is being ridiculously PFP about insisting on this posh food for her little darling?

[BitOfFun]

Precious First Puppy, that is...

My friend and I are both getting puppies soon, which are currently only three weeks old. She is not local, and I am liaising with the breeder/owner on her behalf.

Today, I have been given instructions to ask the lady if she will wean my friend's puppy onto a brand of food that one can only buy in the doggy equivalent of Waitrose, which is organic, omega-3 filled gluten-effing-free cordon-bleu standard canine cuisine.

I will ask, of course, but given that it will be difficult to feed the puppies separately and that the other owners are unlikely to be quite so discriminating in their choice of nourishment for their pooches, and will then have to switch their ruined little princesses onto more easily-available cheaper fare, AIBU to tell my friend she is a nitwit?

Bearing in mind that no matter how lovely, we are talking about a bloody dog- an animal which might occasionally eat its own excrement and certainly routinely rims itself for its own amusement...

Am I Being Unreasonable?

I have tried a variety of dog foods over the years with my German shepherd who has a really sensitive tummy and he is fine with James Wellbeloved, weirdly Chappie and the most recent has been Pets at Home own brand senior large breed dog food. He's going really well on it. I never give him fresh or tinned meat as he just cannot cope with it.
I am quite impressed with the Pets at Home stuff. Going to get some for the puppy when he arrives!

Do Tiffany do dog collars?

Oh God!! After a week of my husky not eating and my trying allsorts of food.... bakers is the only 1 he will eat! Oooopps!

For those wondering about Bakers/Pedigree etc... they contain 4% meat. That's the minimum legal requirement. Note that it's 'meat' - no named source, just 'meat and animal derivatives' - derivatives can be anything from skin to feathers to feet.

The other 96% is therefore not meat. Dogs are supposed to eat meat. Dogs are not supposed to eat wheat, maize, beet pulp and other cereals to which many are allergic and manifest as itchy skin complaints or chronic diarrhoea. They are certainly not meant to eat added sugars which make their teeth rotten and their breath smell. I would personally never want to feed a beloved dog anything that contains a known carcinogen, either. Colours, additives (all of which have long been banned in humans for their side effects)...

At the very best, if your dog tolerates Bakers without any allergic reactions and you are very diligent with expensive vet visits for dental work, you are still going to be picking up giant soft orange poos that are five times the size of a dog fed a species-appropriate diet.

It's all about the marketing. Also, I have the greatest respect for my vet but they know nothing about food besides what a company-sponsored representative has told them so they can help flog their overpriced prescription diets full of absolute cack.

"Oh God!! After a week of my husky not eating and my trying allsorts of food.... bakers is the only 1 he will eat! Oooopps!"

Huskies and other 'primitive' breeds are notorious for having grain allergies - please, please reconsider the Bakers. He will not thrive on it.

That is very informative- thankyou.

I already knew vets are generally clueless when it comes to diet (and training/behaviour) but I'm shocked that any would be SO clueless as to recommend Bakers!

at 'eat its own excrement and certainly routinely rims itself for its own amusement'

So you've met my puppy then?

We started him on pedigree because that's what the dogs' home was feeding him. Then he got a bit of a tummy bug which I think was due to him eating part of a pencil, and vet said lots of owners feeding pedigree find that their dogs have very soft/runny poos (yep).

Vet recommended Hills or Royal Canin and dog trainer recommended James Wellbeloved. Have gone with Hills as it is the most affordable and it seems to agree with him more. At least the poo is pick-up-able now.

shiney, am jealous, I should have gotten a smaller dog, it costs £7/week to feed Patch and that's the minimum!

The rescue I help out at has just gone over to feeding Fish4Dogs to its several epi/sensitive tummed dogs, with CSJ being fed to the hardier types.

The only downside I see in Fish4Dogs, which my epi GSD is about to start tucking into when his current food supply runs out, is the price. He eats a lot more than a little Cavvy and at £49 per 15 kilo bag Fish4Dogs ain't cheap... and I have three big beggars to feed!

We give our dog posh organic food from Waitrose :)

The point about it being posh/organic is not just because he's my precious baby boy (although he is, as it happens :)) but also because the meat in it is (hopefully) produced to higher animal welfare standards - free range, human-grade chicken etc. We don't eat meat ourselves, but if we did we'd choose it with such standards in mind, so the same standards apply when buying meat for the dog.

I would not feed him the Bakers etc foods as I don't think it would do his digestion any good at all, and he has a bit of a sensitive tummy anyway. If we ran out of the usual food I'd rather cook him some chicken/fish and rice or something.

I'm not entirely sure why you are liasing with the breeder on your firend's behalf and why she can't speak to the breeder herself on the phone or email her? As a breeder myself I would want as much contact with the prospective buyer as possible.

Also as a breeder, I wouldn't feed one of my puppies something different because the owner to be asked me to. Puppies tend to share food and it's enough of a pain feeding them all without having to feed one seperately. It also does them good to be fed near/with other puppies. On top of that, I wean onto what I consider the best food for my pups, so I wouldn't want to feed one something else. I also wouldn't buy from a breeder if I wasn't happy with what they weaned their puppies on.

As an aside, I am now changing to fish4dogs having inspected the website in great detail. It's only marginally more expensive that what we are using and our current stuff has changed ingredients and isn't as good any more.

Well, I am coming round to the idea that I might be being unreasonable actually

But I will still tease Shiney about her pampered pooch. Mine will most likely be Chappied...

If cost is an issue, Skinners is £22.99 per 15kg (Bakers is £21.85 per 15kg). It's not the best but infinitely better than some foods that are twice the price (Royal Canin, Purina, Hills, Iams to name a few) - just rice, duck meat meal, oats, peas, linseed, beet pulp, oil and vitamins.

Yeah, a bit unreasonable. The better the food, the healthier the dog, but that doesn't have to be the most expensive.
The people who feed their dogs Bakers, it might end up costing you a fortune in vets bills. Val mentioned Butchers, I don't think that is more expensive than Bakers, so try that instead. Not judging, when I first got a dog I thought "Yippee, Gravy Bites!!" but there are much healthier alternatives

I've read a whole thread about dogfood. YABVU.

What's wrong with horsemeat?

Ahem. Raw meaty bones.

That is all.

My aunt had the Frolic advert (with the collie herding all the sheep into the farmhouse) filmed at her house. She got a new kitchen (just as well after it had 40 sheep in it!) and a year's supply of Frolic. After a week of her dogs producing flourescent shit she took the lot to the tip - not before noting quite how many artificial additives were in the food. Any colour (red/yellow/green) in dog food is just for our benefit and really doens't help the dog at all.
We breastfeed our children to give them the best possible start so why not give our dogs good food when they are developing? My puppy had better food than me for the first few months, and at 6 months now she is still having goats milk, omega oils and garlic added to her ridiculoulsy expensive dry food.

I find that dogs that eat cheap food smell awful

and puppies (ime) do eat their own shit (something no-one saw fit to tell me before I got one, otherwise I might have had a long hard think about it)- so looking at it from the other pov, if they're going to eat it twice, you might as well give them the good shit (as it were)

Thanks for the tips on the food, I feel so guily now cos I really didnt think I was doing anything wrong. I absolutely adore my dogs so will be going out tom to find some better food, actually feel really sick now from feeding them Bakers/Pedigree.

Well you didn't know. I myself thought as it's on the supermarket shelves it must have to pass certain standards etc

I am a bit flabbergasted myself to find out that Pedigree Chum is only 4% meat

Who'd have thought?

I am changing my thinking on all of this really. Which I did not expect.

Pedigree Chum ingredients (specifically the 'healthy vitality' adult dry food):

Ground Yellow Corn, Chicken By-Product Meal, Brewers Rice, Ground Whole Wheat, Corn Gluten Meal, Animal Fat (Preserved with BHA and Citric Acid), Lamb, Plain Dried Beet Pulp, Vegetable Oil (Source of Linoleic Acid), Natural Flavor, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Fish Oil (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols, a Source of Vitamin E), Vitamins (dl-Alpha Tocopherol Acetate [Source of Vitamin E], Choline Chloride, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate [Source of Vitamin C*], Vitamin A Acetate, Thiamine Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Biotin, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin Supplement [Vitamin B2], Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement), Dried Vegetables (Peas, Carrots), Minerals (Zinc, Sulfate, Zinc Proteinate, Copper Sulfate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Potassium Iodide), Added FD&C Colors (Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Blue 2).

I hadn't looked up the ingredients for a while - that's absolutely shocking. You wouldn't feed your kids added salt, sugar, colours and additives, never mind the fact that it is mostly grain - I know dogs are opportunistic omnivores rather than strict carnivores but that's really taking the piss!